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This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This manuscript was created ca. 1500 in Bruges or Ghent, and was influenced by the Master of the Prayerbooks, the Master of the Dresden Prayerbook, and the Master of the David Scenes in the Grimani breviary. It was likely made for a female patron with Franciscan affinity, as suggested by the contents of the calendar. The book is heavily illuminated with nineteen miniatures, marginalia on pages without miniatures, and twenty-four calendar illuminations, the latter including zodiac signs paired with illustrations of the labors of the month. Miniatures show detailed interior spaces with Renaissance architectural elements and proportional figures.
One of 4 early ms. marginal sketches in a copy of Giovanni Boccaccio's Filocolo, printed in Venice on 24 December 1488 by Peregrinus de Pasqualibus (ISTC ib00744000):
Leaf h5v: dragon[?] with caption: [...]hina bochina
Leaf k1v: flowers with caption: Ia a mo
Leaf m7v: owl[?] with caption: angela .P.
Leaf n5v: bird in tree with caption: [...]ametta .. [pictured here]
The leaves of this copy are closely cropped at all margins with damage to each sketch. A ms. table headed "T.D.T. L. SS." appears on leaf s4v; it records the locations of the sketches (each denoted by an initial: S, R, C, and P, respectively) in order of appearance by the folio number of the facing leaf.
Established form: Pasqualibus, Peregrinus de, Bononiensis, active 15th century
Penn Libraries call number: Inc B-744 [catalog record]
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
The man who ruined the novel
Alain Robbe-Grillet turned the masses against inventive fiction. Now that he's dead, will experimental writing make a comeback?
By Stephen Marche
March 6, 2008 | I should have felt grief at the news of Alain Robbe-Grillet's death last week. Instead I recognized in myself only confusing relief. He was a great champion for the innovative novel, so in a way I owe him: I'm a novelist, and while I would be loath to call myself avant-garde, my first book did have marginalia all the way through and my second was a literary anthology of an invented country. But the truth is, Robbe-Grillet was a disaster for innovative novels. After him, literary innovation, experiment with form or anything mildly unconventional came to be seen as pretentious and dry, the proper domain of the cheese-eating surrender monkeys and nobody else.
He was probably the most famous novelist in history who never wrote a famous novel, which may be why his obituary writers barely mentioned his fiction. Appropriately, his most celebrated work, the film "Last Year at Marienbad," was inspired by somebody else's novel, Argentine writer Adolpho Bioy Casares' "The Invention of Morel" -- in South America, postwar fiction combined innovation with pleasure in ways that escaped Europe and America.
The "new novel" or "nouveau roman," as Robbe-Grillet defined and explained it in his famous 1963 essay, was high art at its unpalatably highest. It applied rules and regulations, opposed subjectivity and tried to dissolve plot and character into description. The approach was perceived, he admitted, as "difficult to read, addressed only to specialists." The "art novel" became the preserve of high priests. Many novelists you've probably never heard of were deeply influenced by Robbe-Grillet. Even more damaging, though, was the effect his radicalization and elitism had on readers in the English-speaking world: They took a look at the future of the novel according to Robbe-Grillet and walked in the opposite direction.
From our perspective, in 2008, Robbe-Grillet's essays on the new novel don't seem so much wrong as silly. It's not that his tenets are false but that tenets in general seem faintly ludicrous. We haven't rejected the philosophical basis of his novels but the notion of having a philosophical basis at all. Now more than ever, what could be more antiquated than the avant-garde? The trend toward 19th century modes in fiction is peaking, or perhaps has already peaked. "Atonement" may turn out to be the high-water mark, a novel that owes more to Sir Walter Scott than to Ridley Scott. Bookstores are drowning in an ocean of coming-of-age novels and short story collections -- fiction produced with about as much originality as the schedules to tax returns, with as much flair as junior high school book reports. Every time I receive a copy of a new novel about growing up Russian or growing up Portuguese or growing up whatever, I have the same desperate thought: Can't we all agree we've written this book before and that we don't have to write it again?
