Illustrations of the Psalms in English and French Manuscripts of the 12th–13th Centuries: the Formation Mechanisms of Iconographic Patterns

The research is devoted to the formation of iconographic schemes in psalm illustrations in English and French manuscripts of the XIIth–XIIIth centuries. Its purpose is to explore the features of the medieval miniaturist’s work and ways of creating and transmission iconographic schemes based on a wide range of miniatures illustrating psalms. The following theoretic issues were examined in the first chapter: problems of copying, transmission of iconographic schemes and using of models in medieval art. The chapter describes history of the researches from the XIXth century until the present and, in addition, attempts to introduce and determine the necessary terminology for these subjects. The second chapter is devoted to the specificity of English and French illuminated manuscripts of the XIIth–XIIIth centuries. It describes manuscript’s illumination forms and principles of subject’s choosing for psalms illustration. Four main types of illustration can be distinguished: literal illustrations, Old Testament and New Testament scenes, dogmatic compositions. Despite the existence of typical programs with recurring subjects, there are a huge number of diverse scenes in the psalters, which doesn’t have any tradition of depicting and stable iconographic schemes. Hereby miniaturists constantly faced the need to create new compositions working on illustration of psalters. In the third chapter the mechanisms and techniques which were used by miniaturists to form compositions are scrutinized. It describes the detachment of composition into elements of which new scenes were “collected”: from the smallest details – modules – to the whole scene, which can be transferred to another context and completely change its meaning. Also in the last chapter “standard” illustrations for psalms in typical manuscripts are analyzed. The iconography of these miniatures remains quite variable, various changes are often made to iconographic schemes, and it disproves the idea of their mechanical copying. Thus, the variety of techniques used to create new scenes, and the freedom in working with modules and motives let us determinate the visual memory of masters as one of the main mechanisms for the formation and transmission of iconographic schemes, so we can say that a master used a “visual dictionary” known to him to create new compositions.