The Art of Illumination

Above: Details of illuminations from Folio 211v, Folio 215r, and Folio 223v from the Belles Heures of Jean de France, duc de Berry, 1405–1408/9. Herman, Paul, and Jean de Limbourg (Franco-Netherlandish, active in France by 1399–1416). French; Made in Paris. Ink, tempera, and gold leaf on vellum; 9 3/8 x 6 5/8 in. (23.8 x 16.8 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Cloisters Collection, 1954 (54.1.1).

We have come to the final section of the Belles Heures manuscript, mainly a small selection of masses. This is a section that sneaks up on you in interest. It first presents as a traditional element—with most of its text in two columns of black ink—but then inserts a few pages in picture-book format. Like the section dedicated to the Penitential Psalms (Folio 66r through Folio 72r), this one starts out with a series of small quarter-page illuminations, but finishes with magnificently accomplished full-page pictures. Finally, it isn’t fully traditional; not all books of hours contain masses, and their inclusion here leads us into interesting questions about Jean de Berry’s use of his prayerbook. Read more »

Above: Details of illuminations from Folio 15r, Folio 17r, and Folio 19v from the Belles Heures of Jean de France, duc de Berry, 1405–1408/9. Herman, Paul, and Jean de Limbourg (Franco-Netherlandish, active in France by 1399–1416). French; Made in Paris. Ink, tempera, and gold leaf on vellum; 9 3/8 x 6 5/8 in. (23.8 x 16.8 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Cloisters Collection, 1954 (54.1.1).

Every book of hours is unique in some way. What makes the Belles Heures unique is the addition of seven “picture book” cycles. Unlike the texts traditional to books of hours, these are not prayers or other devotional writing, but highly abbreviated narratives—stories about saints and sacred history. The texts are shortened versions of stories mostly taken from The Golden Legend, a popular collection of saints’ lives dating to the thirteenth century. But while the texts are abbreviated, the illustrations in the Belles Heures are not. In one sense, they’re like children’s picture books in that they have a succession of richly detailed painted images with only a few lines of text per page. The picture book cycles seem to have been added to the manuscript after the traditional sections were completed, to showcase the Limbourg brothers’ talents as artists, and to give Jean de Berry more action pictures to enjoy. Read more »