Visual Narratives

I found today’s lesson of how the many generations before us created paint fascinating. It became apparent to me that it was quite the long process that people had to go through in order to get their desired product. While we saw an abbreviated version of this, it is easy to see why this process would take weeks many centuries ago. When I was grinding the paint together with Christian, he told me that the cavemen would grind their pant on their cave’s walls. This was surely a more time consuming and less productive method of creating paint in comparison to what we saw and did today. Learning the history of how this paint was created throughout history gave me a greater appreciation for how readily available it is today for our usage!

After learning about illuminated manuscripts and the processes involved in their creation in class for the past few weeks, it was great to be able to sit down and gain some hands on experience in the field. I spent time working with my group on our collaborative illustration, working on creating my own illuminated letter, and mixing the paint with Mr. Goodwillie. Albeit my artistic capabilities are certainly limited, to put it mildly, I still enjoyed spending time creating the illuminated letter. I found it to be challenging but certainly interesting and rewarding as well.

What I enjoyed the most however was mixing the paint. It was something entirely new to me, and I gained an appreciation for just how hard these artists must’ve worked to illuminate the manuscripts we’ve been studying. Aside from the talent that it requires, the sheer amount of time that must be spent preparing the tools required to illuminate is worthy of praise on its own. I couldn’t imagine having to sit down and mix the amount of paint that must’ve been required to illuminate the images in an entire text.

All in all I found the experience to be thoroughly enjoyable as well as educational. I appreciated having the opportunity to experience first hand the processes of artistic expression that we have been studying for the past few weeks.

I found today’s exercise to be extremely enjoyable, but it was also a great hands on exercise to review what we have been learning so far in class.  I feel like having the opportunity to actually complete something after we have learned about it helped put into perspective what the illuminators did in the Middle Ages.  When I sat down and decided that I was going to create a C, I also thought about what story I was going to tell through my illumination.  A historiated letter is more than just a decorated letter in a book, but it also offers a picture that describes a scene.  So I decided to based my image off of my name and my story.  I included fragments from my family’s crest in the decoration, as well as a rose for my middle name.  As I was channeling my inner patron/illuminator, I understood how these illuminators would depict what was important to the patrons.  It was a fun exercise that really opened my eyes up to the world of illuminating from making the paints to telling a story through images.

What was your major takeaway from this experience, and what inspired your illumination?

I had a great time in the scriptorium workshop today– what a way to start a morning!

I think it was worth more than my own entertainment, though. I ended up working on a historiated letter, trying to combine a few historical examples to come up with one I really loved, that was both interesting and traditional, both intricate and feasible. With this experience I think I have a better understanding of medieval scribes’ environment. They placed a lot of importance on copying and otherwise maintaining traditions of their craft. Still, look at the variety and expression we see in even the fraction of their work we can still see today! They knew how to fix and match, and that’s a part of what we learned today in the scriptorium.

On a more concrete note, we also got a lot of hands-on experience mixing paints, sketching, and inking that brought us closer to the scribes we’re studying. We faced questions like “how do I make this T symmetrical?” and “what do I do now that the muller is stuck again?” that force you to put more thought into the process of an illuminated manuscript than you might just looking at one for content.

The first workshop today was very insightful. Although we have learned a lot about manuscripts and illumination through studying images and handling ancient books, the hands-on experience today was invaluable. We observed a shortened process of making paint and I can only imagine that grinding down the materials into the powder must take a lot of work and time as well.

I am not the most artistic person, therefore drawing the historiated letters was a bit challenging. I wonder how much planning, or how many drafts the illuminators did before they were satisfied with the final product.

I am guessing that the artists had formal artistic training (at least that is what I am telling myself so I feel better about my historiated letters). Hopefully with next class to practice some more, my letters will improve dramatically!

My Name is Red is an interesting work of ekphrasis that enables readers to appreciate art in various forms. One quote that I think resonates with most people is in Chapter 34, when Shekure describes the illustrations left behind by the murderer. She says, “I’d lost myself in the pictures” (p. 208). I believe at one point or another everyone has experienced what it’s like to “get lost” in a work of art. It’s important to recognize that even though the quote only mentions pictures, other works of art that are not just visuals have a way of also captivating admirers. Whether it’s staring at a portrait, listening to a piece of music, reading a poem, or walking through an art gallery, some works of art have a way of consuming an audience. I think this novel made it clear that art is not just about visual images, but can come in a variety of forms, such as reading words on a page.

In Chapter 34, Shekure says,“These illustrations were beautiful enough that you might mistake them for your own forgotten memories; and as with writing, as you looked at them, they spoke” (p. 208). This description makes the comparison between the power of seeing illustration and reading words, both of which emulate meaningful messages. The entire novel successfully communicates artwork, images, and scenes through language alone and speaks to the power of verbal description.

