15-09-2018, 06:17 PM
(This post was last modified: 15-09-2018, 06:21 PM by Diane.
Edit Reason: shorten
)
Koen,
There's a basic problem in the way the botanical folios are approached by amateurs - including Stolfi although in writing a re-visiting of his work I found much to admire, and puzzled over why he is among the more intelligent writers generally ignored.
The problem is the assumption that realism is a default for considering imagery in the Vms. In fact it is a movement which arises quite late in medieval Europe though of course it occurs much earlier in the west (e.g. in Roman art from Pompeii). I have always found it most practical to first identify style to get an accurate idea of where and when a picture was first enunciated, and then to note what evidence it offers of subsequent alteration or evolution. The heads of the 'sunflowers' are a case in point: a well-known formalised motif - as I've already explained and illustrated at length. Not of medieval European origin that detail points, as does so much else, away from the region of central Europe to which many theories seem bound.
There's a basic problem in the way the botanical folios are approached by amateurs - including Stolfi although in writing a re-visiting of his work I found much to admire, and puzzled over why he is among the more intelligent writers generally ignored.
The problem is the assumption that realism is a default for considering imagery in the Vms. In fact it is a movement which arises quite late in medieval Europe though of course it occurs much earlier in the west (e.g. in Roman art from Pompeii). I have always found it most practical to first identify style to get an accurate idea of where and when a picture was first enunciated, and then to note what evidence it offers of subsequent alteration or evolution. The heads of the 'sunflowers' are a case in point: a well-known formalised motif - as I've already explained and illustrated at length. Not of medieval European origin that detail points, as does so much else, away from the region of central Europe to which many theories seem bound.