I've always loved the look of Romanesque style manuscript art. Maybe it's the colors, maybe it's the stylized acanthus leaves.... I was glad to finally be prodded into making something significant in this style. But what is Romanesque, you might ask? It's a style that predominated in Medieval Europe roughly between the 11th and 13th centuries. It was heavily influenced by Byzantine Art and, in manuscripts, is characterized by a bold palette dominated by primary colors.
There are many Romanesque manuscripts from which to take inspiration, but I particularly like the illuminated letters in the Saint Erentrud Orational, a codex made in Salzburg, Austria towards the end of the 12th century. It has really juicy vines and very consistently stylized floral elements throughout, all done in a stunningly vibrant color palette.
A little tip: if you want to know if the Romanesque manuscript you're looking at is Germanic, check for the ties holding the vines together.
So what's my process in making this illuminated manuscript art piece? First step: design the whole thing. Second step: transfer the design to a very heavy watercolor paper. I used 300lb weight Hot Press Fabriano Artistico paper. Third step, ink everything with a black (and orange) fineliner.
What's with the little orange squiggles? Well, I've learned to mark up the spaces where I want to put the gilding size. I've forgotten little spots too many times.
Next: add the size on the outer section first.
I've used a modern size (glue, sorta) called Ormoline to flat gild this section. Of the modern sizes for flat gilding, this one is my favorite. I usually use several layers, but it goes on evenly and can actually be burnished afterwards with an agate burnisher, which is not something you can do with any of the more common Instacoll products.
By the end of the gilding for the letter, I used several layers of 24k gold leaf. I add gold until it just won't stick anymore. The more gold you add, the better the burnish. What comes next? Well, gold leaf inside the letter, but I don't have a picture of that.
At this point in all of my illuminated letters, the doubt starts to creep in because the painting looks awful. I always have to remind myself that these are just the base colors and it will look very different once all the shading and details are added.
Ta-da! Much, much better. At this point, I started to feel more confident that the whole thing was going to come out well. After this, I painted in the "hekov" and painted and gilded the little roundels on the corners. No pictures of that, sorry.
For the Lombardic Capitals used in the quote, I decided on a historic gilding method with gum arabic. This gum arabic needs to be mixed up at home. The stuff you buy in an art store has an additive in it. It also needs to be added in multiple layers. I used three layers, burnishing each layer before adding the next. Gum arabic also needs many, many layers of gold leaf added to it.
Unfortunately, I then neglected to photograph all of the next steps. Sigh. So, magically, we skip to the end result.
By the way, do you know how damn hard it is to photograph illuminated art? Maybe one day I'll do a post about the headache of it.
Want to see this piece in person? It's on view at the Undercroft Gallery in the Church of the Heavenly Rest in NYC through April, 2024.
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