Chapters 3&4

I found chapter 3 far more interesting than chapter 4. I never really realized how much the Chinese contributed to our societies. They invented things such as gunpowder, compasses, and calligraphy, their ancient writing system, is used today by more people than any other visual language system. Logograms became known during this time and logograms are images and signs that represent a word. The Chinese were also known for developing the phonetic loans which is when they "borrow the sign of a similar-sounding word". One thing that really shocked me in Chapter 3 was that there is no relationship between their spoken and written language. Both of them are completely separate from one another. "A sound from the mouth to the ear, and a sign from the hand to the eye". There are four phases to Chinese calligraphythat were discussed in this chapter. The first is called chiaku-wen. The second is called chin-wen. The third was hsiao chuan. The last phases was chen-shu which is still used today. The Chinese were the firsts to invent paper. Before paper came around they would write on bamboo slats or wooden strips, which was a lot more work than paper. At first they thought the paper would just be an easy substitute, but they realized as time went on that it was cheaper and easier to work with. Their paper invention was used for much more than just writing on, for example, it was used for toilet paper, wrapping paper, and wallpaper just to name a few. I dont know about you, but I feel like their toliet paper didnt seen very soft since it was the same used to write on. It's amazing how one little invention can turn into so much. Along with paper making, the Chinese were known for discovering printing. Printing was a major contribution to society back then, and look how far we've come with printing. The Diamond Sutra is the oldest form of printing we could find. With the invention of both paper and printing, money was one of the big products that came out of this. People would even try to conterfit it back then as well, which I found very interesting, their penalty for this was death. Another thing that came out of printing and paper was playing cards. Movable type was also founded around this time by a guy named Pi Sheng.
Chapter 4 was all about different kind of manuscripts. Illuminated manuscripts got their name from the "vibrant luminosity of gold leaf, as it reflected light from the pages of handwritten books, it gave the sensation of the page being literally illuminated" (Meggs History of Graphic Design 42). There were many people that were responsible for helping create this book. The book was written in the scriptorium. The head of the scriptorium was the scrittori. There was a copisti. Lastly there was the illuminator. It was amazing to see how much work and how many people go into making this book. After the invention of parchment, the codex format became known. There were many book designs that were talked about in this chapter. Celtic, Romanesque and Gothic, Judaic, Islamic and Late medieval to name them. Each one I feel was based off their religion and the religion at the time.
My question over these two chapters is how long did it take to make one illuminated manuscript?