Hello, and welcome to my exhibit!!
With so much focus placed on the achievements of Western cultures during the medieval era, I was really curious to explore art pieces from other cultures in an attempt to figure out what we can learn through a more cross-cultural look at works from this time period. In this project, I analyze key elements of illuminations from around the world, from the comfortable familiarity of Italian culture to other, less celebrated cultures during the period such as South Asian, Jewish, and Persian cultures. Despite social difference and physical distance, the vast majority of cultures that were writing manuscripts during the middle ages were united in that they drew some form of illuminations next to their writing, for a variety of different reasons.
However, this does not mean that each culture’s way of decorating their manuscripts was the same. By comparing these differences of each culture’s illusion formats, subjects, and styles, this project shows that art analysis can shed light on the values and beliefs each group held during this era, especially among and for the common people, who many of these decorations were aimed towards.
Because the period of time we consider to be the “medieval era” is so broad and only takes into account the political and social events of (Christian) Europe, I will instead be focusing on slightly different time frames for each culture in order to capture an accurate representation of each one’s unique history. In addition, there are many variables affecting illumination style within a cultural group, such as the individual artist, type of manuscript, and period of time the piece was drawn. While this project does take this into account, my focus will be more on making slightly wider generalizations based on the available information.