Utrecht Psalter - Illumination

Illumination

The Utrecht Psalter is lavishly illustrated with lively pen and ink drawings for each psalm. The miniatures consist of outline drawings in plain bistre, a technique which gained popularity in the Carolingian Renaissance; it was cheaper than full coloured illustrations and quicker to produce. However the Gospel book still remained the main focus of illumination at this period, and the Utrecht Psalter is highly unusual both in the number of illustrations, their size, and the large groups of small figures they contain.

The Utrecht Psalter is generally considered to be important to the development of Anglo-Saxon art in the late tenth century, as the artistic style of its artwork seems to have been drawn on and adapted by Anglo-Saxon artists of this time (Pächt, 172). Although it is hardly likely that this single manuscript was solely responsible for beginning an entire new phase, the style which developed from it is sometimes known as the 'Utrecht' style of outline drawing, and survived almost unchanged into the 1020s (Wormald).

The Psalter is the earliest and most fully illustrated of a "narrative" group of Carolingian Psalters and other manuscripts; the much greater freedom of their illustrations may represent a different, probably monastic, audience for them from the more hieratic productions for the court and the altar. Images are unframed, often varied and original in iconography, showing a "liveliness of mind and independence of convention" not found in the more formal books (Hinks, 117). Other members of the group are the Golden Psalter of St. Gall and the Drogo Sacramentary, which made the important innovation of placing most illustrations in inhabited initials. The Byzantine Chludov Psalter represents a comparable tradition in the East (Hinks, 115-119), and the Reims style was also influenced by artists fleeing Byzantine iconoclasm (Berenson, 163).

Meyer Schapiro is among those who have proposed that the Psalter copied illustrations from a Late Antique manuscript; apart from an original perhaps of the 4th or 5th centuries, details of the iconography led him to believe in an intermediary "Latin model" of after about 700 (Shapiro, 77, 110 and passim). That the miniatures are in large part based on an earlier manuscript, initially disputed by some (Tselos, 334 etc.), seems to have gained general acceptance, though the precise nature and dates of earlier postulated versions vary.

The style of the outline drawings is dramatic, marked by activity, leaping creatures and fluttering folds of drapery set in faintly sketched landscape backgrounds stretching the full span of a page. Several different episodes may be shown in an illustration, some interpreting the text very literally, indeed over-literally in typical medieval fashion, others building on an association with the text to create elaborate images, including New Testament scenes or motifs from Christian iconography (Pächt, 168-170). Despite the individuality of the style, the hands of eight different artists have been detected.

The illustration for Psalm 27 centers on they "that go down into the pit". Winged figures poke the "workers of iniquity" with spears. On the left a king stands before a temple; Christ and his angels are shown above. The umbrella held over the king was considered strong evidence that the manuscript was not produced by an Anglo-Saxon artist (Birch, 232)

The illustration for Psalm 115 shows a crucifixion with a chalice catching the blood flowing from the side of Christ. The earliest known comparable images are a miniature from the Drogo Sacramentary (dated 840-855), and an ivory from the Pericopes of Henry II (dated 840-870). This illustration leads to one argument for a later date for the Utrecht Psalter, because dating the illustration before about 835 would make it substantially predate other extant Carolingian examples of this theme (Chazelle, 1072).