Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe byThomas Kren; Scot McKendrickReview by: Diane WolfthalThe Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Winter, 2004), pp. 1179-1181Published by: The Sixteenth Century JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20477186 .

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Book Reviews 1179

Saints in Art. Rosa Giorgi. Ed. Stefano Zuffi. Trans. Thomas Michael Hartmann. Los Angeles: Getty Museum, 2003. 384 pp. $24.95. ISBN 0-89236-717-2.

REVIEWED BY: Jane C. Long, Roanoke College

Saints in Art is designed for "visitors to museums and galleries [who] are in jeopardy of missing an important part of the message of an artistic work portraying sacred episodes," because the identity of religious characters is no longer a standard part of our cultural bag gage.The goal of the text is to help viewers to identify the most common saints found in the western artistic tradition (excepting Jesus and the Virgin Mary, who will be treated in a later volume). In essence it is an illustrated dictionary, providing a brief biography of 122 saints along with some clues to their iconography, arranged in alphabetical order.

The book is attractively laid out, illustrations are interestingly captioned, and sidebars add information on saints' characteristics, patronage, and veneration. Illustrations come from old master works of art; there is a strong emphasis on Italian and German artists (the text was originally written in Italian and the introduction suggests-although it does not clearly state-that it was written for the Vierzehnheiligen Sanctuary in Bavaria), and most of the images date from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. Giorgi's text has no pretensions toward scholarly writing; although the author sometimes indicates the literary source for a saint's life (e.g., the Gospels or The Golden Legend), at other times the reader is left in the dark, and Giorgi provides no bibliography. It is thus not an acceptable text for any type of academic work, even at the elementary level.

It seems the author and publisher intend readers to carry the book with them to muse ums. At approximately 20 x 13 cm, it is compact (though heavy), and it contains copious color illustrations; indeed, it strongly resembles a guidebook, with appealing tidbits of infor mation and attractive pictures instead of complete factual data. Given the load of parapher nalia that tourists typically haul around with them, I suspect most will be reluctant to add this volume to their bags. Saints in Art would probably best serve as a gallery guide within

museums; visitors could pick the book up when they have a question, then leave it behind when their curiosity is satisfied.

Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe. Thomas Kren and Scot McKendrick. Los Angeles: Getty Museum, 2003. 575 pp. $55.00. ISBN 0-89236-704-0.

REVIEWED BY: Diane Wolfthal, Arizona State University

This magnificent volume is the first to present an overview of Flemish manuscript illu mination from 1470 to 1560. Published in connection with an exhibition at the Getty Museum, it explores the new style of illumination that arose in the 1470s. Profoundly influ enced by panel painting and characterized by more illusionistic borders, these opulent manu scripts were commissioned first by the Burgundian court, and then by courts in England and Iberia. Their style dominated Europe until the popularity of printed books caused the demand for illuminated manuscripts to plummet. By 1560 the Golden Age of Flemish illu mination had ended.

Because art history has traditionally privileged panel painting over manuscripts and favored artists whose names are known, illuminations of this period have long been neglected. For this reason, this volume will be extremely useful. Profusely illustrated with

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1180 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXV/4 (2004)

color photographs, it opens with an introduction and three essays, followed by five chrono logically organized sections, each of which includes an essay and catalogue entries. An appendix examines contemporary scribes.

In the first essay Catherine Reynolds explores the relationship between illuminators and painters' guilds. In the second half of the fifteenth century, depending on the town, illu minators were forced to either join a guild or accept its restrictions. Furthermore, panel painters limited the production and exhibition of single-leaf illuminations, which threatened their livelihood.

The second essay, by Thomas Kren and Maryan Ainsworth, examines artistic exchange between illuminators and easel painters. This subject has long been ignored because art his torians have traditionally studied the two types of painters separately. But both groups often belonged to the same family or guild, shared the same pattern books, and worked together on such ephemeral projects as entries and weddings. Some illuminators produced paintings on panel or on parchment glued to panel, and some panel painters produced illuminations. Kren and Ainsworth analyze the different techniques demanded of each type of painting and suggest that the panel painters Petrus Christus andJuan de Flandes began their careers as illu minators. Simon Marmion's panels, too, show the influence of illuminations in their chalky quality, unblended brushstrokes, lack of transparent glazes, and summary underdrawing. Pieter Bruegel's landscapes owe much to illuminated calendars, and independent portrait miniatures developed from those in manuscripts. The borders separating illuminators from panel painters were fluid.

