Fac-Similes of the Miniatures & Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon & Irish
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LIBRARY r^. Bngham Young University RARE BOOK COLLECTION Rare f095 W529f 1868 $lfj ^7 ijkiix FAC- SI MILES OF THE MINIATURES & ORNAMENTS OF ANGLO-SAXON & IRISH MANUSCRIPTS EXECUTED BY J. 0. WESTWOOD. M.A. DRAWN ON STONE BY W. R.TYMMS. CHROMOLITHOGRAPHED BY DAY AND SON.LIMITED. LONDON. BERNARD QUARITCH, 15 PICCADILLY MDCCCLXVIII. FACSIMILES MINIATURES AND ORNAMENTS ANGLO-SAXON AND IRISH MANUSCRIPTS " Scribtori vita eterna; Legenti pax perpetua; Videnti felicitas perennis; Habenti possessio cu salute; Amen Do gracias ; Ora I) pro mi ; tecum. i fREVES, fol. i IXTKOI. MIRABLE As VRE THE SCULPTURED PRO- pUCTIONS OF GREECE AND ROME, WD exquisite as are the ornamental designs of the wall-paintings of Herculaneum and Pompeii, it musl be admitted that there is an clement in the artistic productions of ruder tribes which is wanting in the works of more highly Cultivated nations, amongst whom the power of representing the human form, either by the chisel or the pencil, or of depicting human events, is necessarily the result of careful study and of a highly artificial state of society. This element ci in the excessive elaboration of ornamental details, often exceedingly minute, but nevertheless frequently so arranged as to afford fine broad effects in a manner which might scarcely he supposed possible, and which often, indeed, seem to be the result of accident rather than of design. India an,! China in the East, and the elaborate productions of the South-Sea [slanders, may be referred to as instances of this power of producing excellent effects from minute but well-ai Is; and it is precisely this peculiarity which renders the study of the Manuscripts and other relics of the early Anglo-Saxon and Irish schools so interesting to the Art-student. The work now submitted to the public may be regarded as constituting the first chapter of a History of the Fine Arts in this kingdom, extending from the Roman occupation of Great Britain to the Norman conquest. To many, this "dark age" will scarcely be supposed to afford materials for such a history; and indeed, with the exception of a few very exampl by Struct, Astle, Shaw, and Humphreys, scarcely any opportunity had been afforded of judging of the marvellous beauty and ve intricacy of Anglo-Saxon and Irish MSS„ until the publication of my " Paheo- graphia sacra pictoria" in 1S43-5, in which many plates were devoted to these marvels of Art. If the earliest Manuscripts of Greece and Italy still in existence be examined —of which the splendid work of Silvcstre contains so many entire-paged examples,—it will be at once seen that, until the eighth century, it was the custom to write the whole volume in uniform-sized letters, the first initial being plam, and not at all, or but very slightly, larger than the rest, the first two or three lines being only distinguished by being written in red letters; and if the volume was ornamented with drawings, of which instances are of the greatest rarity, they were illustrations of the subjects of the text, executed in body-colours, and intercalated into the pages in their proper places. rarely, if ever, occupying entire pages. On the other hand, the earliest of the fine MSS. executed in these islands of which we have any knowledge, have the first few words of the chief divisions of the volumes written of a gigantic size, , b — IX IK. a which are filled with ornamental details; whilst the illuminations also occupy whole pages, and are sometimes entirel; iposed ol intricate ornament alone. In addition to these peculiarities, the study of these works lias incontestably proved that, at a period when the pictorial arl ma) be said to have been almost extinct in Ital) ind Grei e, and indeed icarcel) to have existed in other parts of Europe — namely, from the fifth to thi end ol the eighth century, — a style of Art had I originated, cultivated, and brought to a most marvellous state of perfection in these islands, absolutel) distinct from that of any other part of the civilized world, and which, having been carried abroad by numerous Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionaries, was and imitated schools adopted in the founded bj Charlemagne, and in the mon or established visited by the former, many of which, in after-ages, became the most >l learning. On this subject, Mr. Digby Wyatt, one of the most accomplished of living artists, observes, that "in delicacy of handling and minute hut faultless execution, the whole range ..I" palaeography offers nothing comparable to these earl) Irish MSS., ,m,\ produced, in the same style, in England. When in Dublin some jreai ago, 1 had the opportunitj of studying very carefully the most marvellous of them all, the 'Book of Kclls.' some of the