“I don’t think I’d make a great miniaturist” I said as I worked on my own historiated letter today in class. “I just don’t have the patience.”

I’ve never been one to take my time, and the more we study the practice of illumination, the more in awe I am at the abilities of the original miniaturists – not necessarily at the miniaturists’ artistic abilities (although this is impressive in itself) but more so at their ability to sit down for hours upon hours working on the tiniest of details.

For those miniaturists the thought of God or Allah is what kept them immersed and focused everyday. The act of art was an act of mediation.

Despite my typical impatience and restless nature, I did find myself getting into the groove…. the tranquil music, the falling snow…. cliche I know, but my mind slowed and I became more mythical in my art.

My new gained focus reminded me of a recent meditation practice called Zentangle. Zentangle is a method of meditation through doodling. My aunt introduced me to the practice when I was in high school and whenever I needed to procrastinate, I would turn to Zentangle.

Illumination is just like Zentangle I thought to myself. Similar to how illumination keeps your mind from wandering and focused on God/Allah, Zentangle also keeps your mind from wandering. Both are forms of mediation.

I find it interesting that, even after all these years, the act of making art still has the same intention – to calm and to encourage focus.

Our class experience today was both educational and entertaining. Working with medieval pigments and attempting to create illuminated art was eye opening for a couple of reasons…

– Creating artful images was far more difficult than I perceived. I assumed that the inspiration would flow and my historiated letter would tell a new story… However, I found myself pulling up YouTube videos to show me how to create simple, easy-to-do patterns.

– The creation of paints was a neat thing to experience. As Christian was adding the gum arabic to the pigments, I realized just how long of a process it is to get the perfect consistency of paint. Lots of effort went into creating just a small dose of product.

Today was confirmation that enormous amounts of time and effort had to be put into creating illuminated manuscripts – if you wanted them to be remarkable. It is not something anyone can pick up in a day… the mastery comes with years of practice.

Through both form and content, Pamuk’s My Name is Red explores the subtle and non-linear ways in which Western ideas infiltrated Eastern art in the sixteenth century. The title emphasizes a western takeover in multiple ways. The very phrase “my name is” becomes a claim to subjectivity, an explicit assertion of agency. For this one one color to speak, while the others are not given voices in the novel, speaks to Pamuk’s wish to draw attention to the particular power of red.

The chapter on red begins with a sweeping paragraph that explains the enduring presence of the color. It bears witness to all of the core events of the world, subtler at first.  Still, the chapter closes with an authoritative statement. It states: “Thereby, as I bring my color to the page, it’s as if I command the world to ‘Be!’ Yes, those who cannot see would deny it, but the truth is I can be found everywhere” (188). Red addresses its own power to take over a page, and to capture the eye. The color acts like the West in the face of the world, inevitably dominating any image (i.e. any space/country) in which it appears. There is an oppressive, suffocating edge to this idea that recalls the violence and heedlessness of the West’s imposition upon the East. Furthermore, red is implicitly linked to pain and violence because it is the color of blood, and in turn, it is linked to fear.

The entire book circles around the Western concepts of individual style, originality and and agency that clash with Eastern cultural and religious values. As red bleeds, increasingly, yet somewhat imperceptibly, into eastern manuscript pages, the people resist its power and its connotations. Similarly, as Western artistic tendencies seep into Eastern communities, artists, like the miniaturists in the novel, actively resist. This color lends force to the artwork, and establishes a precarious artistic authority that eastern artists were largely uncomfortable with. Red eclipses, overshadows, ruins illustrations. It flies in the face of rigid tenants of faith that shaped Persian society, threatening to bring down structures upon which it seemed their entire world was built.  Red is the West.

Pamuk addresses the struggle of Eastern culture and art as they struggled to reconcile tradition with western influence. Because Islam condemns the practice of idolatry, the majority of Islamic art is centered upon scripture, geometric patterns and interlacing decorative designs known as arabesque (seen below).

This belief that all illustrations should be done from the perspective of Allah and not the artist himself seems to be in contradiction with the practice illuminated manuscripts that demands the artists’ discernment. We see such tensions being played out in the various passages such as “I am a Horse”. For the duration of the passage, the horse questions the sensibility behind his illustration–pointing out inconsistencies that are physically impossible  such as both of his forelegs extending out at once. This is symbolic of people beginning to challenge the system and traditional way of thinking. Whats more, the fact that horse is instrumental in figuring out who the murderer is, makes me wonder to what extent can you enforce anonymity in a painting? Is it ever possible to really avoid all style and uniqueness on the part of the illustrator?