The sumptuously decorated First Bible of Charles the Bald may well be the most famous of all medieval manuscripts. The national library of France counts it as Number 1 among its thousands of Latin manuscripts. Despite its fame, however, the First Bible has remained a magnificent mystery, its poems largely unread and the connection between its poetry and paintings unexplored. In the first full study of its kind, Paul Edward Dutton and Herbert L. Kessler carefully investigate and integrate the Bible's words and pictures and arrive at some surprising discoveries: the identification of the poet, the context of the Bible's production, hands-on changes to the codex, and a new, more political reading of the First Bible's stunning paintings.The First Bible was made for Charles the Bald (840-877) at the monastery of Saint Martin at Tours. It contains four sets of dedicatory verses, seven sets of tituli or inscriptions associated directly with paintings, eight full-page illuminations, and a host of decorated initials and minor illustrations. This study begins with an analysis of the poetry in the codex. Dutton and Kessler identify the probable poet of the new poems and argue that the great Bible was likely made in the summer or early autumn of 845. They reveal textual evidence for a series of late changes to the codex in November 845 as it was rushed to completion. Further, they reinterpret the paintings in the light of the political poetry accompanying them, and they detect the principal architect of the Bible Charles the Bald finally received.The Poetry and Paintings of the First Bible of Charles the Bald will appeal to medievalists, historians, and art historians, as well as to anyone interested in how words and pictures interrelate, and how political messages are conveyed in art.Paul Edward Dutton is Professor of History and Humanities, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia. Herbert L. Kessler is Charlotte Bloomberg Professor in the School of Arts and Sciences and Chair of the Department of the History of Art, Johns Hopkins University.

The Poetry and Paintings of the First Bible of Charles the Bald (RECENTIORES: LATER LATIN TEXTS AND CONTEXTS)

Literature & Fiction

Kessler, Herbert L.

Dutton, Paul Edward

History & Criticism

Univ of Michigan Pr

The description for this book, The Illustrated Bibles from Tours, will be forthcoming.

The Illustrated Bibles from Tours (Studies in Manuscript Illumination)

Reference

Princeton University Press

The description for this book, The Cotton Genesis: The Illustrations in the Manuscripts of the Septuagint, Volume I. British Library, Codex Cotton Otho B. VI. (PMAA-45), will be forthcoming.

The Cotton Genesis: The Illustrations in the Manuscripts of the Septuagint, Volume I. British Library, Codex Cotton Otho B. VI. (PMAA-45) (Princeton Monographs in Art and Archeology)

Weitzmann, Kurt

Religion & Spirituality

If we cannot see God with our own eyes, for what purpose do we picture God in art? During the Middle Ages, the Second Commandment's warning against idolatry was largely set aside as the power of images became boldly and visibly evident. By the twelfth century, one Byzantine authority could even offer his own revision of the Commandment: "Thou shalt paint the likeness of Christ Himself." How and when, Herbert L. Kessler asks, was the Jewish prohibition of images in worship converted into a Christian imperative to picture God's invisibility once God had taken human form in the body of Jesus Christ?
In Spiritual Seeing, Kessler explores ways in which the medieval debate about the functions and limits of images influenced the production of sacred art. Offering a new interpretation of Christian images as mediators between the human and the sacred, Kessler considers how the creators of images in Byzantium and the Latin West were able to situate art at the boundary between the physical and the spiritual worlds. He examines the ways in which images acquired such legitimacy that sacred art became a privileged metaphor for divine revelation. Portraits of Christ, in particular, took on central importance. Throughout the book, Kessler also considers the lingering anxiety about the capacity of human sight to apprehend the divine in images. In so doing, he discloses the artful dodges devised to deal with the controversy of picturing God's invisibility in material form.

Spiritual Seeing: Picturing God's Invisibility in Medieval Art (The Middle Ages Series)

Arts & Photography

University of Pennsylvania Press

Experiencing Medieval Art (Rethinking the Middle Ages)

Across the nine thematic chapters of Experiencing Medieval Art, renowned art historian Herbert L. Kessler considers functional objects as well as paintings and sculptures; the circumstances, processes, and materials of production; the conflictual relationship between art objects and notions of an ineffable deity; the context surrounding medieval art; and questions of apprehension, aesthetics, and modern presentation. He also introduces the exciting discoveries and revelations that have revolutionized contemporary understanding of medieval art and identifies the vexing challenges that still remain. With 16 color plates and 81 images in all—including the stained glass of Chartres Cathedral, the mosaics of San Marco, and the Utrecht Psalter, as well as newly discovered works such as the frescoes in Rome’s aula gotica and a twelfth-century aquamanile in Hildesheim—Experiencing Medieval Art makes the complex history of medieval art accessible for students of art history and scholars of medieval history, theology, and literature.

