medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
"Cormack, Margaret Jean" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>The illustration consists of 3 full sized figure, John the Baptist in
the Middle, with the very tiny "dreamer" sitting (nodding off, head on hand on
knee) with eyes closed, as far as I can see, between John´s legs. The image
has other odd features (J´s halo has a cross with 3 lobes in it - I was
asking about this some time back) and his parents remind me of nothing
more than Mary and John the Evangelist on either side of the cross. I would
really like to know if this has parallels elsewhere, or if it is just an
Icelandic fluke made by combining motifs in an unusual fashion!
>it is, I believe, 14th century.
none of this rings a bell with me.
but my knowledge of 14th c. Islandic imagery is just a bit on the spotty side,
i have to admit, and there may have been a few things i missed.
it *seems* to me that the dynamics of iconographic (and also of stylistic)
representation in these "peripheral" areas can be quite different than those
found in the "center" --"ancient" formulas, long out of fashion in the latter,
can be revived and take on their own sequential life.
and we must always remember that the number of artifacts which might have
originally belonged to any given sequence (and even had a special place as
"primary objects" witin it) which have been lost is really quite *VAST*,
grossly distorting our attempts to draw a nice, smooth line between the points
(artifacts) which have, sometimes quite haphazardly, survived.
(the perhaps unfortunate metaphor is my own, but this "sequence/prime object"
concept is taken from George Kubler's _The Shape of Time: Remarks on the
History of Things_ [Yale U.P., 1962], a fertile little book which has
extensive application to all fields of intellectual history, imNSho.)
it may be that part of the explanation of your curious illumination lies in
this direction, i don't know.
in any case, as i said, it's news to me.
thanks for sharing.
best from here,
christopher
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