DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14715#0013
PBEFACE. v
amount of delicacy can be produced on wood as on metal, and that
impressions from the flexible surface of the former are richer in tone than
those produced from the hard lines of the latter.
If this be the case, the question of preference is one chiefly depending
on the skill of the printer; and we think our illustrations will show that the
skilful operator on wood has little to fear from his rival on steel or on copper.
When we commenced our book on the " Illuminated Ornaments of the
Middle Ages," in 1830, Dibdin's " Bibliographical Decameron" was the
popular work on the art of illumination; and although the doctor's rhapso-
dical descriptions of the manuscripts from which, with considerable taste, he
selected the subjects for his illustrations have, at the present time, but little
critical value, the work has always maintained a high market value from
the exquisite delicacy and beauty of the engravings.
At that time an impression very generally prevailed that the pigments
employed by the ancient illuminators could not be procured. Our book,
although it was necessarily almost limited to the decorative portions of
illuminated manuscripts, from the great cost of hand-colouring, was sufficient
to prove that the difficulty of imitating those beautiful productions did not
arise from any want of the proper materials.
Some critics have charactei'ized the art we are endeavouring to illustrate
as a dead one ; highly interesting when exhibited in its progress from infancy
to maturity, but utterly unfit, after a state of suspended animation for three
centuries, of forming even the ground-work of designs suited for modern
purposes, as these should both present novelty of treatment, and, at the
same time, be characteristic of the age we live in.
We believe that the invention of a new style in art is almost as impro-
bable an event as the construction of a new language. As fresh discoveries
are made in the different branches of natural history and the various
sciences, the resources of our vernacular dialect are found utterly inadequate
to the supply of names sufficiently explanatory of their individual forms or
properties. These deficiencies are, therefore, supplied from other languages,
ancient or modern, or by the use of compounds of which they furnish the
roots.
amount of delicacy can be produced on wood as on metal, and that
impressions from the flexible surface of the former are richer in tone than
those produced from the hard lines of the latter.
If this be the case, the question of preference is one chiefly depending
on the skill of the printer; and we think our illustrations will show that the
skilful operator on wood has little to fear from his rival on steel or on copper.
When we commenced our book on the " Illuminated Ornaments of the
Middle Ages," in 1830, Dibdin's " Bibliographical Decameron" was the
popular work on the art of illumination; and although the doctor's rhapso-
dical descriptions of the manuscripts from which, with considerable taste, he
selected the subjects for his illustrations have, at the present time, but little
critical value, the work has always maintained a high market value from
the exquisite delicacy and beauty of the engravings.
At that time an impression very generally prevailed that the pigments
employed by the ancient illuminators could not be procured. Our book,
although it was necessarily almost limited to the decorative portions of
illuminated manuscripts, from the great cost of hand-colouring, was sufficient
to prove that the difficulty of imitating those beautiful productions did not
arise from any want of the proper materials.
Some critics have charactei'ized the art we are endeavouring to illustrate
as a dead one ; highly interesting when exhibited in its progress from infancy
to maturity, but utterly unfit, after a state of suspended animation for three
centuries, of forming even the ground-work of designs suited for modern
purposes, as these should both present novelty of treatment, and, at the
same time, be characteristic of the age we live in.
We believe that the invention of a new style in art is almost as impro-
bable an event as the construction of a new language. As fresh discoveries
are made in the different branches of natural history and the various
sciences, the resources of our vernacular dialect are found utterly inadequate
to the supply of names sufficiently explanatory of their individual forms or
properties. These deficiencies are, therefore, supplied from other languages,
ancient or modern, or by the use of compounds of which they furnish the
roots.