Image and Ornament in the Early Medieval West
New Perspectives on Post-Roman Art

This book interrogates post-Roman art, arguing for aesthetic variety as a cross-cultural concept in early medieval Europe and the Mediterranean.

Matthias Friedrich (Author)

9781009207775, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 March 2023

300 pages
26 x 18.3 x 1.4 cm, 0.69 kg

Scholarship often treats the post-Roman art produced in central and north-western Europe as representative of the pagan identities of the new 'Germanic' rulers of the early medieval world. In this book, Matthias Friedrich offers a critical reevaluation of the ethnic and religious categories of art that still inform our understanding of early medieval art and archaeology. He scrutinises early medieval visual culture by combining archaeological approaches with art historical methods based on contemporary theory. Friedrich examines the transformation of Roman imperial images, together with the contemporary, highly ornamented material culture that is epitomized by 'animal art.' Through a rigorous analysis of a range of objects, he demonstrates how these pathways produced an aesthetic that promoted variety (varietas), a cross-cultural concept that bridged the various ethnic and religious identities of post-Roman Europe and the Mediterranean worlds.

I. Moving Beyond Dichotomies: 1. The great divide
2. The enduring power of images
II. New Perspectives: 3. Art, archaeology, and agency
4. The bewilderment principle – ornament and surface.

Subject Areas: Medieval European archaeology [HDDM], Medieval history [HBLC1], History of art: Byzantine & Medieval art c 500 CE to c 1400 [ACK], History of art: ancient & classical art,BCE to c 500 CE [ACG]