Her three other artworks among the top sellers included two others from Alice (concept painting, $43,200) and Cinderella (color/key painting, $38,400), and also Blair's concept painting from Peter Pan of a swordfight between Peter and Captain Hook, which made $38,400. Her concept/color key painting from Cinderella of the Duke and princess in a glass-slipper moment sold for $57,600, and her concept painting from Alice in Wonderland featuring some lyrical mushrooms swaying in the moonlight went for $48,000. The hammer came down at $90,000.įor this anniversary event, Blair's work in fact held six of the top ten lots sold. Daniel V.The highest-priced lot at Heritage Auctions' June Celebrating 100 Years Of Disney: 1923–2023 sale went to Mary Blair, the artist, animator and designer who worked for the company for nearly two decades starting in the 1940s.Ī new auction record for the work of Blair, a perennial favorite of collectors, was set with her 1950 concept painting for Cinderella featuring the would-be princess waving goodbye to her Fairy Godmother as she speeds off to the ball in a transformed coach.Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work (New Haven/London, 1992) Gerald Morgan, ‘The Book of Aneirin and Welsh manuscript prickings’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 20.1 (1962), 12-17.
Myriah Williams, ‘The Black Book of Carmarthen: Minding the Gaps’, National Library of Wales Journal 36.4 (2017), 357-375.Daniel Huws, Peniarth 28: Darluniau o Lyfr Cyfraith Hywel Dda = Illustrations from a Welsh lawbook (Aberystwyth, 2008).Daniel Huws, Medieval Welsh Manuscripts (Cardiff, 2000).So the next time you pick up a pen or paintbrush, why not take inspiration from our manuscripts, and unleash your inner medieval scribe! But tiny dragons and law-abiding pigs aside, we can see how these medieval Welsh manuscripts are not only texts, they are a showcase for the creativity and skills of their decorators and scribes even centuries after they were made.
When we think of the medieval period, we perhaps think of muted colours and faded pages. The Hendregadredd manuscript, containing Welsh poetry and the earliest parts of which date from the late 13 th– early 14 th centuries, demonstrates this, using red ink for poem titles, capital letters, and patterned space-fillers. This can be seen in many medieval Welsh manuscripts and was used for capital letters and headings. The most common and simplest form of decoration was probably rubrication, or red lettering. Don’t try this at home though – many of these paints were poisonous! They were also expensive, so manuscript decoration was a sign of a wealthy patron. These would all be mixed with a binding agent such as gum Arabic. The ink used for text in medieval Wales could be oak gall-based (or gallotannic) ink, which presented a dark brown hue, but many other colours could be made from powder bases, such as red and orange from red lead (or minium), white from white lead, green from copper salts, and blue from lapis lazuli. Numerous different colours were used for decoration, which could be made from natural sources varying in rarity and cost. Spaces would be left for the insertion of decorations, as the scribe and the decorator were not always the same person. So before writing on a page, the scribe would usually prick holes in the outer edges and rule each page with horizontal and vertical lines to maintain consistency.
This was an expensive and time-consuming process, and the need to avoid wasting parchment coupled with natural imperfections in the material meant that manuscript pages were rarely perfectly even. To create a manuscript volume, several quires would be bound together. These sheets would be folded to create a quire (or gathering) four sheets made eight leaves (or bifolia) each with a recto and a verso side depending on the flesh or hair side of the parchment. Manuscripts were usually made of sheepskin or goatskin which was cleaned, stretched and dried to create parchment sheets.
Scribes could add decoration to their work in a number of ways, so how about taking a look at some of the manuscripts that can be found in our digital collections at NLW for artistic inspiration? But if you were a medieval scribe, perhaps your only opportunity to channel your inner Van Gogh was by adding some colour to that manuscript you were working on. Tiny dragons and pretty pigs: Decoration in medieval Welsh manuscriptsĭuring lockdown, many of us have perhaps taken the opportunity to be more creative, whether that might be through art, crafts, or maybe learning a new skill such as a musical instrument.
0 kommentar(er)
