Friday 23 April 2021

RUFILLUS - YET AGAIN

 I've posted a few times about Rufillus 


#Rufillus #Scribe #illuminatedmanuscript



This one doesnt not seem to be a self portrait but a picture of another monk holding up a book.
We see however Rufillus' liking of red for outlines his humor and his liking for ornamenting letters at the middle with smaller areas of even more detail but all carefully balanced.


Tuesday 20 April 2021

More Rufillus - Breaking the Fourth Wall !

 MORE RUFILLUS 

#Rufillus #illuminatedmanuscript #portraits

Rufillus snuck a self portrait into another part of a text. 

Enclosed within a letter D we see him either writing on a long piece of paper or possibly scraping and preparing a length of parchment.


I rather like the cheeky touch of Rufillus' shoes resting on the edge of the letter and the way he seems to be almost leaning forward to show us his writing tools.

BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL !


Saturday 17 April 2021

Gibbings - Medium and Style

Style and Medium are related. 
This is a page from a book written and illustrated by Robin Gibbings.
Note the linear style and how varying thicknesses of line create texture and tone.
Gibbing was a 20th printmaker and that and his engraving training and practice interact with his drawing style.
Whether you are a printmaker or illustrator you might want to google more examples of his work? 

Sunday 11 April 2021

Rufillus' R

#illumined letter #R #Rufillus #illimunedmanuscript 


RUFILLUS ' R  



Rufillus who if his self portrait is accurate was indeed a "little red",  Rufillus being a form of Rufus, has used red and blue together to create the RE of what appears to the Latin word Regnan.

He has filled the top of the R with a beautiful knot pattern and a winged serpent that becomes a mans head carries our eye down into the rest of the text.

This image is also worth studying for showing us details of a scribe at work. We can see his pots of paint and stool and the artists reaching forward with a pan of red paint as if he is still painting the letter!  Or is he telling us he also painted other things too? 

Saturday 3 April 2021

R is for Resurrection

 #letter R #resurrection #illuminatedletter

R is for Resurrection 

Since the dominant theme of the the posts for this blog is normally typography and lettering here for Easter is an example of the letter R used to frame an miniature image of the Resurrection. 


some horrible person seems to have cut this out of an older manuscript but this fragment ended up in a major museum collection who kindly digitized and shared it online.

Note ther use of red to complement the gold and the knotwork of older styles giving way to the use of plants for details. The depiction of soldiers wearing mail coats suggests this was part of a French manuscript to me. 

I hope this gives you ideas for your own illumined manuscripts hand painted or digital? 


Altdorfer's Resurrection compared to 2 other works

 #Altdorfer #resurrection 

ALTDORFER'S RESURRECTION compared to others

THREE GERMAN PAINTINGS

You might want to compare this resurrection by Altdorfer to the depiction by Grunewald or Bouts!?




Grunewald