How To Read Medieval Art

Download or read book How to Read Medieval Art written by Wendy A. Stein and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 2016-10-07 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The intensely expressive art of the Middle Ages was created to awe, educate and connect the viewer to heaven. Its power reverberates to this day, even among the secular. But experiencing the full meaning and purpose of medieval art requires an understanding of its narrative content. This volume introduces the subjects and stories most frequently depicted in medieval art, many of them drawn from the Bible and other religious literature. Included among the thirty-eight representative works are brilliant altarpieces, stained-glass windows, intricate tapestries, carved wood sculptures, delicate ivories, and captivating manuscript illuminations, all drawn from the holdings of the Metropolitan Museum, one of the world's most comprehensive collections of medieval art. Iconic masterworks such as the Merode Altarpiece, the Unicorn Tapestries, and the Belles Heures of the duc de Berry are featured along with less familiar work. Descriptions of the individual pieces highlight the context in which they were made, conveying their visual and technical nuances as well as their broader symbolic meaning. With its accessible informative discussions and superb full-color illustrations, How to Read Medieval Art explores the iconographic themes of the period, making them clearly recognizable and opening vistas onto history and literature, faith and devotion.

Download or read book Image on the Edge written by Michael Camille and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2013-06-01 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do they all mean – the lascivious ape, autophagic dragons, pot-bellied heads, harp-playing asses, arse-kissing priests and somersaulting jongleurs to be found protruding from the edges of medieval buildings and in the margins of illuminated manuscripts? Michael Camille explores that riotous realm of marginal art, so often explained away as mere decoration or zany doodles, where resistance to social constraints flourished. Medieval image-makers focused attention on the underside of society, the excluded and the ejected. Peasants, servants, prostitutes and beggars all found their place, along with knights and clerics, engaged in impudent antics in the margins of prayer-books or, as gargoyles, on the outsides of churches. Camille brings us to an understanding of how marginality functioned in medieval culture and shows us just how scandalous, subversive, and amazing the art of the time could be.

Download or read book Medieval Art written by Marilyn Stokstad and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-04 with total page 1000 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book teaches the reader how to look at medieval art–which aspects of architecture, sculpture, or painting are important and for what reasons. It includes the art and building of what is now Western Europe from the second to the fifteenth centuries.

Download or read book Medieval Art written by Veronica Sekules and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001-04-26 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This refreshing new look at Medieval art conveys a very real sense of the impact of art on everyday life in Europe from 1000 to 1500. It examines the importance of art in the expression and spread of knowledge and ideas, including notions of the heroism and justice of war, and the dominant view of Christianity. Taking its starting point from issues of contemporary relevance, such as the environment, the identity of the artist, and the position of women, the book also highlights the attitudes and events specific to the sophisticated visual culture of the Middle Ages, and goes on to link this period to the Renaissance. The fascinating question of whether commercial and social activities between countries encouraged similar artistic taste and patronage, or contributed to the defining of cultural difference in Europe, is fully explored.

Download or read book Cosmos and Community in Early Medieval Art written by Benjamin Anderson and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-28 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the rapidly changing world of the early Middle Ages, depictions of the cosmos represented a consistent point of reference across the three dominant states--the Frankish, Byzantine, and Islamic Empires. As these empires diverged from their Greco-Roman roots between 700 and 1000 A.D. and established distinctive medieval artistic traditions, cosmic imagery created a web of visual continuity, though local meanings of these images varied greatly. Benjamin Anderson uses thrones, tables, mantles, frescoes, and manuscripts to show how cosmological motifs informed relationships between individuals, especially the ruling elite, and communities, demonstrating how domestic and global politics informed the production and reception of these depictions. The first book to consider such imagery across the dramatically diverse cultures of Western Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic Middle East, Cosmos and Community in Early Medieval Art illuminates the distinctions between the cosmological art of these three cultural spheres, and reasserts the centrality of astronomical imagery to the study of art history.

Download or read book Seeing Medieval Art written by Herbert L. Kessler and published by Broadview Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Experts and non-experts alike will find much to delight and challenge them in Kessler's rich embroidery of text and image." - Mary Carruthers, New York University

Download or read book Monuments of Medieval Art written by Robert G. Calkins and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This richly illustrated and scholarly study traces the development of art through the Middle Ages, from the early Christian catacombs of Italy and the treasures of Sutton Hoo to the masterpieces of Romanesque cathedrals and illuminated manuscripts.