While I have been enjoying this discussion immensely, I might have
missed some of it, but I was surprised not to see M.-D. Chenu,
Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century cited. In a very
different vein, Joyce Salisbury's recent book might also be of
interest: The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages. What has
principally motivated me to add to the discussion, however, is that
it would be a shame if the plentiful evidence of medieval art were
not mentioned. St Bernard couldn't have grumbled about monks looking
at the fantastic world carved on Romanesque capitals, if they had not
been carved first. And with respect to nature, there was an
increasing interest in naturalism and direct observation through the
13th century. Villard de Honnecourt quite problematically claimed to
have copied his lion drawings from life, and Matthew Paris, a little
later, certainly recorded the remarkable aspects of the natural world
that caught his eye; on this, see Suzanne Lewis, The Art of Matthew
Paris in the Chronica Majora (Berkeley, 1987). The natural world
begins to invade both the manuscript page and churches through the
13th century. Highly naturalistic birds and insects cavort through
recognizable species of plants in the margins of Jean Pucelle's
manuscripts, and medieval sculptors were obviously seeking
inspiration in the hedgerows and fields: on the latter, the
delightful little book by Nikolaus Pevsner, The Leaves of Southwell
(London, 1945) has some wonderful perspectives. By the 14th century,
artistic interest in nature is very well established, but here, I am
tempted to raise another issue: namely, that, as has been said by
some already, there was no one particular attitude towards nature in
the Middle Ages. For everyone who exhibited a delighted eye in the
natural world, there seems to have been an old fuddy-duddy like St
Bernard, and that appears to be as true of the 14th as of the 12th
century. There is a letter of 1340 surviving from the Florentine
painter Taddeo Gaddi, who was writing to Fra Simone Fidati, an
Augustinian canon he knew, complaining that he had seriously damaged
his eyes by gazing at an eclipse of the sun for too long and seeking
Simone's advise and prayers. Simone wrote back, chastising him for
his impious curiosity and sinful pride in "lookiing surmisingly into
the heavens; yea, they [your eyes] are affected and darkened because
you lifted your face with pride towards the heights, not towards your
Creator, and not to praise His majesty or the wonders He has made,
but so that you might understand those things which there is no
usefulness in knowing." Useful or not, this was just about the time
that Petrarch was climbing Mt Ventoux to take the view, and as well,
just about the time that Ambrogio Lorenzetti in Siena was painting
little panels that comprise the earliest pure landscapes to survive.
Even the pope delighted in fishing scenes on the walls of his palace
in Avignon. What I can't quite figure out is the relation between
the positive and negative attitudes here. The balance was surely
tipping continuously towards a positive appreciation of nature, but
certainly not in an uncontested process.
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag
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