{"id":397,"date":"2007-07-10T19:03:26","date_gmt":"2007-07-11T00:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lathamstudios.com\/rebeccasblog\/blog\/what-is-miniature-painting\/"},"modified":"2013-04-24T04:06:20","modified_gmt":"2013-04-24T09:06:20","slug":"what-is-miniature-painting","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/lathamstudios.com\/rebecca\/what-is-miniature-painting\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Miniature Painting?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A<\/span>s an artist, Rebecca Latham as well as her mother, Karen, and sister, Bonnie, strive for detail in their painting.\u00a0 Studying with a Flemish master, they have developed their styles for painting extreme realism.\u00a0 Their works, both large and small, are painted \u201cin miniature\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n

Early Beginnings\"\"<\/a><\/span>
\nMiniature painting is a traditional style of art that is very detailed, often referred to as painting or working \u201cin miniature\u201d.\u00a0 Because of their origins as illuminations, they are also painted to have as smooth of a surface as possible.\u00a0 (it is also suggested that miniature art may have been influenced by the medals of ancient Rome as well)\u00a0 Miniature art can be traced back to ancient Egyptian manuscripts on papyrus scrolls.\u00a0 Monks are also often highlighted for their contributions to early miniature painting with their beautifully illuminated manuscripts such as the Celtic Book of Kells and England’s Lindisfarne Gospels (both of which measure around 9″ x 12″).\u00a0 Some early manuscripts contain miniature paintings on their pages that depict beautiful arrangements of life sized flower arrangements on their borders.\u00a0 The history of miniature painting is also seen throughout the world in various other cultures.
\nMiniature painting began out of necessity for illustrating documents and manuscripts to aid those reading them during a time when many were not able to, before printing was invented.\u00a0 The miniature helped to convey the story and meaning of the written word.\u00a0 Therefore, the art of miniature painting is directly connected to the book arts.\u00a0 The various sized illuminations (pictures) were cut out of these books or documents so that they could be carried more easily.\u00a0 Later, developing from the carried miniature, portrait miniature artists were commissioned <\/span>\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/span>to paint small portraits \u2013 paintings that were used as we use wallet sized photographs today. These sizes of miniature paintings became popular with collectors and are often referred to as \u201chand held miniatures\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 Portrait miniatures were painted in larger sizes as well, for example master miniaturist, Nicholas Hilliard, Peter Oliver, and Sir Charles William Ross all painted works that were of a larger size.<\/span>Sizes
\nMiniature painting is sometimes confused and assumed that the pieces must be small or depict subjects on a smaller scale to be considered miniature art, though this is not the case.\u00a0 It is helpful to keep in mind that the origins of the term “miniature” have nothing to do with a size.\u00a0 The word miniature comes from the terms ‘minium’ (used for the red lead paint used in illuminated manuscripts) and ‘miniare’ (Latin for ‘to color with red lead’).<\/span><\/p>\n

Miniature painting is a style and technique of painting, and as such, a wall sized work could be painted \u201cin miniature\u201d.\u00a0 Authors of the Yale University Press publication, \u201cThe English\"\"<\/a><\/span> Miniature\u201d have stated that miniatures have been painted large and some works are even considered to be gigantic.\u00a0 Numerous faculty members of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London confirm that miniature paintings are not restricted to smallness.\u00a0 Larger sized miniature paintings are documented throughout history and are recognized today, though painting larger works in miniature is more difficult and time consuming than a smaller piece if the same attention to detail is observed.\u00a0 Miniature art is also unique in that it was and is often used on objects, such as the Russian lacquer boxes that are beautiful examples of Russian miniature painting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Exhibitions
\nToday, there are miniature art societies in western society to help promote and preserve traditional miniature art and the \u201cspirit of miniature\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Butterfly Their\u00a0exhibitions feature the hand held miniature paintings (or sculptures) and each exhibition has its own unique guidelines and rules for artists showing in their exhibit.\u00a0 Some of these rules limit the size of work to be no larger than a set square inch. Others limit the size of a subject, such at the 1\/6th scale rule that a subject may not be painted larger than 1\/6th of it’s natural size, or the 2\u201d rule, that an object in the painting may not exceed 2\u201d.\u00a0 Scale rules were initially put in place as a guide for artists starting out in miniature art.\u00a0 There are also many framing restrictions for society miniature works as well.\u00a0 All of these rules are put into place by each show for their own individual and unique exhibitions, and do not define what miniature art is.<\/span><\/p>\n


\n\"Chipmunk\"Artists painting miniatures throughout history were not restricted in their artwork by scale as their subjects were painted to any measurement or scale that the artist deemed pleasing to the eye and their patrons, for both manuscripts and other miniatures.\u00a0 Subjects that are naturally small in size, such as butterflies and insects, were painted life sized.\u00a0 Thus the 1\/6th scale rule that is used by some shows and societies today unfortunately causes a bit of confusion to those new to the art form who commonly assume that is it a part of a mechanical criteria of the miniature’s definition.\u00a0 The world’s experts in miniatures do not recognize the rule as legitimate, and view those embracing it as unknowledgeable, and dismiss them.
\n<\/span>
\n“….being fittest for that decking of princes’ books, or put into jewels of gold, for the imitation of the purest flowers and most beautiful creatures in the finest and purest colors…” — Nicholas Hilliard addressing miniature painting (c. 1600)<\/span><\/p>\n

The term “miniature”, as it addresses miniature painting, is often confused with “miniaturize” and some miniature art exhibitions do not refer to miniature as it’s initial meaning of techniques, but rather the size of the painting (miniaturized painting).\u00a0 They are two very separate descriptions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Miniature painting is an art form that is very rich in history that continues today by artists from around the globe.\u00a0 The beautiful ornamental qualities of the miniature should be preserved whether it be the intricate large pieces, or intimate hand held works.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many thanks to Joan Willies RMS, the Victoria & Albert Museum, & Patrick Noon.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

From the author,
\nMy family and I studied the miniature techniques that I use in my artwork from an artist from Europe, Carl Brenders, painting in a traditional Flemish style of watercolor that is similar to work by miniature artists who painted using Flemish techniques in the early centuries.\u00a0 I have also been generously mentored by an author and columnist of miniature art, Joan Willies, RMS, a practicing miniature artist as well as a student of it’s history for 60 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Article written by Rebecca Latham.\u00a0 Images contained are copyright the artist or in the public domain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As an artist, Rebecca Latham as well as her mother, Karen, and sister, Bonnie, strive for detail in their painting.\u00a0 Studying with a Flemish master, they have developed their styles for painting extreme realism.\u00a0 Their works, both large and small, are painted \u201cin miniature\u201d. Early Beginnings Miniature painting is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-397","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lathamstudios.com\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lathamstudios.com\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lathamstudios.com\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lathamstudios.com\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lathamstudios.com\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lathamstudios.com\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4113,"href":"https:\/\/lathamstudios.com\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/397\/revisions\/4113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lathamstudios.com\/rebecca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}