English fiction in the wake of Robbe-Grillet has become a deliberately old-fashioned activity, like archery or churning your own butter. He represented, through his status as cultural icon of the avant-garde, an entire generation that turned literary experimentation into self-involved blandness. In the '50s, writers like Nabokov could produce "Pale Fire" or "Lolita" and feel themselves part of the mainstream of literary culture. After the '60s, after Robbe-Grillet, anyone who experimented in fiction was being consciously marginal, or at least countercultural. Thomas Pynchon (Nabokov's student) removed himself in the most dramatic way; Nicholson Baker is another, quieter example.
Robbe-Grillet not only convinced a generation of talented novelists that there was something vulgar about attracting a popular readership but also lost the war he undertook to fight; the reaction against him was so much stronger than the revolution. It is entirely appropriate that six months before Robbe-Grillet died, James Wood became the principal literary critic at the New Yorker. He is the master and commander of the forces of archaism. Whenever I read a James Wood essay, I feel like I'm entering an oak-paneled club where I'm forced to put on a tie and turn off my cellphone.
At the core of Wood's appeal as a critic is not an idea or a program but a prejudice, a leaning, that the novel is essentially a nineteenth century form. This prejudice came out most clearly in his review of Monica Ali's "Brick Lane," where he argued -- and I don't think he's wrong -- that the book's strength and appeal derive from inhabiting a pre-modern perspective. We live in a world where divorce does not necessarily result in ultimate personal disaster. Ali's characters do live in such a world and therefore they, and not we, make better characters: "Adultery has withered as a fictional theme because it drags such little consequence behind it nowadays." "Nowadays" is the quintessential Wood word. There is more than a faint tinge of moralism in his nostalgia: You should not want to recognize yourself in novels because characters like you are not fit for them. Wood has made himself the opposite of Robbe-Grillet. He instructs us in the maxim "make it old." The novel is not for novelty. Must you show off?
This traditionalist view of the novel is so dominant at the moment that it has come to seem almost natural. It is not natural. The novel began with great and risky games of identity and authority: "Gulliver's Travels" and "Robinson Crusoe." In the eighteenth century, Laurence Sterne was inserting endpapers into the middle of "Tristram Shandy" and fading text and dressing up as the characters in his book to walk through London for promotional purposes. Thackeray's "History of Henry Esmond," which Trollope considered the finest novel of the nineteenth century, was originally published "in periwig and embroidery, in beautiful type and handsome proportions," using eighteenth century orthography, punctuation and typeface. Never mind "Pale Fire" and "The Sound and the Fury" -- the novel has always been in the middle of a perpetual reinvention.
Robbe-Grillet and the radicalization of novelistic technique scared writers and readers alike. The new novel was too hard to read and too easy to produce. The relief I felt when I heard about Robbe-Grillet's death was also partly hope. Now we can go on, I was thinking.
The two brands of Puritanism embodied by Wood and Robbe-Grillet are beginning to crack. Eight years after Wood coined the phrase "hysterical realism," the book of the year was Junot Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," a perfect example of all he rejected. Robbe-Grillet would have disliked it as well: too much plot and funny dialogue, too many political ideas and witty asides. Writers like Jonathan Safran Foer and David Mitchell, among others, are becoming more aggressive stylistically, and more popular, and more pleasurable.
The two strands of postwar literary fiction, the ultraradical and the willfully archaic, are both antithetical to the spirit of the novel itself, which is polyglot and unpredictable. Novels are supposed to be messy. They are written to express ideals and to make money; they steal from everything and everyone, high, middle and low, belonging to everyone and no one in the same moment. They don't fit anyone's conception. That's why we love them.
This Gospel book was likely created in the capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, in the eleventh century. The manuscript is remarkable on account of its exceptionally small size, as well as the high quality of its script and miniatures. Its extensive image cycle includes six full-page miniatures, four half-page miniatures, four historiated initials, and marginalia.
The Gospel here is preceded by an image of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, thus illustrating John 1:1.
