Vision and Image in Early Christian England
Vision and Image in Early Christian England
$49.00
USDProfessor Henderson's book investigates the ways in which the English, in the two centuries following their conversion to Christianity, expressed their new convictions about this world, and the next. It deals with the impact of books and travel on the Anglo-Saxons, discusses personal sanctity and the manipulation of belief by the state, and identifies the positive role of art in a society constantly afflicted by wars and epidemics. Henderson combines now fragmentary visual and literary evidence in this carefully illustrated book.
- Probes the social and religio-political objectives of Anglo-Saxon art and places its achievements solidly in a European and late-Antique context
- Investigates and illustrates the use of Tyrian purple: 'the best kept industrial secret of the Ancient world'
- Lavishly illustrated
Reviews & endorsements
"A rich account..." Speculum
"...a good general overview of a critical period in the development of English art." Choice
"A useful resource of information for scholars of the early English Church and Anglo-Saxon art." Religious Studies Review
"Although aimed primarily at art historians, Henderson's work is valuable also to those primarily interested in literary imagery. Vision and Image demonstrates a strong connection between insular and continental art. Henderson's work offers a fresh synthesis...The work assumes an easy familiarity with both English history and geography and is best suited to those well-versed in the field of Anglo-Saxon history." Comitatus
"...a useful resource of information for scholars of information for scholars of the early English Church and Anglo-Saxon art." Religious Studies Review
"George Henderson has written widely on medieval art and, in recent years on early Insular art. His Vision and Image is an imaginative and stimulating exploration of art produced in England during the seventeenth and eighth centuries within wider Insular and European contexts." - The Catholic Historical Review Johns Higgit, University of Edinburgh
Product details
January 2012Paperback
9780521180733
320 pages
246 × 189 × 17 mm
0.58kg
Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction: approaches to images in the early Christian world
- 2. Secular impulses towards the Insular manuscript style
- 3. Christian art: influx and impact
- 4. The colour purple: a late-antique phenomenon and its Anglo-Saxon reflexes
- 5. Holy men and heavenly beings
- 6. Incentives towards artistic production in early Christian England: some case histories.
