The nymphs are possibly inspired from Dante manuscripts

[Pierre Dumont Himself]

Something irks me about these long-standing attempts to quantify the artists' skill. What does "not extremely skilled" even mean? For art historians, the focus is usually on what techniques the artist inherited from his native environment, learned or adopted from elsewhere as time passed, and how these were integrated in their compositions. For instance, one painter's understanding of perspective might be taken as a pared-down version of that found in a "great" painter's works, or it might be interpreted as the adaptation of a new technique to a well-established local style. Any discussion of this kind is bound to become contentious. One reassessment of Giacomino da Ivrea's frescoes claims that he was a technically skilled and versatile artist who painted a wide variety of works in a perfected "simple" style, as demanded by the conservative taste of the local nobility and church. Similarly, a provincial workhop head might adopt an improved perspective or arrangement of figures from a regional center, while another would keep the old perspective and make the figures, or only their faces, more naturalistic. A "skilled" associate is typically implied by an artwork that successfully integrates some of the master's known techniques, whereas others could only create mannerist imitations. In some cases, a member of the workshop would go on to adopt new techniques and approaches to composition, thus becoming a master himself, but it is fairly rare that a work within an artist's circle was grossly inferior to that of the master.

The illustrations in the VM do not strike me as being strongly influenced by the early Renaissance, peak International Gothic, or Giottoesque schools, all of which were prominently reflected in manuscript illumination around the turn of the 15th century. But this observation implies only the absence of a certain style and techniques, and not of "skill" in general. The VM is certainly not a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., nor were the pictures added by a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Many years ago, Ernst Gombrich argued that medieval abstract and semi-abstract art only reached its mature form thanks to the absence of "naturalism". Artists in the Middle Ages could easily draw on ancient true-to-life models if they were interested: Gombrich gave examples of naturalistic drapery on icons and frescoes. But by discarding realism, the medieval artist was free to play with structure and arrangement, shape and color in ways that earlier and later painters could not. Gombrich cited the brightly-colored paintings on stained glass windows as an art form that could only emerge if natural colors were deemphasized. Had they not been invented in the Middle Ages, perhaps we would have had to wait until the turn of the 20th century. I believe the VM is simply drawing on this older visual language. The fact that human figures were copied from elsewhere and given uniform proportions is fully congruent with this approach, rather than being a "skill issue".

Their lack of skill (and confidence?) may have lead to a lot of borrowing

While some details were faithfully borrowed and others were reworked, can we say that this happened a lot, and that a "better" artist would have copied less? I got the impression that most of the imagery is either original or untraceable. The VM artists were probably not a workshop of miniature copyists, and there is very little that hints at inspiration from a model book (maybe the vessels?). That brings me to another point about skill: it is almost unheard of that an artist was skilled at composition and bad at drawing. In Ed's Sienese manuscript, this very discrepancy was taken as evidence that a better artist's illustrations had been copied. Nonetheless, our painter was still praised for the consistent style of his stripped-down miniatures, which were likened to modern comic strips. I personally find the drawings in the VM quite effective, but here's a more practical question: between the painter of the Rosettes, the mystic Opicinus de Canistris, and the artist-monk of Gombrich's calendar (12th c.), who was the most skilled?

From the Story of Art:

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For we must realize how great the possibilities were that opened up before the artists as soon as they finally discarded all ambition to represent things as we see them. Figure 120 shows a page from a calendar for the use of a German monastery. It marks the principal feasts of saints to be commemorated in the month of October, but, unlike our own calendars, it marks them not only in words but also by illustrations. In the middle, under the arches, we see St Wilhmarus the priest and St Gall with the bishop’s crozier and a companion who carries the luggage of the wandering missionary. The curious pictures on top and below illustrate the story oftwo martyrdoms which are remembered in October. In later times, when art had returned to the detailed representation of nature, such cruel scenes were often painted with a profusion of horrible detail. Our artist was able to avoid all this. To remind us of St Gereon and his companions, whose heads were cut off and thrown into a well, he arranged the beheaded trunks in a neat circle around the image of the well. St Ursula who, according to the legend, had been massacred with her eleven thousand maidens by the heathens, is seen enthroned, literally surrounded by her followers. An ugly savage with bow and arrows and a man brandishing his sword are placed outside the frame and aiming at the Saint. We are able to read the story off the page without being forced to visualize it.

And as the artist could dispense with any illusion ofspace or any dramatic action he could arrange his figures and forms on purely ornamental lines. Painting was indeed on the way to becoming a form of writing in pictures; but this return to more simplified methods of representation gave the artist of the Middle Ages a new freedom to experiment with more complex forms of composition (composition = putting together). Without these methods the teachings ofthe Church could never have been translated into visible shapes. As with forms so with colours. As the artists no longer felt obliged to study and imitate the real gradations of shades that occur in nature they were free to choose any colour they liked for their illustrations. The bright gold and luminous blues oftheir goldsmiths’ works, the intense colours of their book illuminations, the glowing red and deep greens of their stained-glass windows, figure 121 [Annunciation at the Chartres Cathedral], show that these masters put their independence of nature to good use. It was this freedom from the need to imitate the natural world that was to enable them to convey the idea of the supernatural.