Studio: international art (9.1897)

Beautiful Modern Manuscripts

But the most debasing touch
of all is the substitution of
photographs for miniatures.

*0 - - OOrV AS?* In the °M MSS< miniatures

rm£& O 4 Q • O ° ' 4?Uh\Uld Cm'lf ,i®'° summed up and crowned the

—~~Y1 \\uti&[f pyO beauty of a page. Illustra

tion, ornament, lettering,
each beautiful in itself,
worked together towards a
unity of charm. But a page
with a photograph for its
keynote could only achieve
ItOltdT CXiXilX harmony if the design were

tXWttCOt" UiCU ^ executed , in sepia, which

would hardly be illuminative!
If our townsfolk but knew

acetic ei<\h fu,<
at ocuii nwt

Si

%>\w yc luv- nunc- et ukjitc

'lit.

J

" the pity of it! " Sewage
W€> itiXlfou/* ^ and lighting are good things,

UV tUaiUU* U&iiW Itv o t but Posterity might Praise

miuOnlU^ftyct / £T|Pj thremmf°ie f°r_d°wn

Another quarter where Art

is crucified is in our Religious
Tract Societies. Once there
j was nothing too exquisite to

embellish Holy Writ withal.
q Generation after generation

\' of monks laboured to make

. - - — „.',T4 Xc^"^ Art the worthy handmaid of

O -q •' >V ~y '.,«;-• V, religion. But now no garb

tv °" 0 © is considered too mean for

Scripture texts and mottoes.
Here, too, with the sale such

illuminated manuscript by edmond g. reuter things have, good Art might

easily be enlisted. Cupidity
or ignorance is to blame.

such public functions as jubilees, "freedoms" of But though the existing sphere of illumination
cities, welcomes, majorities, testimonials, &c. could be widened, I think its real future runs

This last outlet is the largest, and might parallel with printing, as its past ran parallel with
attract many genuine artists, were it not ignorantly lettering. As ornament and colour linked them-
given over to " ticket-writers " and such avowed selves to the written page, ornament and colour
tradesmen. The commissioning of illuminated must link themselves to the typed page, and be
addresses is largely in civic hands, who, unfor- multiplied along with it by mechanical methods,
tunately, have a trick of bungling Art concerns. When colour-printing processes are perfected, and
Either city functionaries have a genuinely vulgar the illuminator works for reproduction, illumination
eye that revels in flaming discords, or they make a will have its genuine revival. Mr. J. D. Batten's
merit of encouraging a respectable trade in preference drawing reproduced in the February 1896 No. of
to a nondescript calling like Art! It is bad The Studio, and Mr. Will Bradley's monthly mes-
enough when the alderman follows the lead of sage from America show the point colour printing
fashion, and blindly patronises " names," but when has reached.

he stolidly blocks one of the channels of Art alto- We must remember that the text did not willingly
gether, it is a lamentable abuse of office. Not part from coloured ornament. In 1480, shortly
even a pen betrays commonness of mind like a after the invention of printing, a French press turned
paint-brush. Some of these trade productions are out Books of Hours, and other works in black and
quite laboriously based on old models—pattern, red, with engraved borders and illustrations. All
colour, slavishly imitated—yet are no more like that the multiplying process could retain, it retained,
them than Hamlet to Hercules. Miniatures developed into our modern illustrations.

Vulgarity peeps out at every point, in the crude- The red became relegated to the title-page, head-
ness of a tint, the hardness of a contour, the false- ings, marginal lines, and notes—hence the rubrics,
ness of a balance, the unlovely sweep of a line, or the red-marked pages, of the Church.
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