Kalamazoo Book Blog: my manuscript garden
May. 28th, 2013 10:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjFisher, Celia. 2004. Flowers in Medieval Manuscripts. University of Toronto Press, Toronto. ISBN 0-8020-3796-8
The University of Toronto Press has a series of relatively thin books of thematic groups of elements from manuscript illustrations. I find them a valuable source of image inspiration (an brainstorming for historic artifacts to collect or reproduce) when they intersect a topic I'm interested in. This volume presents an array of depictions of flowers and foliage, both from illustrated herbals and included in marginal decorations. The flowers are often vibrantly naturalistic, allowing not only species identification but showing a range of color variations for items such as pinks (dianthus) and irises. My own interests tend to lean towards inspiration for my own gardening, but this collection could also serve as inspiration for needlework project (or for manuscript illumination, of course). The text discusses not only the context of the manuscripts in which the images occur, but botanical details of the plants and their habitats, as well as why they were relevant to medieval life and so chosen to be depicted.
The University of Toronto Press has a series of relatively thin books of thematic groups of elements from manuscript illustrations. I find them a valuable source of image inspiration (an brainstorming for historic artifacts to collect or reproduce) when they intersect a topic I'm interested in. This volume presents an array of depictions of flowers and foliage, both from illustrated herbals and included in marginal decorations. The flowers are often vibrantly naturalistic, allowing not only species identification but showing a range of color variations for items such as pinks (dianthus) and irises. My own interests tend to lean towards inspiration for my own gardening, but this collection could also serve as inspiration for needlework project (or for manuscript illumination, of course). The text discusses not only the context of the manuscripts in which the images occur, but botanical details of the plants and their habitats, as well as why they were relevant to medieval life and so chosen to be depicted.
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Date: 2013-05-30 05:19 pm (UTC)(I remember being aghast when someone claimed it was difficult to find out what flowers they had in the middle ages-- jeez, did this person never even *see* anything from the Cloisters?)