Chapter 18

THE GOLDEN AGE OF ILLUMINATION

The Gothic spirit--A "zeitgeist" not the invention of a single artist nor of a single country--The thirteenth century the beginning of the new style--Contrast between North and South, between East and West, marked in the character of artistic leaf-work--Gradual development of Gothic foliage--The bud of the thirteenth century, the leaf of the fourteenth, and the flower of the fifteenth--The Freemasons--Illumination transferred from the monastery to the lay workshop--The Psalter of St. Louis--Characteristics of French Gothic illumination--Rise of the miniature as a distinct feature--Guilds--Lay artists.