University of Toronto Press

University of Toronto Press, Higher Education Division

A Note About the Cover: "Evangeliary of St. Andreas of Cologne." (AE 679, fol. 126v, Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt. Reprinted by permission). This eleventh-century manuscript demonstrates a trend of the High Middle Ages in which transcendental contemplation was initiated by abstract means. Here, thin washes of celestial colors elevate the animal flesh itself, the vellum on which words and pictures are elsewhere inscribed, to guide the viewer's thoughts from the physical world toward (though not all the way to) the invisible God.
 How did medieval people see art? How was it made, paid for, and used? Why was it necessary to social activities including teaching, civic processions, and missionary work, as well as to architecture and books? 
 With 12 color plates and 54 plates in all, Seeing Medieval Art looks at art's functions and traces many crucial developments including the development of secular art and historical narrative, and the emergence of individual portraiture. 
 This is the first title in a series called Rethinking the Middle Ages, which is committed to re-examining the Middle Ages, its themes, institutions, people, and events with short studies that will provoke discussion among students and medievalists, and invite them to think about the middle ages in new and unusual ways. The series editor, Paul Edward Dutton, invites suggestions and submissions.

Seeing Medieval Art (Rethinking the Middle Ages)

Comment l'art était-il perçu par l'homme du Moyen Age? Comment étaient produites, financées et utilisées les oeuvres? Quelles étaient leurs fonctions dans les activités sociales comme l'enseignement, les manifestations civiques, le travail des missionnaires ou bien l'architecture et le monde du livre? C'est à toutes ces questions qu'Herbert Kessler répond en étudiant la fonction de l'art et en retraçant les évolutions décisives qu'a apporté le Moyen Age notamment dans le développement d'un art séculier ou avec l'apparition des portraits individuels. Dans un ouvrage précédent, Herbert L. Kessler avait défini deux axes de recherches majeurs comme dominant l'historiographie récente de l'art médiéval : la reconnaissance croissante du rôle central joué par les objets visuels dans la culture médiévale, « l'objet d'art médiéval », considéré dans toutes ses dimensions (matérielle, historique et spirituelle), ainsi que l'étude de la « fonctionnalité » des « objets » (images, objets ou monuments tels que livres, autels, reliquaires, portes d'église, etc.) au même titre que les « arts majeurs » que sont la peinture et la sculpture. Il poursuit ici cette réflexion au moyen d'un examen des approches méthodologiques et des travaux de recherches les plus récents en se concentrant sur le Moyen Age latin, d'environ 800 à 1300, et en prenant en compte l'une des principales revendications médiévales qui veut que l'art soit un moyen pour « montrer l'invisible au moyen du visible ». L'ouvrage, illustré de 56 reproductions (couleurs et noir et blanc) servant d'exemples, est divisé en huit chapitres qui sont autant d'étapes, pour le lecteur, dans son initiation à la compréhension de l'art médiéval.

L'OEil médiéval (L'Esprit Et Les Formes) (French Edition)

Les Belles Lettres

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Books by Kessler, Herbert L.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kessler, Herbert L.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Poetry and Paintings of the First Bible of Charles the Bald (RECENTIORES: LATER LATIN TEXTS AND CONTEXTS)

The Illustrated Bibles from Tours (Studies in Manuscript Illumination)

The Cotton Genesis: The Illustrations in the Manuscripts of the Septuagint, Volume I. British Library, Codex Cotton Otho B. VI. (PMAA-45) (Princeton Monographs in Art and Archeology)

Spiritual Seeing: Picturing God's Invisibility in Medieval Art (The Middle Ages Series)

Experiencing Medieval Art (Rethinking the Middle Ages)

Experiencing Medieval Art (Rethinking the Middle Ages)

Seeing Medieval Art (Rethinking the Middle Ages)

L'OEil médiéval (L'Esprit Et Les Formes) (French Edition)