On the State of Medieval Art History

Abstract

Ever since Renaissance humanists conceived the Middle Ages as a foil for their own accomplishments, “medieval art” has been understood not so much as a result of co-herent artistic developments as the product of external his-torical processes. To be sure, scholars have discerned short chains of linked morphological transformations, usually in connection with efforts to reinstate classical conventions. But they have been unable to chart the kind of logical succession of artistic responses that give apparent consis-tency to ancient Greek sculpture or Renaissance painting - that is, a consistency largely independent of extra-ar-tistic events.

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Herbert L. Kessler

Herbert Kessler's earliest publications were on Northern Renaissance art, including the exhibition catalogue, French and Flemish Illuminated Manuscripts from Chicago Collections (1969). His subsequent work has centered on early Western and Byzantine manuscripts, painting, and ivory carving, and taken form in The Illustrated Bibles from Tours (1977), The Cotton Genesis (with Kurt Weitzmann, 1986), and various articles, most recently in Dumbarton Oaks Papers (xli, 1987), and the Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum (xxx, 1987). His current research is on narrative and medieval church decoration in Rome. [Department of the History of Art, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218]