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News & Events > Calderhead Essays
> Architecture of a Page Architecture of a Page
Donald Jackson was standing in the center of the scriptorium on a cold January afternoon. He was talking about the layout of The Saint John’s Bible. "It’s about creating a kind of column," he explained, his right hand lifting up, and inscribing an imaginary pillar in the air. The key to the design is this strong architectural metaphor: setting out columns of text which create a powerful structure onto which all the other visual elements can be built. From the very outset, Donald had a notion that The Saint John’s Bible would be of a monumental scale. About five years ago, Donald was at a conference at Saint John’s which brought together scholars working on manuscripts, people who made books, and patrons interested in the book arts. Donald says, "I remember the defining moment of the conference for me. There was a ceremony in the abbey church. A monk carried a large book down into the congregation. He read from it, and then I saw him hold it up, and say, ‘This is the Word of God.’" In the midst of a conference about books and artists, here was a book which was unlike all others. In the conference hall they were talking about books. In the church, they were actually using a book. "A book like this is about the importance of the words and of the object which holds them. These are special words: and it’s worthwhile to sweat and to labor to make the words go down on the page." The Saint John’s Bible needed to have a size and shape which would embody its importance. Donald said, "On the one hand, books like the Book of Kells are really very dainty in size. Most calligraphic manuscripts are of a scale which is extraordinarily personal: they are books to be held in the hand, or in one’s lap. The communion between the reader and the object is private. I think that’s a key word. It is a private experience. By contrast, our Bible is public. That’s where the monumentality comes in. I saw the book as a collection of seven volumes—it was purely a visual idea. I imagined what it would look like on display, with one volume in the center, flanked by three on each side. The manuscript book, displayed open, is like a peacock opening its tail. But this will be a series of peacocks instead of just one." Donald turned to a fine medieval manuscript, the Winchester Bible, as a model for The Saint John’s Bible. The writing is dense and dark, arranged in two columns of 54 lines each. The two-column format and the visual strength of the writing create a grid which acts as an armature for a wide variety of illuminations. The trick was how to translate the strength of the Winchester Bible into a format for the modern Saint John’s Bible. In order to do that, a whole series of elements had to be brought into the right balance. The columns are more than simple blocks of text. The weight of the writing, the pattern of paragraphs, the placement of chapter and verse divisions, and the size and shape of the large initial capitals all have to be taken into account. Donald was seeking to bring these together in a ‘visual harmonic’, in which all the graphic elements were integrated in order to preserve the structure of the strong column. Donald and his team struggled to create a script which would hold its own within the columns. This meant balancing the height and weight of the lettering with the white space between each line. Donald wanted a pattern of dark writing alternating with bands of white space, to create a kind of textile-like weave which would ‘read’ from a distance. Some of his early scripts were too light in weight, making the column appear too faint in overall tone, not strong enough to stand up against heavy panels of illumination. Other early attempts had too little space between the lines, creating a column which was a solid grey mass, and which lost the alternating pattern, the bricks and mortar of his composition. In its final form, the Bible script is rather heavy, with just enough interlinear space to produce a gently banded texture. The main divisions of the text appear at the chapter divisions. These are marked by large chapter numbers and three-line drop capitals. New paragraphs are indicated with small diamonds of color within the text area, allowing the text to run continuously, without leaving ‘widows’—those short lines at the end of paragraphs which break up the solidity of the text block. Tiny footnotes appear in the outer margins of each page. In the upper margins, the name of each Biblical book appears as a running head. More than a hundred pages of text have been written now. The effect is, as Donald had hoped, monumental. The book is large: 24 1/2x15 7/8 inches (622x403mm). Each opening presents us with four grand columns of beautifully balanced, dense writing. Around these strong architectural pillars, the initial capitals, chapter numerals, and notes dance, producing a carefully orchestrated harmonic which expresses the idea Donald had at the start: "This is the Word of God." |
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Copyright © 2005 Saint John's University
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By
The Reverend Christopher Calderhead