Studio: international art (56.1912)

Modern Illuminations

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TEXT FROM DANTE S ‘ PURGATORIO, CXI.

LETTERED AND ILLUMINATED BY LILLIAN FROST

our work of to-day. During the first four centuries
a.d. the letters followed each other with no inter-
mission. To the initial letters, painted
red, dividing the sections, is said to be
due the origin of the word miniature;
minium, or red lead, being later on con-
founded with the Latin word “minus”
and the French word “ mignon.” The
miniator was originally he who painted
the red letters on the vellum or papyrus,
but it is more than likely that these
miniators were in time employed to paint
the adorning pictures and portraits. The
initial letter is consequently the founda-
tion of the art both of the illuminator and
the miniaturist, and in all early work we
see in the initial letter the growth and
development of our art.

With every revival of art, under
Justinian, Charlemagne, and others,
caligraphy and illumination received
their fresh inspiration for becoming more
and more noble and beautiful, till the
perfect work of the thirteenth century is
reached—that work which the classicists
of the Renaissance strove to perpetuate.

But, as in everything else patronised by
the genius of the Renaissance, there is to
be seen the increase of skill and learning
at the expense of spirit and purity of
emotion. No illumination of the six-
50

teenth or the fifteenth century could
be mistaken for its prototype.

It is an inevitable rule in art
over which nature alone has control
that the spirit of the age shall pro-
claim itself in the work of the artist.
The servile and sedulous imitator
of the past is ruled unwittingly
by his destiny, and his imitation
bears in its core the taint of un-
truthfulness or insincerity, invisible,
no doubt, to himself and to those
he caters to please, but clear to all
succeeding generations whose eyes
are critical and honest and in
whom time has dulled all personal
feeling.

It may seem cruel and unfair to
stamp as dishonest and untruthful
the work of innumerable upright-
minded workers who have devoted
lives to studying, copying, and re-
producing the style of work which
they most admire, for, in fact, nine-tenths of the
work produced in each century is the result of


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6-B-Brcumin^.

BY "MRS. BROWNING. LETTERED AND ILLUMINATED BY
CHARLES BRAITHWAITE