Psalter, German
A German illuminated psalter dated 1485, a devotional book of psalms made for religious use and held today by an Swiss manuscript library. Its single picture is a hand-painted scene of blood-red rain falling from a dark sky onto hills, a red river winding through brown slopes, and small towns with blue-roofed towers, with a line of German text beneath; a designer might take its flat, naive colour blocks and stacked hills as a model for simple vivid landscape layouts.
