Customer Reviews

The Bible of Illuminated Letters: A Treasury of Decorative Calligraphy (Quarto Book)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I wish I could recommend this book for complete beginners, but I can't. Some of the techniques in this book will require lots and lots of practice (as it did me) to get up to speed. You can't just jump right in and turn out a beautiful illuminated manuscript on the level of "The Book of Hours".

To get going, I'd purchase a learning book on the art of calligraphy (which is plenty of fun on its own, and beautiful to boot!) with lessons, otherwise you'll wind up in the position of creating a nicely illuminated letter and the botch the calligraphic text, losing all your hard work. By all means, get this book to add the beautiful finishing touch of illumination to your work once you're happy with your writing.

In all, this book covers what you'll need to start illuminating, the techniques and pitfalls you'll meet along the way, some calligraphy techniques, and the styles of illumination from Gothic to contemporary.

Plenty of books describe the literature and art of illuminated letters but few provide instructions for recreating illuminated alphabets from six historical periods, as does THE BIBLE OF ILLUMINATED LETTERS. Each section explores how these letters can be adapted to create a personal style, with modern examples in full color enhancing step-by-step color photos of production.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This is a step by step guide on how to illuminate letters, from the basic supplies needed to the finished product, with chapters on letterforms popular by century. Very informative and inspiring, easy to understand, with lots of pictures. Once you own it, you will never lend this to anyone! A fabulous addition to the artist's library...

I highly recommend this book to any fine or graphic artist, even if you are not into calligraphy or have any intension of doing any artwork resembling classic illumination.

I went to art school for many years, divided my time between both fine arts and visual communication, and this book is glorious review encapsulated in between two covers. There is stuff covered that I wish I had been taught in the seven years I went to art school! Morgan's book discusses everything from different types of paper, finding the "grain" and why it is important to making one's own gesso and egg tempera paints. It discusses the difference between the many types of materials for gilding with step-by step photographed instructions, including how to pick out vellum and prepare it for your work. It warns you of pitfalls and common mistakes and how to avoid and correct them. It even discusses layout and paste-up and the importance of preliminary work and preparing your work space. The first half of the book is about tools and techniques and the second half is devoted to specific types of alphabets, their history and step-by-step photographs and instructions on their execution.

Though this book is not for a typical scrap-booker that is looking for a quick way to make fancy decorations in between batches of cupcakes, it is an almost complete curriculum for the art of illumination in a book*. It goes through advanced art techniques step by step making them easy to understand so that you feel comfortable enough to begin practicing these. It is a great primer on the tools most artists use or may have questions about including: paper, vellum, parchment, brushes, pens, gouache, watercolor, egg tempera, inks, flat gilding, raised and burnished gold, shell gold, metallic gouache and powders. It is also a great melding of the disciplines of both fine and graphic arts and thus serves as a fantastic reference to any fine or graphic artist or bookmaker.

*I say "almost complete" in that I found the sections of "Drawing the Decorated Initial" and "Placing Capitals on the Page" in Margaret Shepard's book CAPITALS FOR CALLIGRAPHY as important information that I found wanting in Morgan's book. These two books together are very good companions to one another--especially because Shepard's book goes over basic calligraphy in a bit more depth.

As a struggling illuminator and scribe for the SCA, I find this book to be a teacher when I need one and a great beginner to advanced book for callig and especially illumination. Due to time constraints and the fact that I am a willing, but poor (in talent) paint and ink artist, I haven't spent much time in art classes. This book has helped me get through more than a few hurdles I have had and inspires me to do more. This book was well worth the money and I would highly recommend it to others.

I have a couple of books on illuminated letters, but this one is the book I reach for first.

It is ABSOLUTELY gorgeous!

It is produced by the "Barron's" company [which also publishes "The Calligrapher's Bible" by David Harris], and they know how to publish calligraphy books - their books are SPIRAL-BOUND so that they lay flat when you are using them, and every detail has been thought of and included.

Just the cover alone is beautiful, but once you open the book it is evident that the author and publisher are truly on the "same page". Illustrations on every page. Gold ink where it belongs. Color everywhere.

Gorgeous!

But that's not the end of it ...

Chapter 1 : Tools & Techniques
Chapter 2 : Preparing to Work
Chapter 3 : Alphabet Directory (including "Borders & Motifs")
Chapter 4 : Contemporary Gallery (examples of actual work by artists!)
Glossary
Resources
Calligraphy Societies
Further Reading
Index

I can't gush on about this book enough. If you are interested in calligraphy (especially illuminated letters) then DEFINITELY add this to your collection!

This is my favorite illumination book and I have many. As a scribe in training in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism), I am learning all the facets of calligraphy and illumination. This book is the one I refer to the most. I have purchased copies for friends and recommend it highly. It has detailed step by step instructions from painting to gilding. It is easy to read and has beautifully illustrated images.

This book offered great examples of many different lettering styles. Also, they showed all of the products that you need, for simple and elaborate projects. Most importantly, this book showed how to set up the calligraphy pen, which was the hardest part for me. I would highly recommend this book to those interested in learning how to write with illuminated letters. Also, the book had great color pictures, and even a little history.

This is a great book that has examples of several styles of illuminated letters, from different time periods throughout the medieval and renaissance eras. I love the fact that it takes and has step by step pictorial instructions on how to do an example letter for each style. It also has a color detailed example for each kind of letter (ones that resemble each other like FLT and COQ, you get the idea) and a simple line drawing for the others rather than taking up space and making the book more expensive. It also has examples of the individual calligraphy letters for each style and numbers too.
One of my favorite parts of the book is at the end of each chapter it has examples of the borders and other decoration used in the illuminations. Some are so different from others, and you can take and use these little bits and extrapolate to add so much more to your documents.
This book is more for actually creating the illuminations yourself, rather than just looking at and researching period work. I keep this book with my scribal kit rather than on my shelf. If I can only bring paper, pencil, paint and a book to bring with me, I choose this one.

I adore this book. It is full of detailed information and plenty of illustrations for the examples. It is binded on a spring which makes it easy to keep open.
There are many hours of work in the preparation of this book.