Customer Reviews

Celtic Design: Illuminated Letters

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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This is an excellent book for those looking to create celtic designs.

This book teaches about the development of illumination. It then goes into the major initials, decorated alphabet, decorated ampersands, the animal alphabet and animal ampersands.

The book is best used when accompianied by Aidan's other Celtic Design books. I have 7 of the books in this series and love them all!

All in all this is a great book for someone looking to create celtic designs.

I first bought Aiden Meehan's book "Celtic Knots Mastering the Traditional Patterns", which is a seminal work for anyone interested in this subject, and was very excited to find his book on illuminated letters. Initially, I was disappointed to find that all of the illustrations were in black and white. However, the author anticipated me. In his introduction, he states "Books about celtic illumination usually present us with colour reproductions that focus on the most elaborate examples as tightly packed with details as a Persian carpet. This book is a collection of simpler ornamental letters picked out and rendered as line drawings, ready to be coloured." The book does not disappoint. Meehan provides many examples of exquisitely rendered drawings. He explains the symbolism of the patterns and provides direction on how to illuminate the letters while explaining why the letters are illuminated in a particular way. This little book is a veritable treasure of sources and symbolism of celtic letters.

THE COVER OF MEEHAN'S "ILLUMINATED LETTERS" IS MISLEADING. THE COVER EXHIBITS THE VIBRANT AND RICH COLORS THAT CELTIC ILLUMINATION IS REKNOWN FOR, BUT UP0N OPENING THE BOOK, I WAS DISAPPOINTED TO FIND NOT A HINT OF COLOR. COMPLETELY BLACK AND WHITE. THERE IS AN INTRODUCTION, BRIEF BUT INFORMATIVE, AN EARLY DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER, MAJOR INITIALS CHAPTER, DECORATED ALPHABET CHAPTER, ANIMAL ALPHABET, AND TWO DECORATED AMPERSAND CHAPTERS; WHO USES AMPERSANDS THAT MUCH?! I THOUGHT THERE COULD HAVE BEEN MANY MORE EXAMPLES OF ILLUMINATED LETTERS (NOT AMPERSANDS) FOR THE 160 PAGE VOLUME THAT IT IS.

This book makes Celtic lettering styles accessible to anyone. As great as Meehan's other books.

The Celtic sure did some amazing artwork. I bought this book to view the artwork closer. This book delivers.