Medieval Academy of America

Seeing Medieval Art by Herbert L. Kessler Review by: Dorothy Gillerman Speculum, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Apr., 2006), pp. 546-548 Published by: Medieval Academy of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20463767 . Accessed: 28/02/2012 00:36
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Medieval Academy of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Speculum.

http://www.jstor.org

546

Reviews

Carin Ruff's study of color terms inAldhelm adds significantlyto the substantial body of comment on Anglo-Saxon color terms,but her analysis ofAldhelm's "excessive use" of the word purporeus would have benefited from consideration of George Henderson's chapter "The Colour Purple: A Late Antique Phenomenon and ItsAnglo-Saxon Reflexes" in his book Vision and Image inEarly Christian England (1999). writers inOld English with a sufficient body of surviving material IElfric isone of the few charted by for it to be possible to examine stylisticchange and variety,and this is skillfully Haruko Momma in relation to rhythmand alliteration. Her conclusions concerning Al was experiment, development, and the fric's "stylisticodyssey," namely, that there mature use of differentstyles fordifferent purposes, may well have been reflected,as she says, in the works of other anonymous artists and writers. For poetryAndy Orchard demonstrates how the use of shared formulae can identify Cynewulf's authorship. The lack of any writings on aesthetics, such as existed in the classical and Byzantine worlds, means that, as Roberta Frank points out in her paper, "We do not know how Old English poets learned theirart, or what they thoughtgood or bad," and the same applies to thevisual arts.We can note, as Frank does, theuse or lack of use of certain grammatical forms, likewise the use of visual motifs, which could be chronological distinguishers or mark of an individual orworkshop, butwe cannot be certain indeedmight be thedistinctive of their functionor meaning. The lastword can go toNicholas Howe, who concludes his elegantly succinct contri bution, "What We Talk about When We Talk about Style," with the suggestion that style is in some measure "the human noise" we hear in textual and visual materials. "That is why it is so very hard to talk about style,and why we keep tryingto do so." There are minor flaws in the production: text seems to be missing in Schipper's article between pages 157 and 159; in a book as reasonably priced as this,one could hardly expect high-quality illustrations,but these are uniformly muddy and flat, lacking in visual detail, This lack of a listof illustrations is even odder and lacking also in a comprehensive listing. when an index ofmanuscripts cited throughout the book is provided. The value of thisbook is not somuch thatAnglo-Saxon styleshave been redefinedand reinterpretedas that leading scholars inAnglo-Saxon cultural studies have produced new insights into their specialist fields under the stimulus of facing common problems. This should encourage otherAnglo-Saxonists to do likewise. ROSEMARY CRAMP,Durham University (Emerita)

HERBERT L. KESSLER, SeeingMedieval Art. (Rethinking the Middle Ages, 1.) Peterborough, Ont., and Orchard Park, N.Y.: Broadview Press, 2004. Paper. Pp. 256 plus 12 color plates; 42 black-and-white figures.$19.95. This study of medieval imagery, the firstvolume in a new series with the overall title Rethinking the Middle Ages, surveys current developments in a field that has seen signifi cant expansion in thepast fifteen years. Kessler, noting thecontributions of scholars outside as well as within the fieldof art history,casts his net fairly wide in order to do justice to such issues as the relationship between images and words, appropriation and reuse of materials, and the functionalityof objects. The author presents the book as an update on the state ofmedieval art history,by implication intended for an audience of scholars, stu dents, and knowledgeable readers.His announced purview is theLatin West from 800 to 1300, and his examples are drawn predominantly from mural painting,manuscript illu mination, and sculpture, particularlyworks in Kessler modestly admits to metal and ivory. a lack of expertise inmedieval architecture; thus this survey inevitablybecomes a storyof medieval artwithout the framework of great buildings, and the treatmentofmonumental