To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This richly illuminated fourteenth-century German homilary is particularly interesting for its rare bifolium of drawings bound in at the front of the book. The headgear worn by the nuns in the drawings is characteristic of Cistercensian and Premostratensian nuns in northern Germany as early as circa 1320. Evidence for dating and localization is also found in the manuscript's relationship with a second homilary in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Douce 185). Despite minor codicological differences--page layout, textblock dimensions, and ruling--it seems likely that the two homilaries were composed as a set in one scriptorium. The drawings at the beginning of the Walters manuscript were inspired by miniatures within the book and are very similar to the style of Master of Douce 185, recently identified as a collaborator of the Willehalm Master. Although the Walters homilary lacks internal evidence for localization, it can be attributed to the lower Rhine on the basis of general affinities between work of this region and English art. The Walters homilary is stylistically close to the small ivory book illustrated with fourteen paintings of the Passion in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no.11-1872), which has Westphalian and north German characteristics. Palette, figural drawings, the use of checkered spandrels, large ivy-leaf terminals, and ape marginalia in the Walters homilary are also close to fragments of an antiphonary from Westphalia scattered in German collections (Düsseldorf, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. D. 37a, b, c and Hamm, Städtisches Gustav-Lübcke-Museum, Mss 5474-5476). A second group of stylistically related manuscripts can be found in a two-volume antiphonary from the Dominican nunnery of Paradise near Soest (Düsseldorf, Universitätsbibliothek, Mss. D.7 and D.9).
To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This small Book of Hours is especially interesting for its profusion of humorous drolleries. Humans, animals, and hybrids are featured in the margins of each page of the book. The artists rendered in small scenes a variety of actions, like cooking, playing game, climbing, fishing, making music or moving the bodies in a dance. These drolleries amuse the faithful during his prayers, while showing scenes that work as metaphors of the soul fighting the vices. The original female owner seems to have been established in the diocese of Cambrai, judging from the use of the Office of the Dead. Several provenance episodes are evidenced by the book in the signatures on the leaves at the beginning and end of the manuscript. A priest in the sixteenth century wrote a message in code on fol. 1v asking to return to him the book if lost. Members of the ducal house of Savoy owned this book of prayer in the seventeenth century, as evidenced by the gilt armorial shield of Charles Emmanuel II (1634-75), duke of Savoy, stamped on the covers.
To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This Book of Hours was completed for Use of Reims ca. 1450-1475 in northeastern France. The book was first owned by Collette, who is portrayed on fol. 76r with the Virgin and Child. An inscription from 1559 on the back pastedown records later ownership by female owner G. Marlot, as well as by her aunt, née Labourgue, wife of the merchant Jean Bourguet, followed by G. Marlot's daughter, Martine Marlot. The amount of female content in the book suggests that the patron, Collette, was very wealthy, as the book derives from a normal workshop program. This Book of Hours contains a heightened amount of prayers to the Virgin, virgins listed in the calendar and litany, as well as the Hours of St. Catherine in a devotional sequence. The manuscript also contains charming marginalia, most famously a garden party scene in which couples play music, and even games such as backgammon, together (fol. 16r).
To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This small Book of Hours is especially interesting for its profusion of humorous drolleries. Humans, animals, and hybrids are featured in the margins of each page of the book. The artists rendered in small scenes a variety of actions, like cooking, playing game, climbing, fishing, making music or moving the bodies in a dance. These drolleries amuse the faithful during his prayers, while showing scenes that work as metaphors of the soul fighting the vices. The original female owner seems to have been established in the diocese of Cambrai, judging from the use of the Office of the Dead. Several provenance episodes are evidenced by the book in the signatures on the leaves at the beginning and end of the manuscript. A priest in the sixteenth century wrote a message in code on fol. 1v asking to return to him the book if lost. Members of the ducal house of Savoy owned this book of prayer in the seventeenth century, as evidenced by the gilt armorial shield of Charles Emmanuel II (1634-75), duke of Savoy, stamped on the covers.
To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.
