BOOK REVIEWS

Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods o

Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992. Pp. 214; 247 pis. $50.

Based on the James P. R Lyell Lectures in Bibliography given at Oxfor

each chapter of this big, beautiftd book focuses on specific examples o
tor's art, using careful accretion of detail to construct a precise, if necessa
picture of medieval book production. As any good book historian knows, m
specific cases to (cautious) generality is about the only way to say much th
or useful. As the author remarks in another context, "We have to consider
dividually, therefore, and beware of generalisation" (71). The book's
manuscript evidence will delight scholars and allows, as well, for some tim
ing of old assumptions. However, to comprehend the text, the reader mus
miliar with the territory: "as is well known" is a frequent verbal tag. Alth
face indicates it is intended as a broad-based general survey, the volume is
introductory. Neophytes to the field may, however, glean a great deal fro
ously reproduced images (247 of them) that appear in color or in black
nearly every page. Feminists may be surprised at the scanty reference to w
The text does cite the best-known woman artists —Ende, the Gutas, Je
baston—en passant, and two other women are cited in a note (in fairness, m
artists also receive only passing reference). Lavish color reproductions
are also included, which placates me, at any rate, and Alexander is careful
to cite woman patrons of artists and to note specific manuscripts owned b
Chapter One opens with a lively discussion of the sources used to reco
mation about manuscript production and the artists making them. From a
period, as Alexander demonstrates, lay and monastic scribes and illumin
together. And, as he also points out, there is not a rigid progression from e
to later lay production: "It would, of course, be a mistake to imply th
whether Benedictine monks, or members of other religious orders, or secu
ceased to work as scribes and illuminators in the later Middle Ages" (20). T
in the number of lay artists by the thirteenth century does mean, howev
written sources are available: lay artists as property owners begin to be cit
in legal documents and tax rolls. The universities, especially those in
Bologna, attracted an international community of scribes, illuminators
dealers, whose activities are also documented. Records of payment for vari

Studies in Iconography 16 — 1994 22

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of production, whether bills or accounts, are used as historical evidence throughout the
volume, and Appendix One includes a selection of eight illuminators' contracts, dating
from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries. The chapter then moves to a considera
tion of artists' self-portraits, including examples provided by St. Dunstan in the tenth
century, Hugo "pictor" in the eleventh, Matthew Paris in the thirteenth, and Simon
Bening of Bruges in the sixteenth.
The second chapter explores technical aspects of illumination, reviewing basic
materials (papyrus, wax tablets, vellum, paper), the movement from roll to codex, and
various drawing tools. These include a hard-point stylus and graphite, "though it should
be noted that both the English 'pencil' and the Latin 'penellum' were regularly used
to mean brush, rather than pencil" (38). As can be observed in unfinished manuscripts,
it was typical for artists "having mixed a quantity of a certain colour, to lay it on se
quentially in a series of different miniatures" (41), and it was not uncommon for the
colors to be specified in written abbreviations in the text. Formulas for paint survive
in manuscript, though these were "mostly passed on verbally and through practical ex
perience" (39). The effects of page ruling on the format of a miniature are mentioned
as is the practice of adding vellum patches on which miniatures were then painted. Ex
amples of this technique are cited from the Bury St. Edmunds Bible (ca. 1135), the
mid-thirteenth-century illuminations of Matthew Paris, and other manuscripts. Com
parative costs of parchment, illumination, and binding are also discussed.
To help explain why changes or alterations occurred in conventional imagery or
picture cycles, Chapter Three examines contracts between artists and patrons, prelimin
ary drawings, and written instructions for artists, which were often composed in the
vernacular. Appendix Two further supplements this information by supplying a list of
examples of illuminators' preliminary marginal drawings from the thirteenth to fif
teenth centuries. In certain instances, distinctions between instructions for artists and
captions for readers seem to blur, and occasionally, instructions seem to have been
given after the execution of a miniature. This is apparently the case in a Bible
Moralisée manuscript made in Paris (ca. 1230) in which the Flight into Egypt has been
erroneously supplied to illustrate the Journey to Bethlehem. A note in French reads:
"Erase the baby . . ., she should not carry it here" (62).
The pervasive copying of manuscript illumination—which, according to Alex
ander, is intentional, mindful, and emulative—emerges as one of the main themes of
the final three chapters. Chapter Four studies illuminators working from ca. 650 to ca.
1100, comparing a variety of copies, perhaps the most famous being the eleventh-cen
tury copy of the Utrecht Psalter (ca. 820) made at Canterbury. The chapter also ad
dresses sources used by artists to create new illustrations for saints' lives. Chapter Five
extends the discussion to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, exploring the uses of pat
tern books, university influences on developing picture cycles, and the standardization

226 Book Reviews

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of scenes. Here Alexander quite rightly points out that tracing the sources of picture
copies is not analogous to the procedures editors follow to trace the sources of written
texts, "for which the philologist seeks to establish a stemma" (107), although one
might add that text historians these days are also approaching their texts more holisti
cally. The work of mid-thirteenth-century artist Matthew Paris is discussed again here
at some length, with emphasis on his development of a pictorial vocabulary. Other
topics include the ad-hoc nature of Arthurian picture cycles and text-image relation
ships in the picture program of Somme le Roi manuscripts.
The final chapter discusses illumination in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
finding frequent borrowings by illuminators from monumental art. Examples include
miniatures copied from wall paintings, Jean Pucelle's incorporation of compositions
from Duccio's High Altar for Siena Cathedral into his illuminations for the Hours of
Jeanne d'Evreux, and the use of pattern books by both painters and illuminators. And,
of course, some miniaturists in this period were also painters, as is also pointed out. Is
sues of collaboration and of the organization of workshops are also raised. It is, frankly,
a relief to see a major medieval art historian state that "The nature of the illuminator's
workshop or atelier in this later period remains problematic, and still has not been the
subject of sufficient detailed study" (127). The frequent attributions to a master's
workshop or associate or follower, loosely based on style, that one often finds in exhi
bitions of medieval manuscripts or in their catalogues surely need re-evaluation; such
ascriptions "might be interpreted rather as differences caused by more or less haste,
more or less care, or more or less money available from the patron to pay for materials
and time" (129). The chapter closes with a discussion of Le Livre du Coeur D'Amour
Epris, written and perhaps illuminated, by René of Anjou, with a brief note on the
powerful, empathie approach to presenting meaning employed by the Master of Mary
of Burgundy. The originality, or developing individuality, of the artist that comes to full
fruition in the Renaissance is finally seen to be a major impulse marking the beginning
of the end of the illuminated manuscript: "As artistic individuality is more and more
stressed, the activity of book illumination, with its processes of creation by transmis
sion and in collaboration with others, becomes more and more marginalized" (149).
Alexander's study is distinguished by its meticulous presentation of detail, ele
gant writing, and lavish illustration. It is an excellent, if occasionally recondite, source
of information on the history of illumination, and should readily find its way onto the
shelves of collectors, scholars, and students of medieval manuscripts.

Martha W. Driver

Pace University

Studies in Iconography 16 —1994 227

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