Gesta: Essays in Honor of Whitney Snow Stoddard, 1986
A fragment of stained glass preserved since 1919 in the Rhode Island School of Design Museum was ... more A fragment of stained glass preserved since 1919 in the Rhode Island School of Design Museum was documented in the 19th century in situ in one of the oculi in the galleries of the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame in Mantes, The unusual subject is tentatively identified here as part of an Apocalypse or hagiographical cycle; associated in size and style with a few Infancy of Christ scenes in Mantes, it provides evidence that a brilliantly colored narrative program was once to be seen in the hemicycle tribune. The style appears later than that of the west rose, and affinities with glass in Burgundy and with manuscript illumination in Paris suggest a date in the second quarter of the 13th century for this campaign of decoration.
Gesta: Essays in Honor of Whitney Snow Stoddard, 1986
A fragment of stained glass preserved since 1919 in the Rhode Island School of Design Museum was ... more A fragment of stained glass preserved since 1919 in the Rhode Island School of Design Museum was documented in the 19th century in situ in one of the oculi in the galleries of the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame in Mantes, The unusual subject is tentatively identified here as part of an Apocalypse or hagiographical cycle; associated in size and style with a few Infancy of Christ scenes in Mantes, it provides evidence that a brilliantly colored narrative program was once to be seen in the hemicycle tribune. The style appears later than that of the west rose, and affinities with glass in Burgundy and with manuscript illumination in Paris suggest a date in the second quarter of the 13th century for this campaign of decoration.
George Warner published British Library MS Royal 2B.vii in a black and white facsimile in 1912, t... more George Warner published British Library MS Royal 2B.vii in a black and white facsimile in 1912, thus securing its place among the most frequently cited of sumptuous English manuscripts dating from the early fourteenth century (p. 4, n. 5 lists the main contributions). Stanton had published several articles on aspects of its illumination, ownership, and codicology prior to this monograph, and she is evidently also familiar with a wide range of comparative material, notably the Psalter made for Queen Isabelle ca. 1308 that is now in Munich. Yet this book is the only serious attempt since Warner's study to come to terms with the extraordinary number and variety of pictures contained in the Psalter's prefatory and text pages. Long known for its Tudor owner, who acquired it in 1553, the Queen Mary Psalter has no indications of original or early ownership, though its luxury quality has led most scholars to associate its production with the London court. Many previous studies had concentrated on the iconographic quirks of the Old Testament narratives in the prefatory pages, and the "marginalia" below the text and distributed throughout the book. The latter were executed in a lively style resembling that modernist English favorite, the watercolor , but all the illuminations have usually been attributed to a single "Queen Mary Master." The affiliates of this style are usefully reviewed (pp. 18-25). The rather muddy half-tones of most illustrations fall short of vivid descriptions, but this is outweighed by the advantage of an affordable monograph that will be widely disseminated and discussed. Shifting the argument from production to reception, Stanton gradually builds a case for the particular usefulness of this "functioning devotional and didactic book" to a queen (and) mother, most likely Isabelle of France who was married to Edward II in 1308 and ruled England in the name of their son in 1327-1330, or to someone in her circle. She rightly insists on the "intertextual and intervisual couplings between different types of signs-images (often of different sorts, in initials, miniatures, and margins) and words (again of different sorts, and different languages)" (8). In so doing, she meticulously fills lacunae in Warner's transcription of the prefatory texts (Appendix A), and proposes a "Liturgical Organization of the Imagery" (Appendix B). Throughout, she relates the images to adjacent texts, and seldom reproduces images without the whole page. Similarly, as far as possible she insisted on a plate layout that manifests whole openings as design units, so that her readers can appreciate the narratives that span verso and recto. It is welcome to find ample discussion and illustration of the richly colored and gilded images that illustrate the gospel story (beginning with a Tree of Jesse and the Holy Kinship of St. Anne and the Virgin Mary (ff. 67v-68, Col. Pls. 3A & B, arguably the "central image of the book, 242). Stanton rightly emphasizes the unity of the book, for instance finding that "many scenes [of Christ's life] are footnoted by drawings of martyred saints, the glowing colors of the sacred story providing the model for the pale echoes of the saints" (73). She also notes an apt pairing (in the same mode I would have said) of the "pale tinted drawings and informally-written text in vernacular language" that lends historicity to the Old Testament stories by association with the chronicle tradition (76). The section on function is marked by a very lucid and valuable treatment of the differing uses made of Psalters, as opposed to the newer form of Hours (pp. 58-80). Stanton concludes that the slow-moving weekly cycle, as distinct from an intense daily cycle, makes the psalter more suitable for family instruction, while the hours served for private devotion. She notes that this may explain why few psalters have an image of the owner in prayer, such as became the norm for women's books of hours. She loosely relates the whole text-image program of the Queen Mary Psalter to the precepts adumbrated by Edmund of Abingdon in the prior century, finding contemplation of God's creation in the marginalia, of His Word in the text, and the Incarnation in the life of Christ that illustrates the Psalms (77). Indeed, there are many elements in this psalter that associate it with the contemplative affect of the Books of Hours that were more fashionable in France. The meat of the book presents "The Iconographic Context: Thematic emphases in the Queen Mary Psalter" (pp. 81-189). Stanton demonstrates the linkage of all modes of expression in the book to three themes: women and motherhood, including the "misuse of female power"; kinship; and leaders such as Moses and David making responsible or mistaken decisions for their people. The elaboration of sequences such as the child born to Abraham by Hagar, made illegitimate here by the depiction of his marriage to Sarah as a prelude (figs. 28-30), at the expense of more political aspects of Abraham's life, demonstrate these predilections. Rachel's death in childbirth is avoided by eliding her with Jacob's surviving wife, thus also avoiding the topic of his bigamy. In some cases, Stanton finds that French rather than English traditions are followed, noting
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