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From Minor to Major: The Minor Arts in Medieval Art History

From Minor to Major: The Minor Arts in Medieval Art History

Paperback

Series: Index of Christian Art, Book 14

Art HistoryCrafts GeneralEuropean Art

ISBN10: 0983753717
ISBN13: 9780983753711
Publisher: Index of Christian Art Dept. of Art and Arche
Published: Oct 9 2012
Pages: 336
Weight: 2.75
Height: 0.90 Width: 8.50 Depth: 11.00
Language: English

Whether we care to admit it or not, we have always distinguished between those arts that we consider superior and the lesser or minor forms. Giorgio Vasari is usually credited with formally structuring the primary nature of architecture, painting, and sculpture in his Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, which was first published in 1568. Even though this division was initially applied to Italian art, it was not long before it gained more widespread currency. All of the other arts--such as ivory carving, glass, enamels, and goldsmiths' work--were lumped together into a secondary group that took on pejorative associations, especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Other labels have been used over time to describe these minor arts, and we have spoken of them as the decorative, applied, ornamental, luxury, sumptuous, or even mechanical arts. This collection explores the way in which these minor arts have fought back to gain wider acceptance in our holistic approach to studying the arts of the Middle Ages. No longer considered secondary, they are now firmly incorporated into our studies. This collection, written by some of the most eminent scholars in the field, looks at minor media from a historiographical perspective and shows how they are gaining wider acceptance.

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Art History