A great piece of writing, thanks. We have a collection of big, heavy art books that are hard to justify owning in our small space, until I remember they are there and flip through them. It's always rewarding. Often they can be found at a reasonable price at antique shows or book fairs.
And the idea of the Book of Kells as an "art book" is a funny thought at first, but why not? We visited and saw one page. Looks like I'll need to go back to Ireland a few hundred more times to see the rest, unless they're let me borrow it...
Haha, we actually kept a reproduction of the Book of Hours (not Kells) at the library, so that's affected how I see illuminated manuscripts I guess. I tried researching the history of art book publishing a bit for this post and it seems like most historians do considering the Book of Kells/illustrated science guides from Greece and Rome to be the first art books! But in the sense that illuminated manuscripts are original instead of reproductions of other existing artworks, perhaps they're (strangely enough) closest to zines?
lovely post, really enjoyed this, thank you
That Kyoto Maiko painting really is fantastic - even if I am only looking at a print of it on a laptop screen.
Nice read :). Tautological definitions are my biggest pet peeve.
A great piece of writing, thanks. We have a collection of big, heavy art books that are hard to justify owning in our small space, until I remember they are there and flip through them. It's always rewarding. Often they can be found at a reasonable price at antique shows or book fairs.
And the idea of the Book of Kells as an "art book" is a funny thought at first, but why not? We visited and saw one page. Looks like I'll need to go back to Ireland a few hundred more times to see the rest, unless they're let me borrow it...
Haha, we actually kept a reproduction of the Book of Hours (not Kells) at the library, so that's affected how I see illuminated manuscripts I guess. I tried researching the history of art book publishing a bit for this post and it seems like most historians do considering the Book of Kells/illustrated science guides from Greece and Rome to be the first art books! But in the sense that illuminated manuscripts are original instead of reproductions of other existing artworks, perhaps they're (strangely enough) closest to zines?