The Thomson Collection contains examples of the highest quality of most types of medieval ivory carving, both secular and religious. These include large statuettes of the Virgin and Child intended to stand on altars in chapels, small versions for private use in the home, and folding tablets or diptychs with scenes from the life of Christ carved in relief.

This book examines the multi-media art patronage of three generations of the Tornabuoni family, who commissioned works from innovative artists, such as Sandro Botticelli and Rosso Fiorentino. Best known for commissioning the fresco cycle in Santa Maria Novella by Domenico Ghirlandaio, a key monument of the Florentine Renaissance, the Tornabuoni ordered a number of still-surviving art works, inspired by their commitment to family, knowledge of ancient literature, music, love, loss, and religious devotion. This extensive body of work makes the Tornabuoni a critically important family of early modern art patrons. However, they are further distinguished by the numerous objects they commissioned to honor female relations who served in different family roles, thus deepening understanding of Florentine Renaissance gender relations. Maria DePrano presents a comprehensive picture of how one Florentine family commissioned art to gain recognition in their society, revere God, honor family members, especially women, and memorialize deceased loved ones.

This monograph looks at Byzantine art in its widest sense as well as its influence right up to the 20th century. It is well illustrated with a largely descriptive text. The chapters are divided by genre of art - mosaic, architecture, sculpture etc, with seperate chapters on the influence of Byzantine art in the Baltic and Russia, as well as in later centuries. The range of the study is a real strength and the parallels it draws are illuminating.

This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.

Reaching its peak in the 11th and 12th centuries, the Romanesque movement was marked by a peculiar, vivid, and often monumental expressiveness in architecture and fine arts. The main centres were located in Italy, France, the German-language countries, Spain, and England, though the voices of Scandinavia and Eastern Europe expressed themselves distinctly in the genre, which patterned itself on antique and Byzantine art. Despite untold losses, countless Romanesque masterpieces remain preserved today. Highlights include: Frescoes in Galliano near Cantu, Sant'Angelo in Formis, Saint Chef, Saint-Savin-sur Gartempe, Lambach, S. Pietro al Monte near Civate, S. Clemente in Rome, from S. Maria de Tahull, Berze-la-Ville, Tavant, Panteon de los Reyes in Leon, Castel Appiano, from Sigena; the golden Altar-Piece from Lisbjerg; the Bayeux Tapestry; stained glasses in the Cathedral of Augsburg and Le Mans, mosaics in S. Clemete, Rome, and in S. Marco, Venice; coloured panels und crosses from La Seo de Urgel, Sarzana and the panted ceiling in St. Michael, Hildesheim; sculptures in Souillac, Autun, Santiago de Compostela; and examples of metalwork, of manuscripts and enamels. Each book in TASCHEN's "Basic Genre" series features: a detailed introduction with approximately 35 photographs, plus a timeline of the most important events (political, cultural, scientific, etc.) that took place during the time period, and a selection of the most important works of the epoch; each is presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and, on the facing page, a description/interpretation of the work and brief biography of the artist as well as additional information such as a reference work, portrait of the artist, and/or citations.

Surviving fragments of information about Pythagoras (born ca. 570 BCE) gave rise to a growing set of legends about this famous sage and his followers, whose reputations throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages have never before been studied systematically. This book is the first to examine the unified concepts of harmony, proportion, form, and order that were attributed to Pythagoras in the millennium after his death and the important developments to which they led in art, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, music, medicine, morals, religion, law, alchemy, and the occult sciences. In this profusely illustrated book, Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier sets out the panorama of Pythagoras's influence and that of Christian and Jewish thinkers who followed his ideas in the Greek, Roman, early Christian, and medieval worlds. In illuminating this tradition of thought, Joost-Gaugier shows how the influence of Pythagoreanism was far broader than is usually realized, and that it affected the development of ancient and medieval art and architecture from Greek and Roman temples to Gothic cathedrals.Joost-Gaugier demonstrates that Pythagoreanism—centered on the dim memory of a single person that endured for centuries and grew ever-greater—inspired a new language for artists and architects, enabling them to be "modern."

Unsurpassed in the years since its first publication in 1917, English Church Woodwork is the definitive guide to the ornate craftsmanship of the Gothic period. FH Crossley spent over twenty years recording, measuring and photographing churches across England and Wales: from his archive of over 10,000 pictures, the 380 reproduced here show the finest examples. Accompanied throughout by FE Howard's clear and authoritative text, the survey includes rood screens, misericords, quire stalls, pulpits, lecterns, doorways and font covers, highlighting both the incredible levels of skill and fascinating regional variations in the woodwork. English Church Woodwork is both ambitiously wide in scope and satisfyingly comprehensive: a fitting tribute to what is arguably the finest legacy of the medieval ages.

This richly illustrated book surveys representations of the stage and acting from manuscript illuminations, stained glass, sculpture, woodcarving, wall paintings, and the woodcuts that appear in playbooks produced by the first English printers.

