If the leaves are green, the stem and outline may be more delicately drawn in pale or grey-brown ink, and the green may be a delicate pale olive or grey-green. (A strong, black stem with bright green leaves is apt to look crude and hard.) In such a delicate green plant border, delicate blue and red flowers, and one or two rather flat gold "berries" (single, or in threes) may be placed.
A very effective colour decoration of a much simpler type may be made in red and green (or blue) pen-work--using the pen and the colours with which the Versal letters and line-finishings are made. A red flourished stem with red leaves or tendrils, and green berries (or leaves), or a green stem with green leaves and red berries.
A floral pattern may also be made in plain burnished gold--both stem and leaves--not outlined (p. 187 & Plate XXII.).
A more complex decoration resembling the "floral filigree" has a "solid" stem in light or dark colour on a dark or light ground (or on a gold ground), as suggested in the rough diagram, fig. 120.
The examples of Italian fifteenth-century work in Plates XVIII. and XIX. show a related type of illumination, known as the "white vine pattern." Very carefully and beautifully drawn, it strongly suggests natural form.
"NATURAL, OR LIMNER'S,[42] ILLUMINATION" (_See also pp._ 212, 219-21, 227, 423-24, 426-28, 486; figs. 131a-141; Plates XV., XVI., XXIII.)
This, the finest type of illumination, has very great possibilities; and it is to be hoped that some craftsmen, who have the necessary skill, will find an opening for their work in this direction. [p203]
Plate XV. is a thirteenth-century example of the transition from the "barbaric" to the "natural." The dragon-tailed initial with its wonderful scroll-work and "ivy-leaf" being the perfection of barbaric form, carrying brilliant colour and serving to support and frame the delicate and beautiful drawing which it contains.[43] But in the drawing itself the skill of a fine illuminator combines with the fancy of a cunning draughtsman to satisfy an æsthetic taste and appeal to the imagination.
Plate XVI. shows a rare, and singularly beautiful, treatment of an Italian fourteenth-century MS. decorated with plant and insect forms (p. 427).