ornaments of which I attempted to copy, but broke ^^wi, ill despair. Of this very work, .Mr. Westwood examined the pages as I did. for hours without ever detei I line or irregular interlacement." From this dinary volume four entin pa p ented in this work; whilst the libraries of London, Lambeth, Oxford. Cambridge, Durham, Lichfield, Salisbury, Dublin, Paris, Rouen, Boulogne, St. Gall, Milan, Rome. Copenhagen, Stockholm, Utrecht, St. Peters- burg, Darmstadt. Carlsruhe, Munich. &C, have been examined and. more or less, laid undei contribution lor materials. In a memoir "On the distinctiw Character of tin Various Styles of Ornamenta- tion the employed by earl) British, Anglo-Saxon, and Irish Artists." which I published in the toth volume of the "Journal of the Archaeological Institute." in 1853, and in an article on Celtic ornament, published in Ow,„ Jon, is "Grammar of Oman have entered at some length on the historical [acts bearing on the subject, and have illustrated the various modifications of ornamentation adopted by our native artists, with reference to their exclusive employment of each of them. These different kinds ol ornament are formed. 1st. Simply by the use of dots, generally in different coloured inks, -md. By simple lines, straight or curved. 3rd. B) the step-like angulated pattern. 4th. By the Chinese like Z pattern. 5th. By interlaced ribbon V patterns 6th. By interlaced zoomorphic ; and 7th. By the various spiral patterns, which are l>\ In the most characteristic of the whole* I shall therefore in this place confine mysell to the question of the origin of these peculiar shies of ornament which are described in the two memoirs above mentioned, and which are so extensively illustrated in the plates of this work, To suppose that (occurring, as they do, abundantly in manuscripts, stone monuments. ivory carvings, and chasings of the precious metals) these systems of ornamentation had their origin in Byzantium, where nothing analogous in any of these materials, of a contemporary or earlier date, has ever been seen, is, it must he allowed, somewhat illogical. The same ition may be applied also to Rome, from whence it has been affirmed not only that the early artists of these islands derived their inspiration, hut that even one of the finest of the Irish crosses had been brought from Italy 1 During a recent visit to Rome, Ravenna, &c, I especially directed my attention to the solution of this question, if possible, by a careful study of the existing remains of Early Christian Art, some of which, especially the earliest Mosaics, must doubtless have been seen by our Anglo-Saxon and Irish pilgrims, so many of whom arc recorded to have made even frequent visits to Ro Hast. well as to the Holy Places of the My search, however, was in vain ; and I returned home more than ever convinced that the peculiar styles of our earliest work's were elaborated in our own islands, and I now venture to assert th it no monument or Art relic of a date previous to the ninth century can be produced in which the), and especially the spiral pattern, are introduced, the execution of which cannot be satisfactorily shown to have been dependent on the teaching of some of our missim it may be observed that the earliest ol the sculptured Christian stones of xhibit the same system of ornamentation, as well as the same style of writ in all the Irish manuscripts, which are, probabi ineuh.it more recent dab 1 This fact, together with the traditions of the early British Church, which are too numerous and too probable to allow us to consider them to be entirely without foundation, appears to be of sufficient importance to throw doubt upon the assertion that the style originated exclusively in Ireland. On the other hand, to affirm as Dr. Rock, from the Roman point of view, has done, that " Britain taught Ireland a peculiar style of scription and ornament," appears by no means capable of proof; whilst his statement, "that although some beautiful samples ol our British MSS were taken over to Ireland, the Irish • Th« ano rim .!i peculiarit) ' Academy, at theii meeting, Febnjaiy 9th, 185J ar too important ["hey have marked with tl (Church made any progress in the art of illuminating" of our Fathers, i. pp, 875, 278) must be considered as erroneous, and which the plates of this work will sufficiently disprove. That in both islands these arts followed the introduction of Christianity scarcely Hon of the difficulty, since that event itself, as well as the source from the fact of which it was derived, is still a quastio vexata : although there being a church in Ion.; previous to the coming of St. Augustine cannot be questioned; whilst tli.it the early British . rtion of Venerable Bede, Church differed in no respect from the Irish, sufficiently accounts for the identity in the styles of ornamentation I in both parts of the kingdom.