The Cross, the Gospels, and the Work of Art in the Carolingian Age

The book explores the power of representation in the Carolingian period, arguing that people used images to assert the value of artworks.

Beatrice E. Kitzinger (Author)

9781108428811, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 April 2019

322 pages, 148 colour illus.
26.2 x 18.5 x 2.1 cm, 0.98 kg

'This active component of the iconography is well articulated throughout Kitzinger's scholarly volume.' Eric Ramírez-Weaver, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies

In this book, Beatrice E. Kitzinger explores the power of representation in the Carolingian period, demonstrating how images were used to assert the value and efficacy of art works. She focuses on the cross, Christianity's central sign, which simultaneously commemorates sacred history, functions in the present, and prepares for the end of time. It is well recognized that the visual attributes of the cross were designed to communicate its theology relative to history and eschatology; Kitzinger argues that early medieval artists also developed a formal language to articulate its efficacious powers in the present day. Defined through form and text as the sign of the present, the image of the cross articulated the instrumentality of religious objects and built spaces. Whereas medieval and modern scholars have pondered the theological problems posed by representation, Kitzinger here proposes a visual argument that affirms the self-reflexive value of art works in the early medieval West. Introducing little-known sources, she re-evaluates both the image of the cross and the project of book-making in an expanded field of Carolingian painting.

Part I. The Cross and the Work of Art: Introduction: temporality, utilitas, and the signum crucis
1. Making the multitemporal cross
Part II. The Cross and the Gospels: 2. Otfrid of Weissenburg's Book of the Gospels
3. Cross-image and Gospel Book
4. The angers gospels: sign and story
Conclusion: the fact of manufacture.

Subject Areas: Medieval history [HBLC1], European history [HBJD], History of art: Byzantine & Medieval art c 500 CE to c 1400 [ACK]