Awards

• Nominated for Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies 2023

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9780271087849

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Reviews

This is one of the most original books I have read-original in its conception and subject, in the materials studied and illustrated, in the numerous questions posed, and in its compelling conclusions. It is a potentially paradigm-shifting work that will affect how we perceive illustrated manuscripts and that should finally put to rest for art historians the 'intentional fallacy' long rejected by literary historians. -Richard K. Emmerson, author of Apocalypse Illuminated: The Visual Exegesis of Revelation in Medieval Illustrated Manuscripts This is an intellectually ambitious, rigorously argued, and erudite book that explores visual strategies and their theoretical underpinnings of 'empty spaces' in medieval manuscripts. A must-read for scholars of medieval and northern Renaissance art and intellectual history. -Nino Zchomelidse, author of Art, Ritual, and Civic Identity in Medieval Southern Italy

“With a Midas-like touch, Elina Gertsman has a gift for turning her every subject into scholarly gold. The Absent Image is no exception.” —Brigitte Buettner, Studies in Iconography “Gertsman makes a convincing argument, and at times shows a wonderful novelistic sensibility in describing the micro-dramas on display.” —Times Literary Supplement “Elina Gertsman’s The Absent Image is a rarefied treat for connoisseurs – a kind of apophatic art history. She explores a phenomenon that is seldom studied: the voids, gaps and empty frames that manuscript artists used to represent the unrepresentable.” —Barbara Newman, London Review of Books “The book is amusing and thought-provoking in the best sense, and the lavish illustrations create much food for thought, not out of nothing but from a wealth of varied examples.” —Thomas Rainer, CAA.Reviews “Gertsman’s book is absolutely brilliant, a paragon of scholarship to be held up as a model to students and colleagues alike.” —Lauren Mancia, Medieval Review “This is an intellectually ambitious, rigorously argued, and erudite book that explores visual strategies and their theoretical underpinnings of ‘empty spaces’ in medieval manuscripts. A must-read for scholars of medieval and northern Renaissance art and intellectual history.” —Nino Zchomelidse, author of Art, Ritual, and Civic Identity in Medieval Southern Italy “This is one of the most original books I have read—original in its conception and subject, in the materials studied and illustrated, in the numerous questions posed, and in its compelling conclusions. It is a potentially paradigm-shifting work that will affect how we perceive illustrated manuscripts and that should finally put to rest for art historians the ‘intentional fallacy’ long rejected by literary historians.” —Richard K. Emmerson, author of Apocalypse Illuminated: The Visual Exegesis of Revelation in Medieval Illustrated Manuscripts

Author Information

Elina Gertsman is Distinguished University Professor of Art History and Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University. She is the author of the award-winning Worlds Within: Opening the Medieval Shrine Madonna, also published by Penn State University Press.

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