This book of hours was written in Dutch in the fifteenth century for the use of Utrecht. The Hours of the Virgin and of the Cross are accompanied here by the Dutch translation of Henry Suso's "Cursus aeternae sapientiae," a text that was particularly popular for private devotion in the Netherlands. Once owned by the English collector Lord Amherst, the manuscript is exceptional for its extensive illumination. Webs of foliage cover every margin, most sprouting medallions containing flora and fauna. The divisions in the text are marked by twenty richly painted full-page miniatures, often accompanied by related marginalia. Further illumination in the form of historiated and foliate initials marks minor breaks in the text, and the overall effect is a visual feast for the reader.
To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.
This richly illuminated fourteenth-century German homilary is particularly interesting for its rare bifolium of drawings bound in at the front of the book. The headgear worn by the nuns in the drawings is characteristic of Cistercensian and Premostratensian nuns in northern Germany as early as circa 1320. Evidence for dating and localization is also found in the manuscript's relationship with a second homilary in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Douce 185). Despite minor codicological differences--page layout, textblock dimensions, and ruling--it seems likely that the two homilaries were composed as a set in one scriptorium. The drawings at the beginning of the Walters manuscript were inspired by miniatures within the book and are very similar to the style of Master of Douce 185, recently identified as a collaborator of the Willehalm Master. Although the Walters homilary lacks internal evidence for localization, it can be attributed to the lower Rhine on the basis of general affinities between work of this region and English art. The Walters homilary is stylistically close to the small ivory book illustrated with fourteen paintings of the Passion in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no.11-1872), which has Westphalian and north German characteristics. Palette, figural drawings, the use of checkered spandrels, large ivy-leaf terminals, and ape marginalia in the Walters homilary are also close to fragments of an antiphonary from Westphalia scattered in German collections (Düsseldorf, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. D. 37a, b, c and Hamm, Städtisches Gustav-Lübcke-Museum, Mss 5474-5476). A second group of stylistically related manuscripts can be found in a two-volume antiphonary from the Dominican nunnery of Paradise near Soest (Düsseldorf, Universitätsbibliothek, Mss. D.7 and D.9).
To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.
This Book of Hours from ca. 1480 was possibly made in Tournai. The manuscript passed through the hands of several women, and while the first owner was anonymous, the text and imagery reveals she had Franciscan sympathies. An eighteenth-century inscription at the front of the manuscript suggests it was presented to Philippa of Guelders (ca. 1480-1562) by Pope Leo X upon her ordination at the Franciscan convent of Sainte-Clare in Pont-a-Mousson in 1520. The quality of the miniatures suggests that the artist was a novice, yet his expressive individual style and unusual marginalia, in which figures and animals hold scrolls inscribed with French phrases, provide the manuscript with considerable charm.
To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.
Dated to the tenth century, this manuscript is the oldest Armenian codex in North America and the fifth oldest among documented Armenian Gospel Books. The principal colophon on 2v indicates that Sargis the Priest completed the text in 415 [966]. Within the framed area, the commission of the codex is described: a priest, whose name was replaced by the later owner T’oros, commissioned the work "as decoration and for the splendor of [the] holy church and for the pleasure of the congregation of Rznēr." As the codex was written and commissioned by priests, the manuscript is referred to as the “Gospels of the Priest.” It was formerly known as the “Gospels of the Translators,” as, following the date 415, someone erased the formula “of the Armenian era” and replaced it with “of our Lord,” suggesting an earlier date and that the text was based on the original translation of the Gospels into Armenian during the fifth century. The text is copied in large angular erkat‘agir script. The full page paintings and marginal ornaments bear stylistic characteristics of Armenian illumination of the tenth and eleventh century associated with non-royal patronage. The illustrations comprise the Canon Tables, with only the last two remaining; the Virgin and Child on a wheeled chariot; the framed colophon; ornamental cross with donor’s portrait; portraits of Mathew and Mark together (7sv, at the end of Matthew); and Mark with Luke (114v, at the end of Mark); two unknown saints (192a, at the end of Luke). Marginalia is found throughout the text. It has been suggested that the scribe was also responsible for the illumination.
To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.