1928. This volume grew out of Lowell lectures delivered at Boston, Massachusetts. Contents: Monastic Artists (1); Monastic Artists (2); Monastic Artists (3); The Lay Artist; Four Self-Characterizations; The Freemasons; The Mason's Mark; The Hand-Grip; Eton and King's College; From Prentice to Master; Wander Years; Symbolism; The People's Mind; The Poor Man's Bible; Art and Religion; Architectural Finance; The Puritan Revolt; Reformation or Renaissance?; Protestantism and Art; The Roots of the Renaissance; Renaissance and Destruction; Renaissance and Construction (1); and Renaissance and Construction (2).

Surviving fragments of information about Pythagoras (born ca. 570 BCE) gave rise to a growing set of legends about this famous sage and his followers, whose reputations throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages have never before been studied systematically. This book is the first to examine the unified concepts of harmony, proportion, form, and order that were attributed to Pythagoras in the millennium after his death and the important developments to which they led in art, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, music, medicine, morals, religion, law, alchemy, and the occult sciences. In this profusely illustrated book, Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier sets out the panorama of Pythagoras's influence and that of Christian and Jewish thinkers who followed his ideas in the Greek, Roman, early Christian, and medieval worlds. In illuminating this tradition of thought, Joost-Gaugier shows how the influence of Pythagoreanism was far broader than is usually realized, and that it affected the development of ancient and medieval art and architecture from Greek and Roman temples to Gothic cathedrals.Joost-Gaugier demonstrates that Pythagoreanism—centered on the dim memory of a single person that endured for centuries and grew ever-greater—inspired a new language for artists and architects, enabling them to be "modern."

1885. Illustrated with 92 plates. The book's purpose is to collect and arrange, in chronological order, the principal forms that have been used symbolically in the different periods of Art. Its chief aim is to lead to a better understanding of the many treasures of Art and Antiquity that are to be found wherever our wanderings may lead us, by assisting persons to read their meaning and to look through the Symbol to the thing signified by it.

Text in English and French. The aim of this book, by utilizing modern photography, is to illustrate the cathedral on a scale not before attempted. Although this collection is not exhaustive, the authors claim it is fairly representative. It deals mainly with the sculptures on the doorway, although there are views of the general architecture and a few subjects from the interior. Over 120 photographs, fully indexed.

Tabbaa’s Transformation offers an innovative approach to understanding the profound changes undergone by Islamic art and architecture during the often neglected Medieval Islamic period. Examining devices such as calligraphy, arabesque, muqarnas, and stonework, Tabbaa argues we propagated in a moment of confrontation and facilitated the re-emergence of the Sunni Abbasid caliphate in a more orthodox image. Tabbaa offers a timely and thought-provoking alternative to conventional essentialist, positivist and ethno-narrative interpretations of Islamic art.

In this beautifully written book, Georges Duby, one of France's greatest medieval historians, returns to one of the central themes of his work - the relationship between art and society. He traces the evolution of artistic forms from the fifth to the fifteenth century in parallel with the structural development of society, in order to create a better understanding of both.

Duby traces shifts in the centres of artistic production and changes in the nature and status of those who promoted works of art and those who produced them. At the same time, he emphasizes the crucial continuities that still gave the art of medieval Europe a basic unity, despite the emergence of national characteristics. Duby also reminds us that the way we approach these artistic forms today differs greatly from how they were first viewed. For us, they are works of art from which we expect and derive aesthetic pleasure; but for those who commissioned them or made them, their value was primarily functional - gifts offered to God, communications with the other world, or affirmations of power - and this remained the case throughout the Middle Ages.

This book will be of interest to students and academics in medieval history and history of art.

Now published in paperback, this fully-illustrated book explores the concept of the monster in the Middle Ages, examining its philosophical and theological roots and analysing its symbolic function in medieval literature and art. Fascinating and comprehensive, this study of the grotesque in medieval aesthetic expression successfully brings together medieval research and modern criticism.

Traditional histories of medieval art and architecture often privilege the moment of a work's creation, yet surviving works designated as "medieval" have long and expansive lives. Many have extended prehistories emerging from their sites and contexts of creation, and most have undergone a variety of interventions, including adaptations and restorations, since coming into being. The lives of these works have been further extended through historiography, museum exhibitions, and digital media. Inspired by the literary category of biography and the methods of longue duree historians, the introduction and seventeen chapters of this volume provide an extended meditation on the longevity of medieval works of art and the aspect of time as a factor in shaping our interpretations of them. While the metaphor of "lives" invokes associations with the origin of the discipline of art history, focus is shifted away from temporal constraints of a single human lifespan or generation to consider the continued lives of medieval works even into our present moment. Chapters on works from the modern countries of Italy, France, England, Spain, and Germany are drawn together here by the thematic threads of essence and continuity, transformation, memory and oblivion, and restoration. Together, they tell an object-oriented history of art and architecture that is necessarily entangled with numerous individuals and institutions.

In the 1320's AD the Emperor Constantine moved the capital of his Empire from Rome to Byzantium, which was renamed Conatantinople, and until its fall in 1453 remained a major artistic centre. Under successive emperors and empresses for more than a thousand years, artists, archtects and craftsmen produced superb and intriguing works ranging fom the grandest public buildings to the smallest and most personal items. Today this art is generally termed early Christian and Byzantine.