The Mystic Ark: Hugh of Saint Victor, Art, and Thought in the Twelfth Century (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 2014) (original) (raw)

Abstract

The Mystic Ark is a forty-two page description of the most complex work of art from the entire Middle Ages: a painting also known as The Mystic Ark. The purpose of the painting was to serve as the basis of a series of brilliant lectures undertaken by Hugh--who was considered to be the leading theologian of Europe during his life--from around 1125 to 1130 at Saint Victor, a Parisian abbey of Augustinian canons, whose school, along with those of Notre-Dame and Ste-Geneviève, acted as the predecessor of the University of Paris. The purpose of the text (which I have translated from the Latin) was to enable others outside of Saint Victor--teachers, advanced students, scholars, monks, canons--to undertake similar discussions themselves by providing the information necessary to produce the image. Containing all time, all space, all matter, all human history, and all spiritual striving, this highly political image dealt with a series of crucial cultural issues in the education of society's elite during one of the great periods of intellectual change in Western history. Essentially a visualization of Hugh's summa-like systematic theology, De sacramentis, the multiplication and systematization of imagery in The Mystic Ark bridged the gap between literature's potential for complex expression and such expression in large-scale public art, an achievement that led to the creation of the Gothic portal: the major means of public communication apart from the spoken word, and the most significant, fully indigenous expression of Northern European, public figural art of the Middle Ages. Hugh of Saint Victor's Mystic Ark: Illustrations: http://mysticark.ucr.edu. This site presents a collection of images of The Mystic Ark that repeat in greater visual detail the same illustrations published in my study The Mystic Ark: Hugh of Saint Victor, Art, and Thought in the Twelfth Century for those who would like to study the image of The Mystic Ark more closely than is possible with the printed illustrations.

Figures (2)

es §$larery rererred to, 1et alone aGescriped if any detail. When they are mentioned, it is seldom with more than a word or a phrase, at the most a sentence. Almost completely ignored by art historians because of the immense difficulty of its text, Hugh of Saint Victor's Mystic Ark is a forty-two page description of the most complex individual work of figural art of the entire Middle Ages, a painting also known as The Mystic Ark, making both the text and the painting among the most unusual sources we have for an understanding of medieval visual culture and its nolemical context. as The purpose of the painting was to serve as the basis of a series of brilliant lectures undertaken by Hugh--who was considered to be the leading theologian of Europe during his life--from around 1125 to 1130 at Saint Victor, a Parisian abbey of Augustinian canons, whose school acted as a predecessor of the University of Paris. Tl purpose of the text was to enable others outside of Saint Victor--teachers, students, scholars, monks, canons--to undertake similar weeks-long discussions themselves by providing the information necessary to produce the image, an image that was meant t be repeated again and again, each new construction in a sense being an "original" (Fig. x1, 39, 3, 4). Given the unusually large number of surviving manuscript copies of The Mystic Ark--enough to make it the medieval equivalent of a best-seller--it seems that The Mystic Ark was very successful at addressing a widely and urgently felt need among a great part of the educated elite of Western Europe during a period of significant intellectual change.

es §$larery rererred to, 1et alone aGescriped if any detail. When they are mentioned, it is seldom with more than a word or a phrase, at the most a sentence. Almost completely ignored by art historians because of the immense difficulty of its text, Hugh of Saint Victor's Mystic Ark is a forty-two page description of the most complex individual work of figural art of the entire Middle Ages, a painting also known as The Mystic Ark, making both the text and the painting among the most unusual sources we have for an understanding of medieval visual culture and its nolemical context. as The purpose of the painting was to serve as the basis of a series of brilliant lectures undertaken by Hugh--who was considered to be the leading theologian of Europe during his life--from around 1125 to 1130 at Saint Victor, a Parisian abbey of Augustinian canons, whose school acted as a predecessor of the University of Paris. Tl purpose of the text was to enable others outside of Saint Victor--teachers, students, scholars, monks, canons--to undertake similar weeks-long discussions themselves by providing the information necessary to produce the image, an image that was meant t be repeated again and again, each new construction in a sense being an "original" (Fig. x1, 39, 3, 4). Given the unusually large number of surviving manuscript copies of The Mystic Ark--enough to make it the medieval equivalent of a best-seller--it seems that The Mystic Ark was very successful at addressing a widely and urgently felt need among a great part of the educated elite of Western Europe during a period of significant intellectual change.

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