Illuminations: Manuscript, Medium, Message

Arras, B.M. MS 697 integrates a range of artistic techniques and practices: its 349 miniatures display stylistic similarities to contemporary panel painting and tapestries; their unusual mode of production resembles printmaking and drawing; the content of the text and miniatures parallels that of large scale performances of Passion and Vengeance plays. The manuscript attests to the flexibility with which fifteenth-century artists worked in a diversity of materials and supports of various scales. Yet it also provides evidence for a moment in which the status of pictures as either illustration or independent painting was both fluid and contested. Arras B.M. 697 serves in turn as a starting point for my discussion of the ways fifteenth-century visual culture crossed between what are traditionally considered distinct media and of the process whereby such a system of artistic classification emerged.

As one of the earliest Christian cultures, the artistic production of Ethiopia supported the great demand for religious imagery from the early fourth century CE until the present day. One feature particular to Ethiopian painting across media, but little studied, is the use of serial imagery–either multiple figures arranged in series, or successions of individual narrative events. Such cycles decorate diverse types of painted objects including illuminated codices, sensuls (or “chain” books), parchment liturgical fans, and multi-sided folding icons. This paper will study the somatic mechanics of viewing such cycles, as well as the implications of this image format for its users’ worship. It will also explore why these cycles may appear so frequently in Ethiopia. Because many of these objects were produced in either a monastic or a court context by a limited number of artists, other possible links between these various instances of images in series may include artistic techniques and materials shared between imagery found on parchment and wood supports.

The Dizionario biografico dei miniatori italiani (ed. Milvia Bollati, 2004) provides the names of nearly four hundred named artists working from the 9th through 16th century. About one third are documented as illuminators, while another third are recorded as painters and as illuminators, separately, and the final third are assigned by art historians (based on signatures, connoisseurship, or other means). In addition, there are over two hundred and fifty anonymous maestri. This paper presents case studies in the history of Italian Renaissance painter-illuminators and argues for a reassessment of art historical methodologies of attribution. For Pacino di Bonaguida in Florence, for example, there are no less than fourteen artistic personalities associated with an individual whose career is attested by only two archival documents—in which he is referred to as a publicus artifex in arte pictorum or as a pictor—and one signed and partially dated altarpiece (the attributed works were created for religious sites throughout the Florentine contado). For Giovanni di Paolo in Siena, commission records indicate that he began his career illuminating manuscripts and that he worked in this medium for nearly five decades, while also producing works on panel and ephemera in silk. Lastly, Bartolomeo della Gatta was among Verrocchio’s pupils and he received important commissions for manuscripts, paintings, and architecture from Arezzo to Rome and beyond, yet his work on parchment has been less acknowledged. These three individuals provide prime examples of the tension between authorship and anonymity in studies of Italian painter-illuminators.

In his own time, and for two generations after his death, Jean Poyer (fl. 1465-c.1503) enjoyed great fame. He worked for the royal courts of Queen Charlotte of Savoy and of Queen Anne de Bretagne and her husbands, Charles VIII and Louis XII, painting panels, illuminating manuscripts, executing drawings, designing stained glass and stage sets. Contemporary authors compared him to Fouquet, van Eyck, Dürer, and even Michelangelo! By the end of the sixteenth century, however, he was forgotten. His comeback in recent years, which began in the 1980s, has restored to him his work (often previously attributed to his contemporary Jean Bourdichon) and his name (from the “Master of the Tilliot Hours”). He has had star turns in a number of exhibitions. This paper reviews Poyer’s rise, fall, and resurrection, and offers ideas for areas of his art that could benefit from further exploration.

