Medieval art
Rosbach/CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Painted wooden ceiling of the Oude Kerk (church) in Amsterdam Hans A. In addition to these various styles, each region within Europe exhibited an artistic style in a very distinct way, meaning that some Medieval Art pieces varied greatly from region to region despite being created within the same time period. These art phases have come to be seen as Early Christian Art, Byzantine art, Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque art, and Gothic art. Influenced by the artistic heritage of the previous Roman era and the iconographic customs of the early Christian Church, the Medieval period existed as an amalgamation of these artistic heritages.Äue to this fusion of styles, Medieval Art essentially went on to produce some incredibly iconic artworks due to the distinct artistic style that developed.Äue to the vastness of the Medieval Art period, the movement can generally be divided into a number of distinct periods and styles. Originating in Northern Europe after the Roman Empire collapsed, Medieval Art included some of the most major art movements and periods known to develop within art history. 7.4 Notre Dame de Paris (built between 1163 – 1345 A.D.).7.3 Palatine Chapel (built between 790 – 805 A.D.).7.2 The Lindisfarne Gospels (written between 715 – 720 A.D.).Contributors approach the concept of medieval abstraction from a multitude of perspectives-formal, semiotic, iconographic, material, phenomenological, epistemological. How does it make or destroy meaning in the process? Does it suggest the failure of figuration, the faltering of iconography? Does medieval abstraction function because it is imperfect, incomplete, and uncorrected-and therefore cognitively, visually demanding? Is it, conversely, precisely about perfection? To what extent is the abstract predicated on theorization of the unrepresentable and imperceptible? Does medieval abstraction pit aesthetics against metaphysics, or does it enrich it, or frame it, or both? Essays in this collection explore these and other questions that coalesce around three broad themes: medieval abstraction as the untethering of the image from what it purports to represent abstraction as a vehicle for signification and abstraction as a form of figuration. RESPONSE: Herbert Kessler, 'Astral Abstraction'ĬODA: Charlotte DenoĂ«l, 'Carolingian Art as Conceptual Art?'ÄŞbstraction haunts medieval art, both withdrawing figuration and suggesting elusive presence. Julie Harris, 'Imaging Perfection(s) in Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts' Taylor McCall, 'Functional Abstraction in Medieval Anatomical Diagrams' McNamee, 'Early Romanesque Abstraction and the "Unconditionally Two-Dimensional Surface"' Joyner, 'Birds of Defiance: Jewelled Resistance to Modern Abstractions' PART III: ABSTRACTION / EPISTEMOLOGY / PERCEPTIONÄanielle B. Nancy Thebaut, 'The Double-Sided Image: Abstraction and Figuration in Early Medieval Painting' Gia Toussaint, 'Ornament and Abstraction: A New Approach to Understanding Ornamented Writing in the Making of Illuminated Manuscripts around 1000' Tilghman, 'The Sign within the Form, the Form without the Sign: Monograms and Pseudo-Monograms as Abstractions in Mozarabic Antiphonaries' PART II: ABSTRACTION / FIGURATION / SIGNIFICATIONÄanny Smith, 'The Painted Logos: Abstraction as Exegesis in the Ashburnham Pentateuch'Ä«enjamin C. Robert Mills, 'Back-to-Front: Abstraction and Figuration in Bosch's Visions of the Hereafter' Cohen and Linda Safran, 'Abstraction in the Kennicott Bible' PART I: ABSTRACTION / APORIA / UNKNOWABILITYÄŞden Kumler, 'Abstraction's Gothic Grounds'ÄŞdam S. PREFACE: Elina Gertsman, 'Withdrawal and Presence' Academica University of Applied Sciences.









