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Some aesthetic principles in the use of colour in Anglo-Saxon art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

J. J. G. Alexander
J. J. G. Alexander
Affiliation:
The University of Manchester
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Extract

In a paper in Anglo-Saxon England 3 N. F. Barley has drawn attention to the richness of Anglo-Saxon colour vocabulary, which, he suggests, emphasized the light–dark axis of colour perception to a greater degree than does our own, in which hue is differentiated and then qualified adjectivally, pale, dark, etc. It is interesting to examine actual Anglo-Saxon artifacts with his observations in mind. The main sources for our knowledge of the Anglo-Saxons' use of colour are the illuminated manuscripts of which the earliest surviving are of the seventh century. We have only one small fragment of wall-painting, the recently discovered mural at Winchester datable to c. 900. There is a considerable amount of metal-work and jewellery, of which the Sutton Hoo find, a seventh-century burial hoard, is the most spectacular, and there are some embroideries of the early tenth century found in the tomb of St Cuthbert, now at Durham. There are also literary descriptions of works of art, especially church furnishings. The paucity of surviving material and the lack of descriptions of identifiable objects are obvious disadvantages. In addition there has to be considered the extent to which the use of colour changed and developed over the period c. 650–1050. In this paper some examples of manuscript illumination will be discussed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 4 , December 1975 , pp. 145 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

page 145 note 1 Barley, Nigel F., ‘Old English Colour Classification: Where do Matters Stand?’, ASE 3 (1974), 15–28.Google Scholar

page 145 note 2 Biddle, M., ‘Excavations at Winchester, 1966. Fifth Interim Report’, AntJ 47 (1967), 277–9, pls. xxiii and liv(a).Google Scholar

page 145 note 3 Bruce-Mitford, R. L. S., The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial (London, 1968).Google Scholar

page 145 note 4 Freyhan, R., ‘The Place of the Stole and Maniples in Anglo-Saxon Art of the Tenth Century’, The Relics of St Cutbbert, ed. Battiscombe, C. F. (Oxford, 1956), pp. 409–32.Google Scholar

page 145 note 5 Lehmann-Brockhaus, O., Lateinische Schriftquellen zur Kunst in England, Wales und Schottland vom Jabre 901 bis zum Jabre 1307 (Munich, 1956).Google Scholar

page 145 note 6 Kitzinger, E., Early Medieval Art in the British Museum, 2nd ed. (London, 1955), p. 7.Google Scholar

page 146 note 1 Cf. Egerton, S. Y. Jr, ‘Alberti's Colour Theory’, Jnl of the Warburg and Courtauld Insts. 32 (1969), 109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 146 note 2 A useful introductory account of colour perception is Murch, G. M., Visual and Auditory Perception (Indianapolis, 1973)Google Scholar. See also David, Katz, The World of Colour (London, 1935)Google Scholar. For medieval and later use of colour in art see Haeberlein, F., ‘Grundzüge einer nachantiken Farbenikonographie‘, Röuziscbes Jahrbach für Kunstgescbichte 3 (1939), 75–126Google Scholar (I am grateful to Mr John Mitchell for this reference) Jantzen, H., ‘Über Prinzipien der Farbengebung in der Malerei’, repr. Über den gotischen Kirchenraum und andere Aufsätze (Berlin, 1951), p. 61Google Scholar; Schöne, W., Über das Licht in der Malerei (Berlin, 1954)Google Scholar; Gombrich, E., ‘Light, Form and Texture in XVth Century Painting’, Jnl of the R. Soc. of Arts (10 1964), 826–49Google Scholar. The account devoted specifically to colour in manuscript painting by Tikkanen, J. J., Farbengebang in der mittelalterlichen Buchmalerei, Societas Scientiarum Fennica. Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 5.1, (Helsingfors, 1933)Google Scholar does not consider later Anglo-Saxon illumination. It is discussed, however, by Roosen-Runge, H., Farbgebung und Technik frübmittelalterlicher Bachmalerei, Kunstwissenschaftliche Studien 38, 2 vols. (Munich, 1967)Google Scholar, with information also on the pigments used and technical treatises.

page 146 note 3 Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, Amiatinus I. See Bruce-Mitford, R. L. S., ‘The Art of the Codex Amiatinus’, JBAA 32 (1969), 1–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a colour plate see Nordenfalk, C., ‘Book Illumination’, Early Mediaeval Painting (Geneva, 1957), p. 119.Google Scholar

page 146 note 4 BM Cotton Nero D. iv; Nordenfalk, , ‘Book Illumination’, colour pl., p. 117Google Scholar. For the relationship of the two miniatures and the lost Cassiodoran model see Bruce-Mitford, R. L. S. in Evangeliorum quattuor Codex Lindisfarnensis, ed. Kendrick, T. D., text vol. (Lausanne, 1966).Google Scholar

page 147 note 1 The Stonyhurst Gospel of St John, ed. Brown, T. J. (Oxford, 1969).Google Scholar

page 147 note 2 Kendrick, T. D. (Anglo-Saxon Art to A.D. 900 (London, 1938Google Scholar; repr. 1972)) compares the carpet pages to Roman mosaics.