Designing iPad Apps Monday, 02/14/2011
Jennifer Brook (The New York Times), William Couch (USA TODAY), Craig Mod (PREPOST / Flipboard)
The iPad and its emerging entourage of Android tablets have introduced a new style of computing, confronting designers with new challenges. Explore practical techniques and eye-opening gotchas of tablet interface design, all grounded in the ergonomics, context, psychology, and nascent culture of these new devices.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Jennifer Brook, Information Architect for the New York Times
The challenge of building the NYTimes iPad app: How do we design something new that feels familiar? Designed for the device, but maintained typography and branding.
Remember that apps are distinct from web and print.
Great apps:
Understand the platform
Start small and improve over time
Require collaboration to build
Crafted crafted with the human eye and touch in mind
Killer apps do 1-3 things well. They are specific, useful, and easy to use.
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.
—p. 71
The waterfall model of development is like a factory and it ends up being too heavy. You need a lighter-weight process to develop simple apps.
When developing, you should put your work on a device as soon as possible. Wireframes and designs should go on a device and stakeholders should view every stage on the device.
Apps should be useful tools for human beings.
William Couch, USA Today | Designing for Distraction
Device | Interaction | Content
Consider the device
-> Device Environment
indoor/outdoor
stationary/moving
focused/distracted
Consider an object's habit field
Windows Phone "Be Here Now"
Kindle is "comfortable in the world" (Tom Armitage)
-> Device Culture
Platforms as cultures
population | customs | governance | styles | beliefs
Consider physical interactions
Device interaction is touch, there's no intermediary
Consider the content
You should have a content API that feeds where you publish
web | mobile | tablets | TV | print
Content can be long form and text online can be a rich experience
Craig Mod, Flipboard | Content Formats & Tablets
HTML5 is the future of books and content
Screens will be paper density (300/dpi)
Great typography will prevail
Ownership is dissolving
The value of marginalia is increasing
The physical is not going away
Skeuomorphism is manifest in the publishing ethos. We're making apps to look like physical books.
When a magazine is replicated on an iPad:
How do you let the user know what they can and can't touch? (Bullet points, touch targets, something more subtle?)
The iPad interaction model isn't fully fleshed out.
As an app designer, you need to teach the user.
Types of Content
Formless (epub) | Definite/semantic/physical (PDF, epub) | Interactive/non-linear HTML5, epub3
ePub doesn't have to be ugly (Virginia Quarterly Review and A Book Apart are good examples).
ePub3 is basically a wrapper for HTML5/CSS3 (so it's very flexible/capable)
Magazine apps can use PDF, that's better than using images, like was previously done on the web and is being done now on apps. PDF is better because it's real text (machine-readable, resizable, copyable).
iOS/Android Native is good for interactive content, because it gives you extreme control over a non-linear flow.
Publishers should make compelling "steal-worthy" content.
This Book of Hours was completed for Use of Reims ca. 1450-1475 in northeastern France. The book was first owned by Collette, who is portrayed on fol. 76r with the Virgin and Child. An inscription from 1559 on the back pastedown records later ownership by female owner G. Marlot, as well as by her aunt, née Labourgue, wife of the merchant Jean Bourguet, followed by G. Marlot's daughter, Martine Marlot. The amount of female content in the book suggests that the patron, Collette, was very wealthy, as the book derives from a normal workshop program. This Book of Hours contains a heightened amount of prayers to the Virgin, virgins listed in the calendar and litany, as well as the Hours of St. Catherine in a devotional sequence. The manuscript also contains charming marginalia, most famously a garden party scene in which couples play music, and even games such as backgammon, together (fol. 16r).
