Customer Reviews

Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

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I would like to begin this review with a warning. If you are an enthusiast for drawings as we are normally accostomed to, it is highly likely that you might experience some disappointment with many of the drawings presented in this catalogue. This is not to claim that they are of inferior quality; it is just that they are so different.

Do not expect the complexity, style or perspective that one might encounter in great drawings by masters such as Durer, Leonardo or Rubens. Our eyes are so conditioned to this type of style that the flatness, relative simplicity and naivity in these earlier drawings can come as a shock and a challenge to the senses.

The 50 drawing examples have been sourced from university and monastic libraries. Some of the examples are charts, diagrams and maps. For a detailed overview see the NYT review by Roberta Smith. This catalogue comes with interesting essays and the reproductions are of a high standard. Recommended to those with an open and enquiring interest in the early history of drawing.

Well, not everyone's cup of tea, of course.

This pictorial extravaganza is based on the exhibits, with their notes, of a show of medieval drawings displayed at the Met in 2009. The graphic reproductions are gorgeous for definition and color (in several cases you can see the script on the opposite side of the vellum sheet showing through its transparency). It is prefaced by an illustrated thirty-page analysis and summary, and followed by copious notes, index, and geographical outline of where the works are normally held. I imagine it was arranged as a fine souvenir for the attendees; but only the better-heeled ones - it is obviously a very expensive production indeed - but ideal for a certain kind of coffee-table.

I suppose a display like this is not the right place for a presentation on the technical aspects of medieval draughting, but I found myself wanting to know more about what the artists' inks and paints were made from (some of those colors are still brilliant after 1000 years), and how they managed quills and brushes. If there are plans to extend the book, this is an area to consider.

But a magnificent production. Too bad I'm limited to five stars.