The princely state of Bikaner in Rajasthan has been well known for its school of painting and art historical scholarship has primarily focused on the courtly art produced in the region. This paper will highlight a strong parallel local tradition that developed alongside the courtly tradition in Bikaner in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, seeking recognition and catering primarily, but not limited to the Jain community. I will examine how the adoption of the art of manuscript illustration by the scribal Mathen community settled in Bikaner served a twofold purpose- as a tool for upward social mobility on the one hand and a means of fortification of Mathen identity on the other. At the same time, the Mathens contributed to the visual canvas of Bikaner, giving form and recognition to local practices and culture while incorporating traditional Jain as well as courtly motifs in their art lending legitimization. For example, in addition to manuscript illustration, Mathen scribes turned artists were active in painting wall murals in Hindu and Jain temples as well as letters of invitation to Jain monks in other towns requesting them to visit Bikaner. Mathens also served the community’s needs by composing astrological charts, banners for wedding ceremonies and decorations for local rituals, while maintaining stylistic integrity. Participating in these varied visual art practices, the Mathens were able make a strong contribution to the visual culture of Bikaner. This case study of Mathen artists and their contribution to the local visual culture will highlight the larger implications of the art and technique of manuscript illustration. In addition to the ability to adapt from scribal work to painting varied subjects on different media, the Mathen artists continued to forge an identity for themselves by marking their work with their names, carving out a path for social mobility. The entire discussion will be framed within the larger issue of courtly- vernacular dichotomy problematizing the relationship between these categories and their meaning in early modern Bikaner.

The workshop will present evidence for the engagement of illuminators with materials and techniques employed in other artistic media, including panel painting, metalwork, glass, ceramics and textiles. The evidence will be drawn from the research undertaken by the Cambridge Illuminations and MINIARE projects at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, UK. The workshop will share insights gained and new questions raised by the close integration of art- historical (style, iconography) and socio-cultural (patronage, documentary evidence about artists) studies with non-invasive technical analyses (identification of colorants, binders and painting techniques).

The double-page finispiece of this manuscript proclaims that Maḥmud ibn al-Husayn, the secretary or scribe (al- kātib), the Kirmani, wrote and gilded it in Jumada I, 559 H (April 1164 CE). Yet, a close analysis of the paleography of the manuscript has revealed that there were several hands involved the actual copying. Furthermore, the immediately subsequent history of the use of this manuscript reveals several attempts to update its appearance, from the framing of its text to the correction for the recession of the copy. Studies of various aspects of its materiality and its codicology were conducted first as a seminar in the study of Islamic manuscripts. Then, further detailed technical investigation have allowed us to understand the use and changes in this codex through time, from the moment of its layout to time of its deposition as a pious foundation [waqf] in the 19th century CE.

A series of three full-page drawings in the Sherborne Pontifical (BnF, lat. 943) have long perplexed art historians. Featuring three representations of striding, Christ-like figures, these images have been interpreted as a kind of unique trinity and as an evocation of the various natures of Christ as king, priest, and man. Building on this latter interpretation, this essay will consider how the artist of the Pontifical made use of the particular affordances of the medium of parchment manuscript to enrich the images’ Christological content. By staging the images over a series of successive pages, modulating the amorphous space of the page, and even exploiting the translucency of parchment, the setting of the images in the manuscript inflects their theological program in subtle ways. In addition, the selective deployment of ornament in the last of the images, and in an image of the Crucifixion that immediately precedes the sequence, further enriches the program by introducing themes of tactility and presence by likening some of the drawings to contemporary ivory carving. As a whole, the manuscript emerges as a meditation on the mediated encounter with Christ through word, image, and object.

The study of Islamic manuscripts has long concerned illuminated volumes of the Qur'an dating from the earliest Islamic period through medieval and into early modern periods. Only recently, however, has attention focused on Qur'ans from eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This paper introduces a large and lavishly-decorated Qur'an belonging to the Free Library of Philadelphia. The manuscript presents various challenges, including its date and place of production, for the moment attributable to late-eighteenth century India. In addition to a stunning frontispiece, the volume includes approximately 1,000 colorful marginal medallions. Here we will consider the placement and purpose of these devices, as well as their dazzling designs. These discussions in turn lead to tentative consideration of the workshop practices required to produce such a richly-decorated manuscript. 

"Flower-petal" is a type of plant ornament that first appeared in Greek manuscripts of the mid-tenth century and subsequently spread to other branches of Byzantine decorative art. It has traditionally been seen as a revival of Greco-Roman architectural decoration within a medieval Byzantine context. However, the markedly non-naturalistic character of Byzantine "flower-petal" motifs finds no precedent in Classical antiquity, while very close parallels for these same motifs occur in Chinese art of the Tang period (618-907). Imported Chinese textiles or metalwork evidently served as prototypes for tenth-century Byzantine artists, providing inspiration for a new and ultimately very successful decorative vocabulary. Such reception of Far Eastern artistic models represents an unfamiliar aspect of middle-Byzantine visual culture.