Studio: international art (9.1897)

Beautiful Modem Manuscripts

IT SHALL

are most interesting, and well worth giving
in her own words. When asked what
turned her attention to the art, she answers :
" Purple and gold are delightful things to

•B CN^CLL v* play with" Add to this a love °f books,

and a great desire to project feelings or

j »f emotions, and a consciousness that direct

* . transcript from nature did not relieve me

\V of the burden of feeling which for the

fM moment was master." Questioned as to

^dtrlcs^in^bcortgocsforlbjbongbsHnklbeni^W, \ ► what periods appeal to her most, her reply

is : " The thirteenth and fourteenth cen-

I [nbiltcrnjijibbwribvlbebitlerloi'n'b yj» turies have always appealed to me most in

JUbiDffUbcroiiblbtitkdbolom^cxlK^A. illuminated work, as truest and more vital

ChcreBiK^'ngerposUoWftorngbl, M [n feeling, more restrained in execution,

Womuggu&etostrayingftttdoa^ricO, tne essential unerringly seized, the non-

llorolb«rtmvcllcrbcfare,bcbin|5, g essential rejected, line and colour used with

ttorb<jltin{5-pl/icc,rioreti3cfvilinnms.i(jbl. greater delight in the inherent beauty of

billnolturnfortotlnortTmr^Wc jr each (line as line, colour as colour), and a

norlkWkro^jwrforlBcUjo^fe.iro. -j Z deepef ingight [ntQ ^ capacity of line and

Bitlbuilllw5lctilotkG<cre1pWc colour to convey emotion, quite apart from

tDbm€^b^b^tbe^rno3of%(^, the subject represented. Thus the little

m^^^mhmmm^^l , beastg and dragQns and grotesques are

^ always beautiful and expressive in line and
L colour. Indeed, the law of beauty in its

wide sense, and absolute harmony of parts,

•„forming a complete whole, governs this

■ >.;>4 mode of expression. In this there seems

to me to be a resemblance in the good work
of the period to the Greek work of the Elgin
marbles. As a child these had a never
illuminated manuscript bv w. b. macdougall failing charm—more than charm—for me,

which I think I now recognise to be in this
Pre-eminent among contemporary workers stand (for want of a better word) musical quality : the

Mrs. Traquair, of Edinburgh, and Mr. Edmond repeated line as seen in the processions of youths

G. Reuter, of Geneva. From the specimens of and maidens in the Theseus, when the drapery under

Mrs. Traquair's work reproduced here, the reader the left arm repeats with exquisite insistence the

will see that it is on miniatures, that is to say, on

the illustrative, rather than the purely decorative

side of the art, she expends her strength, resem-
bling in this the Italian school \ though in a

certain poetic intensity and compelling emotion

she is more akin to the illuminators of the twelfth

and thirteenth centuries.

Mrs. Traquair's record is a full one. It began

with the illumination of one of W. Garth Wilkin-
son's poems—" A Little Message to my Wife."

Several others were added from the same author,

till a small book of them grew together, amounting

to seventy pages of vellum. Then followed a

similar treatment of some of D. G. Rossetti's

poems, on paper; a few pages of Mr. W. Morris's

Defence of Guinevere; The Psalms, i.-xxxv. (fifty-
three vellum pages, many of which have been

duplicated) ; a tiny book of eight pages by

Mrs. Traquair herself, entitled Melrose, 1886;

Tennyson's In Memoriam (ninety pages, vellum) :

Browning's Saul; and Mrs. Browning's Sonnets,

now nearly finished • besides many single pages

executed from time to time. Mrs. Traquair's

ideas and sympathies with regard to illumination illuminated initial letter by edmond g. reuter

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