Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-12-12

will probably make but small appeal, for
in comparison to modern illustrations and
unrelated to the time in which they were
executed these cuttings are generally un-
attractive. In wise do they proclaim
themselves, but to be appreciated they must
be studied and understood. When, however.
the visitor pauses long enough to discover
that the majority of these tiny pictures
were painted in the early part of the fiji
teenth century, before America was dis
covered, before Leonardo da Vinci Michael
Angelo and Raphael were born, when
painting was truly in its infancy, and re-
members that it was just such works as
these which made continuous the stream
OF art from antiquity through the wilder
ness OF the middle ages to the era of the
renaissance, he will find them imbued with
a potent and peculiar interest which even
a more beautiful collection could not pos
sess.
Early Illustrations.
From the earliest time man has striven
TO illustrate. or ornament. his written
words and from the Egyptian Book of the
Dead to the modern holiday volume there
Is an almost unendIng chain of picture
books These decorated writings were. in
deed. one of the links between the art of
Greece and the art of the renaissance, and
It was by them in large measure that the
spirit of art was, through those many CEN
turtles. kept alive Away back early as
the time of Augustus Caesar are told
OF a famous miniature painter, n lady, Lala
of Cyzcus. who painted no less than seven
hundred portraits as Illustrations for Var
ro's Hebdomsdes. work of which Pliny
speaks; but 1t was the church which for
the most part encouraged and fostered art
during the first thousand years of the
Christian era.
The monasteries were the art schools and
the monks were the artists and book
makers. The copying and identifying of
the sacred writings was looked upon as
n unit hon, Of
recreation were expended overwhelmingly
upon the making OF Single volume. In
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the
arts OF illuminating and miniature painting
We're taken up by secular workmen and
later on 1t was these skilled artisans who
became the world-famous artists.
In the twelfth century Illuminating meant
literally lighting up" and a page which
was not ornamented with precious metals
ns well as bright colors could not properIy
be called by that name, no matter how
ornate or beautiful might be it's decoration
The word miniature, which is used to sig
Nifty the small picture set in the border or
initial letter also has an interesting deriya-
ton, having come originally from the name
OF the color minium-v ermillion, in which
Inc nrst three lines originally were written
and wherein the picture was placed This
came afterward to be known as rubrlca tion
and by long use the word miniature cama
TO signify minute picture, as it does to-
day.
The Earliest Miniatures.
The earliest OF the miniatures show plain
~ the eastern influence and are crude al
mo st childish. and fashioned evidently after
q single pattern, but IN the thirteenth CEN
tury this Journalism was cast aside and the
miniature painters turned to nature for
their models. This transition is interest
iEgly Illustrated in the collection at the
library, for while most OF the miniatures
belong to the later period, two are shown
or the twelfth and thirteenth centuries re-
spectively, which plainly manifest the BY
Zantue influence. One of these is an initial
u In which is seated a figure of Christ and
on the axi of which are pictured heads of
an OK a lion, man and an eagle-symbols
or the four evangellsts-sur by
haloes. The other is an initial B. red on a
blue ground, inclosing a miniature repre-
senting God holding Christ on a cross
which was cut from a choral antedating
the year 1900.
Biblical Scenes.
Less grotesque, more colorful and quaint
ly realistic are twelve miniature scenes In
the life of the Virgin. which were painted
about century and half later and now
are to be found. mounted on a single sheet.
in the same case. These are only about an
Inch and half by two inches and a Quarter
sa dimensions, yet are elaborate In com