Illuminating Metalwork: Metal, Object, and Image in Medieval Manuscripts (Sense, Matter, and Medium, 4)

Ackley, Joseph Salvatore; Wearing, Shannon L.

ISBN 10: 3110620154 / ISBN 13: 9783110620153

Published by De Gruyter, 2021

About this Item

Like new, illustrated boards, no dust jacket (likely none issued), bright white pages, clean and unmarked, crisp square binding.

Seller Inventory # 004945

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Illuminating Metalwork: Metal, Object, and Image in Medieval Manuscripts (Sense, Matter, and Medium, 4)
• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3110620154
• ISBN 13: 9783110620153
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: None Issued
• Seller catalogs:
  • History

About this title

Synopsis

The presence of gold, silver, and other metals is a hallmark of decorated manuscripts, the very characteristic that makes them “illuminated.” Medieval artists often used metal pigment and leaf to depict metal objects both real and imagined, such as chalices, crosses, tableware, and even idols; the luminosity of these representations contrasted pointedly with the surrounding paints, enriching the page and dazzling the viewer. To elucidate this key artistic tradition, this volume represents the first in-depth scholarly assessment of the depiction of precious-metal objects in manuscripts and the media used to conjure them. From Paris to the Abbasid caliphate, and from Ethiopia to Bruges, the case studies gathered here forge novel approaches to the materiality and pictoriality of illumination. In exploring the semiotic, material, iconographic, and technical dimensions of these manuscripts, the authors reveal the canny ways in which painters generated metallic presence on the page. Illuminating Metalwork is a landmark contribution to the study of the medieval book and its visual and embodied reception, and is poised to be a staple of research in art history and manuscript studies, accessible to undergraduates and specialists alike.

About the Author

Joseph Salvatore Ackley, Wesleyan Univ., Middletown, USA; Shannon L. Wearing, Pontifical Inst. of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, Canada.