As we read more of Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red, the differences between eastern and western illuminated manuscripts become very important because they determine life and death in the novel. The techniques Enishte wishes to incorporate into the secret book he is organizing do not seem that significant to us, but they go against the culture that exists in Instanbul at the time.
An important difference between the east and the west is style. In western culture, some works are characterized by the style of the miniaturist who paints them. The Tres Riches Heures for example is defined by the distinguished techniques of the Limbourg brothers. The one page done by Jean Columbe, instead of the Limbourg brothers, stands out from the others because the attention to detail and scale is not as precise. The motions of the figure and and the pigs are very passive. In eastern texts, if a miniaturist were to be as unique as the Limbourg brothers, they are not a true master.
Another difference is the level of extravagance in the pages we have looked at. At the end of class, Professor Serrano mentioned that common manuscripts do not survive because they would be used as scrap paper, but with the ‘nicer’ western and eastern manuscripts we have seen there is still a difference in the amount of color, gold leaf, and designs being used. In the Book of Hours, pages that use a lot of blue or red, and that have intricate scenes, suggested that whoever owned the book was wealthy. The Tres Riches Heures is also used to display the wealth of the Duke of Berry. Each month includes one of the Dukes chateaus, and displays all the land he owns being worked in some months. The Persian manuscripts that we have viewed in class are less busy. They depict one figure, or a single scene. There are not many objects in the pictures, and there seems to be less use of color and gold leaf. These features could have faded away over time, but there is still a lot less activity in the Persian illuminated manuscripts than western manuscripts. I think that this reflects the differences in culture, but it would be interesting to know the dates of the Persian manuscripts, and look at later ones to see if we see any interchanging of techniques between the east and the west, which is starting to happen in My Name is Red.