The third essay, by Scott McKendrick, examines secular vernacular manuscripts, which comprise only a small percentage of surviving books. After 1470 patrons turned away from chivalric romances and began commissioning chronicles and advisory texts. These manu scripts served as markers of the aristocratic class. As McKendrick observes, even the wealth iest merchants rarely bought them, and their aristocratic viewpoint is apparent in such images as the one that contrasts self-controlled aristocrats with drunken commoners (275). McKen drick proposes that secular manuscripts also functioned as a way to gain political skill and link the present to the past. Through such manuscripts aristocrats could imagine themselves as Charlemagne orAlexander the Great. McKendrick warns that secular illuminations are often interpreted as mirrors of reality, rather than as an idealized world constructed for the pleasure of a narrow segment of society.

The history of the new style is effectively traced in the essays that introduce the cata logue entries. Many well-known manuscripts are examined, including the Turin-Milan Hours, Hours of Engelbert of Nassau, Hours of Mary of Burgundy, Grimani Breviary, and Spinola Hours, but long neglected ones are also included. Some works are published here for the first time (480).Whereas some illuminators were strikingly original, others codified the new style and streamilined production. Because teams of artists often worked simulta neously in different towns to produce a single manuscript, books often show varied styles, but McKendrick suggests that patrons favored a "jumbled appearance" (66).

The catalogue entries, which thoroughly discuss attribution, dating, patronage, and the contents of each text, spark new questions. Scholars interested in the history of women will find much evidence for female artists, scribes, and patrons or owners of manuscripts.Another area for future research is the manuscripts made for the Rooclooster (152, 187, 354).

Whereas Kren suggests that their more modest decoration was due to lack of funds, it may

also stem from their function in a monastery dedicated to the Devotio Moderna, which valued the ideal of poverty. As McKenrick observes, most manuscripts of the Imitation of Christ lack

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Book Reviews 1181

illumination (335). Scholars interested in the multicultural aspects of Europe should also mine this catalogue, which includes many manuscripts that were made for export, produced in more than one country, or painted by artists who moved from one region to another. Fur thermore, the authors effectively differentiate between the ways Flemish, Spanish, and English patrons would have reacted to these manuscripts. This volume is also fascinating for the numerous little-known images that are discussed, many showing unusual iconography.

One wishes, however, that each artist's biography appeared the first time he is mentioned. For example, Lieven van Lathem's appears more than two hundred pages after he is first dis cussed. Furthermore, the authors frequently judge quality, but rarely explore the basis on which their judgments rest.What made one illuminator a "genius" or another the "better of the two" (1355)? Nonetheless, this beautifully produced catalogue is invaluable. Much hke the Metro pohtan Museum's recent volume on Flemish tapestries, Illuminating the Renaissance makes clear not only that the Low Countries were the major European producers of luxury art objects, but also that the so-called decorative arts are finally receiving the attention they deserve.

The Secret Middle Ages: Discovering the Real Medieval World. Malcolm Jones . Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2003.374 pp. $44.95. ISBN 0-275-97980-6.

REVIEWED BY: Ilicia J. Sprey, Saint Joseph's College

This study focuses exclusively on the English Middle Ages and loosely defines that period as 1200 to the sixteenth century.Jones is eager to show that the English lower classes shared many of the cultural values of their continental counterparts; however, he restricts himself to England as it is the work of this country with which he is most familiar, and par allel examples of continental artwork discussed here are few.

The author proposed two reasons for the creation of this book.The first was to explore areas of high medieval art in order to shed light on the values of the nonaristocratic popula tion of England for whom these pieces were created and by whom they were purchased, and specifically to see what the themes found in these works could reveal about their owners.

The second purpose was to examine the tastes, sense of humor, and worldview of the middle and lower classes through various categories of artwork. He proposes that these previously had been neglected or overlooked consciously or unconsciously by generations of historians and art historians of the medieval period in what the author terms acts of scholarly "snob bery" or by lack of knowledge that these items have survived since many of them are in pri vate collections.The artwork examined in this text is not that currently referenced in most medieval histories and art books, and because of this much of it sheds a refreshing new light on the period. In this work you will not find depictions or discussions of works from English artisans, painters, or sculptors as those are associated with either the patronage of the church or the ruling elite who reinforced their status and power through outward trappings. Instead, it is best to define the works examined here, and whichJones employs to gain an understand ing of the tastes of the nonelite population of England, as everyday objects found in moder ately economically comfortable medieval households. These consist of everything from cookie cutters (biscuit molds) to politically inspired badges to drinking steins to decorated towel rails, as well as misericord and the margin decorations of more mundane and less cel ebrated manuscripts.While many of the later objects have been used previously to explore medieval interpretations of biblical themes or in order to comprehend regional and local political agendas, the former have mostly failed to be included by authors in previously pub lished studies of medieval culture.

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