To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
Dated to the tenth century, this manuscript is the oldest Armenian codex in North America and the fifth oldest among documented Armenian Gospel Books. The principal colophon on 2v indicates that Sargis the Priest completed the text in 415 [966]. Within the framed area, the commission of the codex is described: a priest, whose name was replaced by the later owner T’oros, commissioned the work "as decoration and for the splendor of [the] holy church and for the pleasure of the congregation of Rznēr." As the codex was written and commissioned by priests, the manuscript is referred to as the “Gospels of the Priest.” It was formerly known as the “Gospels of the Translators,” as, following the date 415, someone erased the formula “of the Armenian era” and replaced it with “of our Lord,” suggesting an earlier date and that the text was based on the original translation of the Gospels into Armenian during the fifth century. The text is copied in large angular erkat‘agir script. The full page paintings and marginal ornaments bear stylistic characteristics of Armenian illumination of the tenth and eleventh century associated with non-royal patronage. The illustrations comprise the Canon Tables, with only the last two remaining; the Virgin and Child on a wheeled chariot; the framed colophon; ornamental cross with donor’s portrait; portraits of Mathew and Mark together (7sv, at the end of Matthew); and Mark with Luke (114v, at the end of Mark); two unknown saints (192a, at the end of Luke). Marginalia is found throughout the text. It has been suggested that the scribe was also responsible for the illumination.
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This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This book of hours was produced in the first quarter of the 15th century in North-East France. The contents of its calendar point to Paris but include saints particularly associated with Soissons. The same association can be found in the Hours of the Virgin. The manuscript has a fairly standard cycle of miniatures but they are notable for the intricate patterning found in their backgrounds; most especially with the coils of vine scrolls that comprise the setting for Christ in Majesty (fol. 79r). In addition, several folios throughout the text contain marginal dragon-like creatures that can often be seen biting at their own wings. The original patron of the manuscript was male and his portrait can be found on fol. 157r accompanying a seated Virgin and Child.
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This Book of Hours was completed for Use of Reims ca. 1450-1475 in northeastern France. The book was first owned by Collette, who is portrayed on fol. 76r with the Virgin and Child. An inscription from 1559 on the back pastedown records later ownership by female owner G. Marlot, as well as by her aunt, née Labourgue, wife of the merchant Jean Bourguet, followed by G. Marlot's daughter, Martine Marlot. The amount of female content in the book suggests that the patron, Collette, was very wealthy, as the book derives from a normal workshop program. This Book of Hours contains a heightened amount of prayers to the Virgin, virgins listed in the calendar and litany, as well as the Hours of St. Catherine in a devotional sequence. The manuscript also contains charming marginalia, most famously a garden party scene in which couples play music, and even games such as backgammon, together (fol. 16r).
To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This small Book of Hours is especially interesting for its profusion of humorous drolleries. Humans, animals, and hybrids are featured in the margins of each page of the book. The artists rendered in small scenes a variety of actions, like cooking, playing game, climbing, fishing, making music or moving the bodies in a dance. These drolleries amuse the faithful during his prayers, while showing scenes that work as metaphors of the soul fighting the vices. The original female owner seems to have been established in the diocese of Cambrai, judging from the use of the Office of the Dead. Several provenance episodes are evidenced by the book in the signatures on the leaves at the beginning and end of the manuscript. A priest in the sixteenth century wrote a message in code on fol. 1v asking to return to him the book if lost. Members of the ducal house of Savoy owned this book of prayer in the seventeenth century, as evidenced by the gilt armorial shield of Charles Emmanuel II (1634-75), duke of Savoy, stamped on the covers.
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This richly illuminated fourteenth-century German homilary is particularly interesting for its rare bifolium of drawings bound in at the front of the book. The headgear worn by the nuns in the drawings is characteristic of Cistercensian and Premostratensian nuns in northern Germany as early as circa 1320. Evidence for dating and localization is also found in the manuscript's relationship with a second homilary in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Douce 185). Despite minor codicological differences--page layout, textblock dimensions, and ruling--it seems likely that the two homilaries were composed as a set in one scriptorium. The drawings at the beginning of the Walters manuscript were inspired by miniatures within the book and are very similar to the style of Master of Douce 185, recently identified as a collaborator of the Willehalm Master. Although the Walters homilary lacks internal evidence for localization, it can be attributed to the lower Rhine on the basis of general affinities between work of this region and English art. The Walters homilary is stylistically close to the small ivory book illustrated with fourteen paintings of the Passion in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no.11-1872), which has Westphalian and north German characteristics. Palette, figural drawings, the use of checkered spandrels, large ivy-leaf terminals, and ape marginalia in the Walters homilary are also close to fragments of an antiphonary from Westphalia scattered in German collections (Düsseldorf, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. D. 37a, b, c and Hamm, Städtisches Gustav-Lübcke-Museum, Mss 5474-5476). A second group of stylistically related manuscripts can be found in a two-volume antiphonary from the Dominican nunnery of Paradise near Soest (Düsseldorf, Universitätsbibliothek, Mss. D.7 and D.9).