Reviews

547

sculpture is frustratingly brief.His concern, as in the earlier Spiritual Seeing: Picturing God's Invisibility in Medieval Art, is to demonstrate the centralityof visual experience in medieval culture and to inciteour own visual imaginationwith regard to sacred art of the past. The issue of seeing, therefore,isconcerned primarily with the formationof images of manner in Christ in the early Middle Ages and the which, by the twelfth century,art could convincingly transformearthlymaterials and corporeal vision into a perception of the divine. In the first chapters, entitled "Matter," "Making," and "Spirit," Kessler leads us through an examination ofmodes of seeing as they were understood bymedieval theologians from Augustine to the Victorines. Thus the literateviewer progressed from the material appear ance of things to an allegorical or, inAugustine's words, a "spiritual" perception of the materials were tradition significancebeyond theiroutward appearance. Kessler notes that ally valued for theircost, purity,color, and luminousness and suggests thatornament itself enhanced visibility. In his discussion of relics and reliquaries the relationshipKessler draws between thematerial and the spiritual is particularly intertwined,as he shows how the sacred space of reliquary and chapel creates a facsimileof theheavenly kingdom, towhich the relics give spiritual access. Chapter 2, takingup issues of artisticauthorship, distinguishes between theparticipation of craftsmenand patrons. Although his examples are overwhelmingly taken from the early Middle Ages, Suger's self-described role in the program of Saint-Denis provides themost provocative account of patron involvement in the creation of art. Kessler resists taking sides in the recent scholarly debate on the nature and degree of Suger's intellectualpartic ipation in the typological program of the stained glass, but in the examples of the frescoes inVicq and the decoration at Schwarzrheindorf he notes the plausibility of connecting specific theologianswith thoseworks. As compared with the freelyranging arguments and diverse examples thatKessler cites in these initial sections, chapter 3, "Spirit," is a model of clarity. Organizing his discussion more conventionally on chronological lines,Kessler invokes theories of the image as artic ulated by Christian thinkers including Paulinus of Nola, Bruno of Segni, and Suger. He discusses miraculous images as verifications of the Incarnation and metaphors of the Church embodied in representationsofMary. The use of typologies is explored within the largerconstruct of similitudes,grounded in the notion of the seal and its imprint. This chapter and chapter 4, "Book," are the strongestsections of thebook, informedby will be an inspirationand an invaluable years of scholarship and a bibliographic range that resource for Kessler's readers. Startingwith the idea of sacred books viewed as vasa sacra Kessler focuses on the to be ruminated like theEucharist itself, Apocalypse and giantBibles. He makes itclear how images came to acquire layeredmeanings throughassociation with diverse textual sources and how interpretiveand exegetical textswere assimilated into illustrationof Scripture as well as texts like theExpositio inCantica ofHonorius Augus todunensis,Bibles moralisees, or later manuscripts intended forprivate devotions such as theHours ofYolande de Soissons. Later chapters dealing with the church, life (and death), and performance are useful primarily for theircoverage of the issues and theirextensive notes. Kessler considers church of decoration an extension of book decoration; his treatment monumental sculpture suffers from the absence of a thorough discussion of the organizing functionof architecture and precludes speculation on aspects of seeing such as perception of proportion and scale, repetition,cadence, and pattern recognition.Aniconic or geometric schemata as theyhave Kessler's discussion ofGod's been analyzed by Madeline Caviness are likewise absent from

House.

Medieval viewers' response to art remains difficultto assess in this book, and readers may come to feel that it is not central to Kessler's view of art as exegesis. In the later

548

Reviews

sections on lifeand performance, the author notes the increasinglypositive understanding century, of thecreatedworld thatemerged in the thirteenth particularly as patronage shifted to the secular courts. During this time also the image cultwas promoted by the mendicant orders, and vernacular preaching transformed the audience for art. This "audience" con sisted of new viewers whose mental and visual baggage was quite differentfromviewers of the earlierMiddle Ages. SinceMichael Baxandall's concept of a "period eye," many art historians have tried to analyze the intersectionof visual images and visual experience. As David Freedberg and others have recognized, response toworks of art includes the possi bility of diverse readings and evenmisreadings of images, and seeing itselfhas a history.
DOROTHY GILLERMAN, Cambridge, Mass.

MICHAEL KLAPER,Die Musikgeschichte der Abtei Reichenau im 10. und 11. Jahrhundert: Ein Versuch. (Beiheftezum Archiv fur Musikwissenschaft, 52.) Stuttgart:Franz Steiner, 2003. Pp. 323 plus 19 black-and-white figures;2 tables and musical examples. ?64. The title ofMichael Klaper's book raises high expectations on the part of the reader. ImmediatelyAnselm Schubiger's classic book on themedieval music history of nearby St. Gall comes tomind (Die Sdngerschule St. Gallens vom 8. bis zum 12. Jahrhundert [Ein siedeln, 1858]), a study thatKlaper heralds as an important example for thewriting of music historywith a local focus. Although Klaper does not address the subtitle in his introduction,as thecurious readerwould expect, it indeed proves programmaticwhen seen in thecontext of the whole book. The methodology Klaper utilizes remains rathernebulous. The reader has to reach the final chapter to grasp more information:Klaper refers to his approach as writing music history "in margine," a problematic term, since it is not self explanatory and the only clarification that can be found is a quotation attributed toAn who contends that "isolated occurrences of chants dreas Haug, Klaper's thesis supervisor, in books of differingcontent" are sometimes apt to add to the greater picture drawn by "complete" books (p. 224). Upon turning the last page the reader can only conclude that the author has not simply fallen short of his goal but that he has set forhimself an impos sible task. Klaper confirms that only two complete chant sources have survived that are believed to have been produced at thescriptoriumofReichenau: Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, MS lit. 5, an extensive tropar-sequentiary,and Zurich, Zentralbibliothek, MS Rh. 71, a work was compiled for the specific liturgical gradual. In each case it remains unclear if the or church. In addition,musicologists use of the monastery itself for theneeds of a different weak have long attributed fivechant book fragmentstoReichenau, in some cases on rather grounds, as well as approximately twentyother books of differinggenres that include isolated chants or chant melodies. In lightof thispaucity of chantmanuscripts theauthor's attempt to broaden the spectrum of accessible musical sources can only be welcomed. However, although Klaper discusses chants and chantmelodies froma variety of sources heretoforenot associated with Reiche mainly on two fragments, Karlsruhe, Landesbibliothek, MS U. H. nau, his arguments rely Fr. 24, and Freiburg, Erzbischofliches Archiv, Fragm. 3. But indeed these leaves show sur prisingly littlecorrespondence with the larger sources long accepted as having Reichenau provenance. Inmost cases the author has not convincingly established a parallel transmis sion within themonastery itselfor at other centers. Solely on grounds of comparisons of script and notation of the four-leaf Karlsruhe fragment,a troper-proserfrom around the year 1000, and the double-leaf Freiburg troper fragment,from the eleventh century,any attribution of provenance is a mere act of speculation. On the basis of thevague possibility that the two fragmentsoriginated at Reichenau, or the fact thatno evidence speaks against