page 147 note 3 Wormald, F., ‘The Winchester School Before St Æthelwold’, England before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Peter, Clemoes and Kathleen, Hughes (Cambridge, 1971)Google Scholar, and Deshman, R., ‘Anglo-Saxon Art after Alfred’, Art Bull. 56 (1974), 176–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 147 note 4 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. D. 2. 19; Pächt, O. and Alexander, J. J. G., Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford III: British, Irish and Icelandic Schools (Oxford, 1973)Google Scholar, no. 1269. On the whole, Irish miniatures tend to greater abstraction both in form and in colour than Anglo-Saxon ones. However, mutual influence was, of course, extensive.

page 148 note 1 BM Add. 49598; Wormald, F., The Benedictional of St Ethelwold (London, 1959Google Scholar, Nordenfalk, ‘Book Illumination’, colour pl. p. 180.

page 148 note 2 Vatican, Vat. Lat. 3225; Nordenfalk, ‘Book Illumination’, colour pl. p. 94.

page 148 note 3 Rome, San Paolo fuori le Mura; Nordenfalk, ‘Book Illumination’, colour pl. p. 153.

page 148 note 4 Deshman, (‘Anglo-Saxon Art after Alfred’, p. 199)Google Scholar speaks of colour compartmentalizing the composition in the Benedictional. He also stresses the continuation of the decorative principles of Hiberno-Saxon art.

page 148 note 5 Roosen-Runge, H., ‘The Pictorial Technique of the Lindisfarne Gospels’, in Evangeliorum quattuor codex Lindisfarnensis, ed. Kendrick, T. D. (Lausanne, 1966).Google Scholar

page 148 note 6 Wormald, , Benedictional of St Ethelwold, p. 7Google Scholar; for the Latin text see Lapidge, Michael, ‘The Hermeneutic Style in Tenth-Century Anglo-Latin Literature’, App. II, above, pp. 105–6Google Scholar.

page 148 note 7 Wormald, Benedictional of St Ethelwold, pl. 6.

page 148 note 8 Hanover, , Kestner, Museum. Exhibited, English Illuminated Manuscripts 700–1500 (Brussels, 1973)Google Scholar, no. 10, colour pl.

page 149 note 1 BM Add. 34890; Nordenfalk, ‘Book Illumination’, colour pl. p. 181. For Eadwig as the scribe, see Bishop, T. A. M., English Caroline Minuscule (Oxford, 1971), p. 22.Google Scholar

page 149 note 2 Nordenfalk, ‘Book Illumination’, p. 187.

page 149 note 3 The only earlier coloured ink drawing I know is in Vatican Pal. Lat. 834, a ninth-century Bede from Lorsch, where one of the three persons of the Trinity is in blue ink and the other two are in brown.

page 149 note 4 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 579; Pächt and Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts, no. 25. See Heimann, A., ‘Three Illustrations from the Bury St Edmunds Psalter and their Prototypes‘, Jnl of the Warburg and Courtauld Insts. 29 (1966), 39–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 149 note 5 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 23; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 11; BM Harley 603 (Wormald, F., English Drawings of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (London, 1952), nos. 4, 50 and 34)Google Scholar. Probably all are Canterbury manuscripts.

page 149 note 6 Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale, Y. 6(274); The Missal of Robert of Jumièges, ed. Wilson, H. A., Henry Bradshaw Soc. 11 (1896)Google Scholar. See Hohler, E. C., ‘Les Saints Insulaires dans le Missel de l'Archevèque Robert’, Jumièges, Congrès Scientifique du XIIIe Centenaire (Paris, 1955) 1, 293–303.Google Scholar

page 150 note 1 Damme, Musée van Maerlant; Boutemy, A., ‘Les Feuillets de Damme’, Scriptorium 20 (1966), 60–5 and pls. 7b and 8–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Exhibited, English Illuminated Manuscripts 700–1500 (Brussels, 1973), no. 7. I am particularly grateful to the Conservateur, M. C. Neuhuys, for his courteous help in providing me with colour and black and white photographs of the leaves.

page 150 note 2 The small piece of text on one side of the first leaf contains Matthew VIII.23–8 marked for two lections with the rubric ‘In illo tempore’ (before verses 23 and 28). However, there appear to be textual difficulties in assuming that the fragments are from a gospel lectionary in that these passages do not normally follow each other in a lectionary. These also affect the interpretation of the third scene in which Christ sits on a mount with three figures on each side. Boutemy thinks this is the transfiguration but apart from the textual difficulty that the transfiguration reading (Matthew XVII.1–9) does not come at the same point as the tribute money (Matthew XVII.24ff.) there should be five figures, not six, and the normal representation is quite different. The text leaf contains the Ammonian sections in the margin (incorrectly, Mark should be xlvii not lxvi). I do not know whether or how often they are included in lectionaries, but it seems tome more likely that we have a fragment of a gospels marked with the lections. The mysterious scene might then represent Christ teaching his apostles on the analogy of the gospels, Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, VI. 23 (see below, n. I).

