Shells, the red pods of the kermes insect, a scintillating heap of One of the firstĬases displays materials from which pigments were obtained: murex Solid bodies had to be ground, beaten, or scraped. In preparing colours for application to parchment, In the exhibition and catalogue's concern with the sources of The words of the medieval theologian Robert Grosseteste, is underscored Substantial understanding of colour as 'light embodied', in Sight, and an essential property of things. Was understood not as an effect of the absorption of light by a surface,īut as the primary object of the eye's attention, the basis of Secondary quality, for the illuminators whose work is displayed here, it While scientific thinkers of the 17th century demoted colour to a Illustrates a difference between modern and medieval understandings. Treating colour as something that can be stored and curated Taking in the vibrancy of these colours in one's own eye. Wonderfully rich in essays on multiple contexts of the items displayed,Īnd generously illustrated, it can only underscore the necessity of Though the catalogue that accompanies the exhibition is Make primary the experience of standing in front of these images and That matters, but also luminosity and intensity and in doing so, they Point out that, in medieval considerations of colour, it is not only hue Stuff from which they are made, the illuminators' achieved effects,Īnd questions both physical and metaphysical about vision. Stimulating, focusing attention on the surface of the illuminations, the Taking colour as the subject of the exhibition is imaginative and The role of illumination in the history of art, and the nature of 'Colour' encourages us to see differently: to consider anew As well as presenting a rare opportunity to encounter these works, Humanist works), and some Ottoman, Persian, and Tibetan illuminations, Parisian exemplars from the late 13th century, and early Italian (including the late 10th-century Reichenau Epistolary, sumptuous Pabenham-Clifford Hours, the exhibition shows much European material The Peterborough and Macclesfield Psalters (Fig. 1), throughĮcclesiastical pontificals and processionals, to the technical manualsĪnd model books of Italian artists, and the best extant Ripley scroll,Īn illustrated alchemical poem. Ranges from domestic prayerbooks and books of hours (Fig. TextualĪrtefacts were however central to the 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam'sīenefaction, which established the museum in 1816, and the collection Manuscripts is less well known than its art and objects. 'Colour' marks theįitzwilliam's bicentenary and draws attention to some of its rarelyĮxhibited treasures the museum's collection of books and Have been happed in darkness, persisting while the depredations of timeĪnd iconoclasm have compromised the more obvious repositories of Harbours of colour, treasuries in which gold, vermilion, and cochineal The exhibition encourages us to think of these manuscripts as Serves a less practical purpose: the illuminations glowing in theirĬases seem themselves the source of light. Necessary for the preservation of the artefacts displayed, but it also It is paradoxically apt, then, that theįirst impression on entering the Fitzwilliam's wonderfulĮxhibition, 'Colour', is of darkness. Within manuscripts and meant not the supply of images to accompany text,īut capturing light on the page. The term was originally restricted to the use of gold 'Illumination', from the Latin illuminare, means theīringing of light. Retrieved from Ĭolour: The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts APA style: Light embodied: an outstanding exhibition of medieval illuminations dazzles.Light embodied: an outstanding exhibition of medieval illuminations dazzles." Retrieved from MLA style: "Light embodied: an outstanding exhibition of medieval illuminations dazzles." The Free Library.
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