The Animated Alphabet

Letters have a mysterious and cabalistic quality that has inspired artists through the ages. Calligraphers, painters, and engravers have never ceased to shape and decorate them, using them as a starting point for limitless dreams and fantasies.

The illuminated initials of medieval manuscripts, ranging from Romanesque exuberance to Gothic excess, paved the way. Here were not only Biblical scenes but also mythical beasts and human figures that were direct precursors of the zoomorphic and anthropomorphic alphabets of the Renaissance and later. With the invention of printing, the inventiveness of artists knew no bounds.

Ornamented letters presented historical and mythical events, romantic landscapes, trees, flowers, buildings, clowns, devils, children, and every kind of animal. There was, indeed, no subject that could not be put to the service of the animated alphabet. 

Hugues Demeude shares his passion for the decorated letter in a succinct historical text and a vast range of beautifully reproduced examples from the eighth to the twentieth century, from sacred illuminated manuscripts to mass-produced postcards. Lovers of art and design will relish the decorative profusion, which includes examples from the Corbie Psalter and Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, and the work of artists such as Albrecht Durer, Hans Holbein, Lucas Cranach, Honore Daumier, and Kate Greenaway.