Tuesday, 5 November 2019

A brief look at Merovingian

#merovingian #script #halfuncial

Merovingian script is NOT one of the high points of European script development and design.

Frankly it looks like some one at one monastic workshop taught his personal script to his students and it spread to other workshops until replaced by the Carolingian scripts. I also suspect whoever initialized this half uncial form was reacting against the ornate layouts and decoration of Irish books?

However I can see  elements or perhaps seeds within Merovingian style that later bloomed into something richer.


Merovingian has almost exaggerated ascenders and descenders compared to uncial or later scripts.


Also a love of "white space" ... king of the franks pippin 4 ...


and geometric grid based layouts


a limited color palette but some playfulness with initials


but that limited palette shows some Irish influence and moments of elegance



finally this delightful"kissing fish"  letter !


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