illuminated text

Dig this sweetness. Turn the pages of The Lindisfarne Gospels (and other fine crafted texts). This book represents the glories of Christian faith and Anglo-Saxon culture; an age of expressive narrative and imaginative artistic craftsmanship.

Imagine the possibilities of retrieving --and faithfully applying-- a Christian aesthetic?

(from the website)

"Writing and painting sacred texts were seen by monks as acts of meditation, during which the scribe might glimpse the divine. It was a high calling but very hard work.

Imagine what it must have been like to undertake the eye-straining, back-aching task of making the Lindisfarne Gospels by hand, in a hut on an island in the wild North Sea.

It would have been cold and tiring. Monks attended eight church services every day and night, displayed humility by manual labour, prayed and studied. If the artist-scribe was Bishop Eadfrith, he would have carried a heavy administrative burden as well. The Lindisfarne Gospels would have taken him at least five years to complete.

When it was finished it was a book to see and be seen. But it was also the maker's personal 'opus dei' - a work for God."