[Sca-cooks] Re: was:The Gaston Phoebus hunting book/now images as document

[Elizabeth A Heckert]

On Mon, 22 Apr 2002 14:04:27 -0400 "Lis" <liontamr at ptd.net> writes:

>I'd also like to note that art is a tricky way to document reality. I
>don't
>suppose you could reliably use art as a perfect indicator of  what
>existed,
>since we have no idea if the artist is prtraying what he SAW, what he
>Interpreted from someone else's description, or simply MADE IT UP in
>his own
>mind and recorded iton paper. Or, possibly a combination of the above,
>when
>an artist needed to fill in bits he wasn't terribly familliar with.

      I have been struggling with this question in regards to spinning,
and I am convinced that like every thing else in the SCA 'period' you
have to look at things with regards to the context.  When you compare
modern illustrations of spinning (drop spindle or wheel) to images from
the Middle Ages, you find out that the medievals were accurately
portraying a common activity, and modern artists have little clue of what
spinning is supposed to look like.

     When I want to learn about a subject or item, I first look at later
period illuminations, to get a feel for what the thing is supposed to be.
 Then I stumble about until I can find an archeological reference to the
thing--and so far, there has been agreement between the artist and
whatever the archeological record turns up.  Fortunately for us, as the
Middle Ages moved into the Renaissance, there was an awakening to the
portrayal of contemporary life.   But  prior to that, the artists of the
Dark and Middle Ages did not seem to have a great sense of visual
history.

       Artists, in Europe, prior to the 1100-1200's in Italy, and later
in the north, seem to have placed the historical and mythological and
religious subjects of their art in a  timeless setting--perhaps because
this made the points they were attempting to illustrate that much more
applicable to their audience.   Once the artists start to look at the
world around them, you have a delineation between the everyday and the
historic/fantastic.  The artists of the North, such as the Limbourg
brothers and Van Eyck, are careful to create realism in their portrayals
of 'modern' life.  When they paint religious subjects; the life of the
soul (in the North) or mythology (Italy and the South)  then the artist
has some lee-way in what they portray--think Hieronymous Bosch .(!)

     From what I have seen of it, and the other manuscripts at the
Bibliotheque Nationale website, I am inclined to say that the Gaston
Phoebus book falls into the same catagory as the Tres Riches Heures
(illuminated by the Limbourgs); it is designed to reflect life as the
*patron* of the book understood it.  In that case, the way to understand
what is happening in this illumination is to compare it with other
hunting scenes.  I can't get the illumination to come upon the net right
now, but the entrails/dogs' food supposition made sense--and I will say,
the one man might be peeling, but that's also the way I sharpen small
knives--I *know* you're supposed to go away, but the circles towards are
easier  (for me at any rate).

    Elizabeth


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