David S. Areford

Medieval images, especially manuscript illuminations, have long been treated independently of the contexts in which they were created. These beautiful miniature paintings, frequently valued as keepers of documentary evidence or as curious artistic commodities, have only recently become the focus of art historians concerned with new questions related to artistic working methods, audience and the status of the visual in the Middle Ages and the modern era. Excavating the Medieval Image argues that the illuminated image is best understood as thoroughly integrated in the material context of the manuscript - and thus, integrated in a cultural context of production and reception. Seen in this way, the illuminated manuscript becomes a kind of archaeological site, which must be carefully unearthed layer by layer. The fourteen essays gathered here are written by scholars of both medieval and Renaissance art history, and demonstrate varied methodological approaches that combine the pursuits of traditional connoisseurship and iconography with those of critical theory and historiography. In addition, the authors contribute more broadly to important interdisciplinary issues such as the study of gender, text and image, and the history of literacy and the book.

Manuscripts, Artists, Audiences: Essays in Honor of Sandra Hindman

Excavating the Medieval Image

Peter Schmidt

National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Germanisches Nationalmuseum

Peter W. Parshall

Rainer Schoch

Richard S. Field

The first comprehensive history of late medieval printmaking, which transformed image production and led to profound changes in Western culture

Fifteenth-century Woodcuts and Their Public

Origins of European Printmaking

A revelatory consideration of the wide-ranging practice of one of the most influential American artists of the 20th century A pioneer of minimalism and conceptual art, Sol LeWitt (1928–2007) is best known for his monumental wall drawings. LeWitt’s broad artistic practice, however, also included photography, artist’s books, sculpture, and printmaking. From the familiar to the underappreciated aspects of the artist’s oeuvre, this book examines the ways that LeWitt’s work was multidisciplinary, humorous, philosophical, and even religious. Locating Sol LeWitt contains nine new essays that explore the artist’s work across media and address topics such as LeWitt’s formative friendships with colleagues at the Museum of Modern Art in the early 1960s; his photographs of Manhattan’s Lower East Side; his 1979 collaboration with Lucinda Childs and Philip Glass and its impact on his printmaking; and his commissions linked to Jewish history and the Holocaust. The essays offer insights into the role of parody, experimentation, and uncertainty in the artist’s practice, along with contingency in relation to site, space, and movement. Together, these studies shed light on the full scope of LeWitt’s creativity and offer a multifaceted reassessment of this singular and influential artist.

Locating Sol LeWitt

David S. Areford

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