Illuminated Texts

During the Middle Ages, calligraphy, ornamental borders, and miniatures (small, detailed paintings) were added to books not only to serve as decoration, but also to help explain the text—this practice is referred to as illumination. Bibles and religious texts were the most elaborately decorated, but secular literature was also illuminated. When books began to be printed, illumination declined but it remained a way to indicate that a text had sacred or precious content. In the nineteenth century, the art of illumination was revived in Europe and the United States.

Violet Oakley, who was an expert calligrapher, was called upon to illuminate numerous texts. She preferred the abstract compositions and geometric patterns of the Hiberno-Saxon style of illumination and made a pilgrimage to Trinity College in Dublin to see the famous Book of Kells. Oakley usually executed her illuminations in black, red, blue, and yellow or gold leaf. Occasionally she incorporated a miniature, as in Illumination of Psalm XIX:14 ["Let the words of my mouth…"], where she decorated the initial L with a painting of a monk reflecting on a religious text.

In her design for the Philadelphia Award, Oakley included a scroll honoring the first recipient, Samuel Yellin. She was commissioned to create honor rolls for schools listing the names of their alumni who died in the World Wars. But most of her illuminated texts were for personal use: she made elaborate covers for her public lecture notes and holiday greeting cards.

Oakley’s love of illuminated manuscripts is evident in her use of it in other genres. Her Supreme Court Chamber in the Pennsylvania State Capitol was designed to be read as an illuminated text she called “The Opening of the Book of the Law.” The mural for “Divine Law” is ornamental intertwining calligraphy on a huge scale. She designed the illustrations for Christ My Refuge: One of Seven Hymns by Mary Baker Eddy as an illuminated text in 1939.