background is of the highest perfection
of surface, and is raised so as to appear like a plate of beaten
gold.

There is no attempt to portray a scene as it might have occurred;
the rule given in the Manual is followed, and the result is generally
about the same. The background is usually either gold or blue, with
very little effort at landscape. Trees are represented in flat
values of green with little white ruffled edges and articulations.
The sea is figured by a blue surface with a symmetrical white pattern
of a wavy nature. A building is usually introduced about half as
large as the people surrounding it. There is no attempt, either,
at perspective.

The anatomy of the human form was not understood at all. Nearly
all the figures in the art of this period are draped. Wherever
it is necessary to represent the nude, a lank, disproportioned
person with an indefinite number of ribs is the result, proving
that the monastic art school did not include a life class.

Most of the best Byzantine examples date from the fifth to the
seventh centuries. After that a decadence set in, and by the eleventh
century the art had deteriorated to a mere mechanical process.

The Irish and Anglo-Saxon work are chiefly characterized in their
early stages by the use of interlaced bands as a decorative motive.
The Celtic goldsmiths were famous for their delicate work in filigree,
made of threads of gold used in connection with enamelled grounds.
In decorating their manuscripts, the artists were perhaps
unconsciously influenced by this, and the result is a marvellous
use of conventional form and vivid colours, while the human figure
is hardly attempted at all, or, when introduced, is so conventionally
treated, as to be only a sign instead of a representation.

Probably the earliest representation of a pen in the holder, although
of a very primitive pattern, occurs in a miniature in the Gospels
of Mac Durnam, where St. John is seen writing with a pen in one
hand and a knife, for sharpening it, in the other. This picture
is two centuries earlier than any other known representation of
the use of the pen, the volume having been executed in the early
part of the eighth century.

Two of the most famous Irish books are the Book of Kells, and the
Durham Book. The Book of Kells is now in Trinity College, Dublin.
It is also known as the Gospel of St. Columba. St. Columba came,
as the Chronicle of Ethelwerd states, in the year 565: "five years
a