Department of Art History  |  Sweet Briar College

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EXHIBITION CATEGORIES Decorated Pottery ILLUSTRATION Prints Drawing Photography Sculpture Painting

ILLUSTRATION.... essays by Bobbie Jo Hedrick and Jane Kwak
		Medieval Illuminated Manuscript
		Page by Louise Bourgeois
		Illuminated Kalakacaryakatha Manuscript

               The question of whether an illustration in a book or scroll is "art" remains unresolved. Although today we may admire as "art" a page from a Medieval illuminated manuscript, at the time it was made the illuminator would have been regarded as a craftsman rather than as an artist in the modern sense, and his work as an example of his skill.

               The lowly status occupied by the illustrator of books, is challenged by Louise Bourgeois, a woman already recognized as an artist who has turned her attention to the creation of a illustrated book. Unlike the medieval illuminator, however, besides producing the illustrations, she has also written the text. In acknowledging Bourgeois's illustrated book as a work of art, the status of the medieval illustrator is thereby also increased.

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ILLUSTRATION

• Medieval Illuminated Manuscript
• Page by Louise Bourgeois
• Illuminated Kalakacaryakatha Manuscript