Thoughtful Thursday (or Late Friday): A Quite Simple Initial

"To come back to the history of art, it is enough to leaf through any [medieval] manuscript whatever, even a simple charter of the time, to note the same capacity for creation: the perfection of the writing, the placement on the page, the seal that authenticates it, make us see firsthand what a perfect work can be. Perfect because it has truly been a creation. The one who made it is identified with his work; so much so that in his hand it became a masterpiece... A quite simple initial, in its essential, readable, recognizable form, is found taken up anew by every copyist, every illuminator, who made it his own and developed its inner possibilities, so to speak. It can be almost intoxicating; one becomes a veritable maze of foliage and interlacing, another gives birth to an animal that ends in a man's face, or a man becomes a monster or angel or demon; nevertheless, the letter has not been betrayed; it remains, but ceaselessly recreated."

~ Excerpt from Those Terrible Middle Ages, by Regine Pernoud

A thoughtful quote can be the bridge that leads us farther
along the path of understanding ourselves and the world.