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History of The Book of Kells (Artwork by Paul, Rosie, Neil and Daniel)
Monks from Iona wrote the book using reeds or goosefeathers. Ink was made from berries, plants or roots. They used red, green and quite a lot of yellow. Purple was imported from the Mediterranean and blue was believed to be imported from East Asia or further. Each book was written by hand and monks often got bored. We know this because sometimes they wrote things in the margin, complaining. The book was written in the scriptorium. By Maurice Nolan.
How the book was Made.
The monks used reeds or goose feathers for writing. They used different selections of ink colour such as white, red, yellow, green, purple, blue, pink and indigo. Each page was 24 centimetres wide and 33 centimetres long. Out of 680 pages, only 31 pages did not have illistrations. The back page is missing from the book, and a few more pages were gone. By Siobhan Osborne
The Artwork of The Book Of Kells.
The people that wrote the book of Kells were called Monks. Sometimes the monks got careless and made lots of mistakes. These were later corrected by other monks. There are 680 pages in The Book Of Kells. The book of Kells was made from calf skin (or Vellum.) By Ashley Renee Harper
The Book Of Kells.
The Book of Kells is the most famous example of Celtic manuscript art. The manuscript is now in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. The book was made of vellum. Most of the capital letters covered up most of the page, and they were very hard to learn. The earlier books of Durrow and St. Willibrord have a limited number of colours, which were prepared from powdered minerals such as lead and copper mixed with a binding agent of vinegar or egg. In the picture of the virgin Mary and Jesus Christ, Mary has two right feet and Jesus has two left feet. By Ann-Marie Fox
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The
book of Kells was made in Iona, Scotland and later moved to Kells in Meath.
There were 339 leaves or folios in the book. It was made of vellum or calfskin.
Pages were 32cm long and 24cm wide.
The
Book of Kells was made of vellum (calf skin) About 150 calf skins were used in
the making. It contains all four gospels; Matthew’s symbol was an angel, Luke
as an ox, Mark as a lion and John as an eagle. The only gold used in the book
was on the cover, but it had gone after the Abbot of Kells recovered it from the
ground. The manuscript is now kept in the library of Trinity College. Every day
a page is turned for the public to see.
There
are 7 main colours used in the painting of the book of Kells. The five main
colours are red, yellow, green, blue, pink, purple and white. There are also
black and brown, used to fill in background of the full page of illustrations.
The red was made from red lead. The yellow was made from the yolk of an egg. The
green was made from copper. The purple was made from a plant in the
Mediterranean. The blue was made from a precious stone called the Lapis Lazuli.
The
pictures in this book are based on ancient illustrations and calligraphy from
famous Celtic illuminated manuscripts. Celtic or Hiberno- Saxon, painting was a
fusion of native styles. The colours they used were bright yellow, red and
green. They also used purple and blue. The monks who wrote the Book of Kells
employed a greater number of shades- white, red, yellow, green, blue, indigo,
pink and purple. Printing was not invented so the monks had to write it out,they
had to write with feathers. They made the ink out of juices from plants, roots,
berries and leaves.