![]() ![]() She goes through all these ideas like 'women aren't good at studying' or 'women aren't faithful,' and she counteracts each of those with the story of historical or mythological women." "So it's The Book of the City of Ladies because she's building this metaphorical city for women to live and defend themselves from these attacks. "She wrote it because she was really depressed about how men wrote about women," says Charlton, who's illustrating the 617-year-old book. The book, and the more than 100 historically famous and mythological subjects contained within, is the focus of an ongoing project by Spokane-based artist Hannah Charlton. One such woman is Christine de Pizan, whose The Book of the City of Ladies was completed in 1405. Yet women who challenged the status quo have always existed, even then. The king himself, however, looks slyly toward us as if to indicate that he is above the fray of these competing factions.Hannah Charlton's art sends viewers way back in time.ĭ ue to history's patriarchal perpsective, we may not expect feminist viewpoints from a time so long ago as the Middle Ages. Both the ceremony and intrigue of court life are represented here in the subtle gestures of the attendants who whisper and plot with each other. This miniature, which accompanies the text of the letter, shows a splendidly dressed courtier presenting himself before the French king. It includes a letter giving advice on how to succeed at court. This manuscript contains some of the writings of Eneas Silvius Piccolomini, who later reigned as Pope Pius II from 1458-1464. With their powerful dramatic style, the eight full-page miniatures in this book provide visual meditations on the sad story of Jesus' Passion, fostering the viewer's empathy for his supreme sacrifice. These artists, who worked in the International style that so appealed to aristocratic taste across Europe, formed one of the first important illuminator's workshops of 15th-century Holland. A workshop of artists closely associated with the count illuminated this book of hours. In the early 1400s in the northern Netherlands, a new dynamic cultural circle developed under the patronage of Albrecht of Bavaria, Count of Holland. The illuminator often depicted Saint John looking into the framed scene through a window or door, allowing the reader to vicariously witness the horrific and awesome events unfolding in the Apocalypse. ![]() The miniatures, executed in a sophisticated tinted drawing technique, faithfully follow Saint John's exceptionally vivid descriptions of the end of time. This page displays the degrees of relationship between a person (the small figure in the central circle) and his or her blood relatives in order to make clear the prohibitions on marriage within one's own family.Įvery page of this book contains a brief passage from the Apocalypse written in black ink, a portion of a popular commentary written by a monk named Berengaudus in red ink, and a half-page miniature. ![]() This type of decoration links the manuscript to a group of books produced for Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his secretary while they were in exile in France. This manuscript of the Decretals, a manual of church law, is richly illuminated in a northern French Romanesque style strongly influenced by English art. Listen to a discussion of this page and the page opposite it in the book. The illuminator's vivid colors, sumptuous gold grounds, and monumental compositions lend a majestic and ceremonial style to these narratives from the New Testament. The bishop probably turned to the Saint Emmeram monastery for the production of this book. While on a return trip to his native Bavaria, Bishop Engilmar of Parenzo (modern Porec in northwestern Slovenia) stayed at Saint Emmeram, the most important monastery in medieval Regensburg. This Ottonian benedictional, containing the blessings recited by a bishop at Mass, came from Regensburg, the medieval capital of Bavaria (modern Germany). In order to minimize their exposure to light, alternate pages from these fragile manuscripts will be selected at the midpoint of the exhibition (April 7) for display for the duration of the show. The simplicity and abstraction of the Ottonian, the geometric complexities of the Romanesque, and the meticulous observation of the visible world characteristic of the later Middle Ages are among the spectacular developments in illuminated manuscripts that are surveyed in this exhibition. From 1000 to 1500 the art of illumination in Europe held a central place in the history of medieval painting, and much of the most beautiful and innovative art of the period appeared in books. ![]()
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