Overview

This series of reference works is being published under the General Editorship of Jonathan Alexander, Professor of Fine Arts at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University and Francois Avril, Conservateur en Chef, Departement des Manuscrits de la Bibliothque Nationale, Paris. It provides authoritative, illustrated catalogues of manuscripts illuminated within the boundaries of present-day France, from early Merovingian books up to the beginning of the 16th-century. Manuscripts not only in French collections but in libraries, museums and private collections throughout the world are included. The format and arrangement of text, catalogue and illustrations are similar to that of the volumes in the ""Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles"", but the series differs in that the material is divided not only by date, but in some periods also by region. This is a study of High Gothic manuscript illumination which draws material from all regions of France. With an authoritative introduction, detailed catalogue and illustrations, Alison Stones, Professor of History of Art at the University of Pittsburgh, covers the period beginning with the establishment of the ""courtly style"" and ending with the advent of a greater realism under the impetus of Jean Pucelle. Politically, it is the time of the Capetian territorial expansion under St. Louis and his successors which triggered a new sense of nationalism, although the painting of the period shows the vitality and individuality of all regions, where the quality and originality of what was produced on the painted page was second to none. The illuminations of the surviving manuscripts are especially valuable when so many of the wall-paintings, panels, and glass have been destroyed. In certain groups of manuscripts there is evidence of close collaboration between different individual artists; other groups of books show evidence that mass-production techniques were employed. Regional stylistic differences are clearly noticeable throughout this period and artistic interchange is a central issue. In the north and east, there are major innovations in the kinds of books selected for illustration - epics and romances of Charlemagne, Alexander and Arthur, histories of Guillaume de Tyr and Vincent de Beauvais, rent-books, compendia of knowledge, science and medicine, although liturgical and devotional books still dominated the book trade. In the south, the emergence of the municipalities as artistic patrons, stimulated the production of illustrated civic and legal documents and texts.

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9781872501956

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The publication of the first of two parts of Alison Stones' long-awaited contribution to Harvey Miller's A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in France is cause for both celebration and reflection. Celebration because Stones--among the most experienced and wide-ranging scholars in the area of French book illumination of the Gothic period--shares generously of her profound and organic understanding of the art form in this critical period when France, and Paris in particular, was its acknowledged lodestar. Reflection, because the very ambition and weight (both literal and metaphorical) of the volumes, which are after all only two of four planned for the series, raise important questions about the future of scholarship in the discipline and about the ways in which the collection and organization of data and knowledge will take shape. These are materially and intellectually significant books about a period when the book itself was taking on new material and intellectual significance, but they also appear at a moment when the status of the codex volume as a vehicle for the monumental architecture of scholarship is at best uncertain, and new technologies of information seem poised to alter the way we collect, use, and process the data essential to the craft of art history. -- Alexa Sand, The Medieval Review

Author Information

Alison Stones is Professor of History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and a membre correspondant etranger of the Societe nationale des antiquaires de France.

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