Chapters 3 & 4

Chapter 3: The Asian Contribution

The Chinese civilization’s origin is steeped in mystery, but we do know that their language system has always been based on pictorial representations of words rather than an alphabet of letters, logograms presumably first written in 1800 BC by Tsang Chieh. The earliest writings were called chiaku-wen (“bone-and-shell” script) from 1800-1200 BC; the chin-wen (“bronze” script) followed. Emperor Shih Huang Ti united all written Chinese forms in the 3rd century BCE. Finally, chen-shu (“regular” style) script was created and has been used for almost 2000 years. The ink figures can vary by each writer; every stroke of every letter is a form of art to the Chinese. In 105 AD, Ts’ai Lun is said to have probably been the man to have invented paper; another breakthrough by the Chinese was that of printing, beginning with the carved reliefs that Chinese would make for seals. Chinese created many manuscripts, and even invented the first playing cards.

What interested me the most about the Chinese culture is that they were the civilization that created movable type; but that they had over 40,000 different logograms to move around instead of the normal 26 letters that we have today.

I wonder, would it be worth their time to print out documents with movable type (1000 years ago) if one had to find one symbol of type amongst thousands, instead of just one letter out of 26?

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Chapter 4: Illuminated Manuscripts

Illuminated manuscripts were popular beginning in the late Roman Empire until through the Renaissance time period. Classical style manuscripts were layouts of text with small, crisp illustrations; there was often one column of text and illustrations were framed with bright strokes of color. Celtic manuscripts were more abstract and complex; vivid colors fill the pages, as do woven intricate textures and patterns; full-page illustrations were used, as well as large initials on opening pages. After time, spaces were left between words to help readers, and half-uncials began to be used too. During Charlemagne’s reign in the late 700s-early 800s, he standardized page layout, writing style and decoration. Caroline miniscules was the accepted writing style; pictures were often given frames to give an illusion of depth. Spanish manuscripts started to adopt Islamic motifs like flat, broad shapes of color decorative and intricate frames, and intense color. Romanesque/Gothic manuscripts saw a revival of religious themes and used intense Textura (black, strong) type. Judaic manuscripts, though rare, are remarkable examples of painstaking illustration and calligraphy. Islamic manuscripts became increasingly ornate with geometric and arabesque designs, little blank space, but rarely any figurative illustration. Late medieval manuscripts were the most ornate and beautiful of all; they were daily devotionals of prayer and their gold-leafed, jeweled, richly illustrated beauty represented the esteem the book’s owner held for God.

The difference in each region's design and reverance of the illuminated manuscript was the most interesting part of the chapter to keep tabs on. It showed a lot about each culture and the importance they felt for scribes and literature, for the proliferation of knowledge, culture and religion. It also showed the extravagance that some cultures would go to, sometimes overly extreme, that perhaps gives away insecurity that a culture felt under the scrutiny of divine eyes.

What I question is were all important manuscripts written in these styles, or was it always just manuscripts that concerned religion?