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This manuscript was created ca. 1500 in Bruges or Ghent, and was influenced by the Master of the Prayerbooks, the Master of the Dresden Prayerbook, and the Master of the David Scenes in the Grimani breviary. It was likely made for a female patron with Franciscan affinity, as suggested by the contents of the calendar. The book is heavily illuminated with nineteen miniatures, marginalia on pages without miniatures, and twenty-four calendar illuminations, the latter including zodiac signs paired with illustrations of the labors of the month. Miniatures show detailed interior spaces with Renaissance architectural elements and proportional figures.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This richly illuminated fourteenth-century German homilary is particularly interesting for its rare bifolium of drawings bound in at the front of the book. The headgear worn by the nuns in the drawings is characteristic of Cistercensian and Premostratensian nuns in northern Germany as early as circa 1320. Evidence for dating and localization is also found in the manuscript's relationship with a second homilary in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Douce 185). Despite minor codicological differences--page layout, textblock dimensions, and ruling--it seems likely that the two homilaries were composed as a set in one scriptorium. The drawings at the beginning of the Walters manuscript were inspired by miniatures within the book and are very similar to the style of Master of Douce 185, recently identified as a collaborator of the Willehalm Master. Although the Walters homilary lacks internal evidence for localization, it can be attributed to the lower Rhine on the basis of general affinities between work of this region and English art. The Walters homilary is stylistically close to the small ivory book illustrated with fourteen paintings of the Passion in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no.11-1872), which has Westphalian and north German characteristics. Palette, figural drawings, the use of checkered spandrels, large ivy-leaf terminals, and ape marginalia in the Walters homilary are also close to fragments of an antiphonary from Westphalia scattered in German collections (Düsseldorf, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. D. 37a, b, c and Hamm, Städtisches Gustav-Lübcke-Museum, Mss 5474-5476). A second group of stylistically related manuscripts can be found in a two-volume antiphonary from the Dominican nunnery of Paradise near Soest (Düsseldorf, Universitätsbibliothek, Mss. D.7 and D.9).
To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.
This Book of Hours was completed for Use of Reims ca. 1450-1475 in northeastern France. The book was first owned by Collette, who is portrayed on fol. 76r with the Virgin and Child. An inscription from 1559 on the back pastedown records later ownership by female owner G. Marlot, as well as by her aunt, née Labourgue, wife of the merchant Jean Bourguet, followed by G. Marlot's daughter, Martine Marlot. The amount of female content in the book suggests that the patron, Collette, was very wealthy, as the book derives from a normal workshop program. This Book of Hours contains a heightened amount of prayers to the Virgin, virgins listed in the calendar and litany, as well as the Hours of St. Catherine in a devotional sequence. The manuscript also contains charming marginalia, most famously a garden party scene in which couples play music, and even games such as backgammon, together (fol. 16r).
To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.
This Book of Hours was created in northeastern France in the early fourteenth century, possibly for the marriage of Louis I of Châtillon (d. 1346) and Jeanne of Hainaut, as the Châtillon de Blois arms are depicted on fols. 19r and 81v, and the arms of Hainaut also appear in the borders, including in conjunction with the Châtillon arms on fol. 19r. The manuscript is exceptional for the abundance of drolleries and lively hybrids that inhabit nearly every page. Stylistically these images have been linked to a workshop in the Artois region, possibly based in Arras, and related manuscripts were traced by Carl Nordenfalk in his 1979 publication. Although the manuscript is incomplete, lacking its calendar and likely some images, its surviving illumination provides an excellent example of the playfulness of art during this period.