Arieanne Evans-Hill Essays - Textual Scholarship, Publishing

Arieanne Evans-Hill November 2017 History of Art I Dr. Jones Manuscript Reflection Illuminated manuscripts are expressions of piety, so no I don't think that St. John of Damascne and St. Bernard of Clairvaux would approve of the construction and distribution of such art. These two believe that it's only essential to have devotion within us rather than creating false representations and idols. Although the art and words in the manuscripts choose to convey and exemplify the religious beliefs of the medieval time period, it can still be seen as paganistic. Illuminated manuscripts can almost be interpreted as advertisements for certain religions without actually including God, himself. Illuminated words that are golden and colorful drawings have no correlation to what a religion actually entails but it does attract readers because of how expensive and impressive it may appear. In Esoteric Buddhism, art was key in educating the people that were interested in learning about Buddhist gods and their relationships. Mandalas are cosmic diagrams of the universe in schematic order. They were essentially identical in manner to illuminated manuscripts because they incorporated gold print, vibrant colors and silk (which is very thin) comparable to the thin paper of said manuscripts. In the Late Antique Byzantine era, the Icon of St Michael the Archangel also can be considered an advertisement for a religion that is purely pagan. It doesn't even have God in the portrait and was constructed with a lot of expensive objects, which makes it comparable to illuminated manuscripts. Something that's comparable to the practice of producing and using illuminated manuscripts would be the advertisement of books sold by megachurches that don't really help the buyer, only the church's bank. Those books sell false hope.