TEXT AS IMAGE

The term “image”, for many people, undoubtedly first conjures up a representation of a recognizable object or scene. Representational images can be used to illustrate or give visual form to the contents of a text. Many such images can be seen in this exhibit. However, abstract designs can also be images. The layout of a page of writing is a type of abstract image. The size and placement of letters and words, and the presence or absence of decoration, to name only a few features, together create a visual design. This graphic design, like other kinds of images, carries information and meaning. It shapes the way we read the page and may even have an impact on our understanding of the text.

One way that decorated pages and letters functioned in early medieval manuscripts was as a kind of bookmark, enabling the reader to easily locate specific texts within the thick volume. The decorated letters also served iconographic functions. While they did not illustrate the stories, they did underscore the more abstract, spiritual meanings of the text. Many of their decorative motifs had often very specific symbolic meanings for the people of their time.
Consider the facsimile pages from the Book of Kells in this case as well the facsimile of the Book of Durrow in the adjacent case. The size, form, and the decoration of individual letters, and the spatial relationships among them; as well as the length of the lines of text and the number and shape of text columns all contribute to the visual message of the page. Like representational imagery these visual elements, too, contain meaning and can sometimes function on multiple levels. Some of the imagery refers directly to the words on the page; some encourages the reader to think about the more abstract meanings of the text. Some motifs simply amuse or delight and help maintain the attention of the reader. Thus, text (both letters and words) functions as a kind of image.
The creation of imagery by means of textual forms was a dominant feature in books made in the Hiberno-Saxon culture of the 7th – 9th centuries in northern England and Ireland, and continues to be a major mode of decoration in the most sacred books of Islam and Judaism today.