The Viewer and the Printed Image in Late Medieval Europe

In this lavishly illustrated study, Areford (art history, University of Massachusetts, Boston) invites the reader to view late medieval prints as they were intended to be seen. Starting with paintings in which prints are part of the background, they are shown to have been posted to walls inside and out, fluttering from string or pasted to doors of taverns and churches. The prints, largely of saints or religious scenes were part of popular acts of devotion and aids to meditation. Areford moves from a consideration of the physical making of the prints to the ways in which viewers interacted with them. These were much more personal than the passive viewing of art in public places. The prints were handled and kissed. Some even became cult objects in themselves, as was the Madonna del Fuoco which survived a fire in the church where it was hung. But Areford notes that one important aspect of the paper prints was their mutability. People had no compunction about writing on them, cutting bits away or pasting them into collages. That the wide dissemination of prints could create an emotional impact is demonstrated in the last two chapters. This is a fine work of interdisciplinary scholarship. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

David S. Areford is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Massachusetts Boston, USA. He is coeditor of Excavating the Medieval Image and coauthor of Origins of European Printmaking: Fifteenth-Century Woodcuts and Their Public.