page 151 note 1 Paris, BN grec. 16r, 72V and 125r, late-eleventh-century, and Florence, Laur. VI. 23, 16v, 70V and 121r, eleventh-to-twelfth-century, illustrating the accounts in Matthew, Mark and Luke of the Gadarene swine. Laur. VI. 23, 36r shows the episode of St Peter fishing for the tribute money. See Omont, H., Évangiles avec Peintures Byzantines du XIe Siècle (Paris, 1908)Google Scholar, and Velmans, T., La Tétraévangile de la Laurentienne, Bibliothàque des Cahiers Archéologiques 6 (Paris, 1971).Google Scholar

page 151 note 2 Boeckler, A., Ikonographische Studien zu den Wunderszenen in der ottonischen Malerei der Reichenau, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Phil. Hist. Klasse Abh. n.F. 52. (Munich, 1961)Google Scholar; Buchthal, H., ‘Byzantium and Reichenau’, Byzantine Art – an European Art. Lectures, ed. Chatzidakis, M. (Athens, 1966)Google Scholar; and Schiller, G., Iconography of Christian Art (London, 1971) 1, 173Google Scholar. The scene was represented in Canterbury manuscripts of the twelfth century with two possessed, but in a very abbreviated form: BM Add. 37472, IV (see Dodwell, C. R., The Canterbury School of Illumination (Cambridge, 1954)Google Scholar, pl. 66), and Paris, BN lat. 8846, 3V (see Omont, H., Psauuier Illustré (XIIIe Siècle) (ParisGoogle Scholar, n.d.), pl. 7.

page 151 note 3 Goldschmidt, A., Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der Zeit der karolingisehen and sächsichen Kaiser VIII–XI. Jahrbundert (Berlin, 1918Google Scholar; repr. 1970) II, no. II; Schiller, , Iconography of Christian Art 1, 557Google Scholar. St Peter is shown kneeling, not standing as on the Damme page. He kneels in Florence, Laur. VI. 23 and also in the Syrian gospels written in 586 by the monk Rabbula, Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, I. 56, 9r; see the facsimile ed. Cecchelli, C., Furlani, G. and Salmi, M., The Rabbula Gospels (Olten and Lausanne, 1956)Google Scholar. I am grateful to Dr Elizabeth Temple for bringing this to my attention.

page 151 note 4 Deshman, R., ‘The Iconography of the Full-Page Miniatures of the Benedictional of St Æthelwold’, Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton, 1970Google Scholar, and ‘Anglo-Saxon Art after Alfred’, and Rice, D. Talbot, ‘Britain and the Byzantine World in the Middle Ages’, Byzantine Art – an European Art, ed. Chatzidakis, .Google Scholar

page 151 note 5 The few miniatures in the Codex Egberti which are by the Master of the Registrum Gregorii preserve much more of Late Antique illusionism but the short bulky figures are not like those On Our leaves.

page 152 note 1 Buchthal, , ‘Byzantium and Reichenau’, pp. 51 and 55–6.Google Scholar

page 152 note 2 The Early Christian tradition as represented in an ivory in the Louvre or at Sant' Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, is also different; see Schiller, , Iconograpby of Christian Art 1Google Scholar, figs. 524 and 436. The fishing episode is also differently shown; see above, p. 151, n. 3.

page 152 note 3 I have not come across any directly comparable running figures, though in the Utrecht Psalter two figures stand with one leg raised; De Wald, E. T., The Illusirations of the Utrechi Psalter (Princeton, 1933)Google Scholar, pls. xlviii (28r) and li (31v).

page 152 note 4 Düsseldorf, Landes- und Stadtbibliothek B. 113; Elbern, V. H., ‘Das Essener Evangelistarfragment’, Das Erste Jahrtansend. Textband II, ed. Elbern, V. H. (Düsseldorf, 1964), 992–1006Google Scholar, Abb. 1–2.

page 153 note 1 Rheims, , Bibliothèque Municipale, 7Google Scholar; Hubert, J., Porcher, J. and Volbach, W. F., Carolingian Art (London, 1970)Google Scholar, pl. 105.

page 153 note 2 This scene is found in the Ottonian works where the stooping leper carries a similar horn over his shoulder, but neither Boeckler nor Buchthal discusses the Düsseldorf fragment. Buchthal (‘Byzantium and Reichenau’, p. 56) observes that there must have been other, western models besides the Middle Byzantine one for the Ottonian representations. Eastern elements in the iconography of the Utrecht Psalter are, of course, well known; see Benson, G. R. and Tselos, D., ‘New Light on the Origin of the Utrecht Psalter’, Art Bull. 13 (1931), 13ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 153 note 3 E.g. the Bosworth Psalter, BM Add. 37517.

page 153 note 4 Bodleian Junius 11, 101 and 58r; The Cædmon Manuscript, ed. Gollancz, I. (Oxford, 1927).Google Scholar

page 153 note 5 BM Arundel 155; Wormald, English Drawings, no. 26.