Style Breakdown: Italian White Vine

Owen Tegg, 2021 (revised 2024). Barony-Marche of the Debatable Lands, Æthelmearc

owen@members.aethelmearc.org

Briefly:

  • Developed in 15th century Florence by Italian Humanists.
  • Inspired by what were assumed to be Antique (Greek/Roman) manuscripts, but were actually 12th century Italian documents.
  • Spread northward through Europe accompanying Humanistic and Classical texts.
  • Also called "white vine-stem" "white vine" or "bianchi girari."

Typical elements:

  • Twining vines the color of the paper.
  • Vines are organic in style, somewhat irregular, thick to thin from base to tip.
  • Red, blue, green, and gold. Colors inside vines generally alternate (ie, red does not touch red).
  • Vines interweave with gold shapes (frames/borders, letters).
  • Often embellished with white or gold dots in groups of three.
  • Vines are often lightly shaded with a brown or gray wash.

Keys to understanding the style:

  • Look at as many manuscripts as possible. Bookmark your favorites, revisit them. Figure out why they're your favorites, and if there are any elements consistent across them.
  • Study your favorite manuscripts and pick out little details. Practice doodling flowers and leaves, notice the motifs that repeat over and over.
  • Break down the vines. Trace the main shapes, ignoring embellishments and side shoots. Figure out the central vines of the structures.
  • Start simple. Draw a letter and a vine making a few loops around it. Practice in pencil on scrap paper, sketch in the main path of the vine before fleshing it out and adding any embellishments.

Tips & Tricks:

  • Block out your design beforehand, work from the big picture to the small.
  • Lay out coins, jar lids, or other objects on the page to visualize circle spacing.
  • The vines don't have to make sense.
  • Vines can issue from anywhere: the edge of a letter or shape, the mouth or tail of an animal, a flower, a pot, thin air.
  • Add more embellishments. No, more embellishments.
  • Assign over/under as you ink, and don't worry too much about consistency.
  • It is easiest to ink before painting.
  • Cover mistakes with even more embellishments.
  • Use a pencil or tiny dots of paint to stage color fill.

Left: Burney 259 f. 1 *

Above: Harley 3567  f. 162  Triumph of Chastity *

Left: Harley 3957 f. 4v *

Top: Harley 2757  f. 1 *

Bottom: Burney 244  f. 2  Quintilian *

Exceptions to every rule:

Above: Harley 2571 f.2 * Right: Harley 4960 f.1 *

Below: MS M.154 fol. 1r Lower Right: Harley 3567  f. 162 *

Simpler Examples:

Left: Pal. lat. 873

Middle: Burney 180 f. 130v*

Right: Harley 2649 f. 1*

Bottom:

 Harley 2468 f. 1*

Step by Step:

  1. Blocking out an area and drawing a letter
  2. Using coins to sketch the rough layout
  3. Fleshing out those curves

  1. Adding embellishments
  2. Inking the leaves and flowers
  3. Assigning over-unders

  1. Finish inking
  2. Erase
  3. Paint in/gild letter

  1. Assign color blocks with dots or with a pencil (R, G, B, etc)
  2. Paint in colors one at a time
  3. It's a good idea to change your water and clean your brush between red and green

  1. Finish painting colors
  2. Paint outline
  3. Shade vines (optional)

  1. Add whitework: white dots on red and blue, and white or gold on green
  2. Touch up outlines
  3. Add embellishments to vines (dots, hatching, decorative lines)

Notes:

Scan here for a link to the digital version of this handout! It's free, you can't lose it, and I might even update it sometimes. Feel free to share it!

Unfortunately, due to the 2023 cyber attack on the British Library's website, sources with an asterisk are not currently available online.


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