De Arte Illuminandi

Philip Murray

Clarity, brilliance, intensity -
One is tempted to demand them
Of all Art if the harm of demand
Were not the bane of felicities;

But when the subject is God
And the century Fourteenth,
Color is our thrice modified object;
Its properties requisites, not requests.

For a Latin text worthy of God's name
Miniatures delightful to the eye
Invite the wandering mind to meditation
Whenever devotion tires of pious words.

Black letter must be charcoal of vines,
Willow branches, peach stones or almond shells,
Lampblack with ghost of blue, eerie
And handsome sable of smoking candles.

Blue and violet, best for segments of sky,
From the small turn-to-the-sun, those
Nettle shaped leaves and seeds like myrrh
Gathered before sunrise in July;

And green, the green of mallow leaves
For border flowers and tiny bees,
The crushed bloom of blue lilies


Or buckthorn berries picked in September;

Rose for thistles tamed and paired in corners,
And Dutch pink of unripe Persian berries
Squeezed for the garments of kneeling figures
Spread to both sides in the shape of bells;

From wild mignonette and saffron plum
Found in, and fond of, waste places
Yellow and fine gold, for frames and haloes,
Twinkling stars sprinkled even on daylight;

The ground shell of eggs is white,
That lightest grey, for doves and butterflies,
And the ermine edge of royal sleeves
At prayer with colorless hands and face.

An art replete with drolleries and grotesques -
Mermaids with mirrors, monkeys with bowls,
Angels at harpsichords, dragons tangled in trees -
All these praise God as well as any Gothic script.