The scriptorium workshop was a great opportunity to really understand the work of a miniaturist. Spending the hour and fifteen minutes working on our illuminated letters made me more conscious of the amount of time it would take to make a page like the ones in our Book of Hours. We were using large paper, which was much easier to work with than having a page the size of a Book of Hours, and while I didn’t put a large amount of detail into my painting, it still took the whole class period to only complete part of my image. The amount of detail that went into a miniaturist’s illuminations is astounding, especially considering the small sized paintings they made. The focus and precision necessary to make these illuminations requires a lot of talent and patience. I also appreciated listening to the Gregorian Chants, which gave our workshop more of the atmosphere of a scriptorium. The time passed very quickly and it was nice to get a chance to have a hands-on chance to use what we’ve been learning about in class to make our own letters.
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You make a good point with the time-span it took us to partially complete the work we were doing. Being only an hour and fifteen minutes, as well as being on large paper like you mentioned really puts the work of miniaturists into perspective. That is really the main difference between the work we did and the work that was done with books of hours; the size of the page and the detail on it that was done is truly incredible, and quite frankly hard for me to comprehend.