"The suffering of the Middle Ages"

We were wearing from serious books with illustrations essential for understanding the text. And it’s a pity! .. With that more curiosity, I read and examined the book “The Suffering Middle Ages” (M.: AST, 2019) - a solid volume of 400 pages with the subtitle “Paradoxes of Christian iconography”.

Tom’s headline seems to imply a content far from my classes, but I read with pleasure about the most book and - that I would like to emphasize - I examined the pictures with particular interest. And there were four and a half hundred of them, that for the book itself - that is, not for the album - very unusual.

I immediately note that without such an illustrative series, the design of the authors could not be realized at all, so the illustrations here are not a decoration, but a necessity. It is successful that they are adequately reproduced - despite the grayish paper, everything was quite decent printed, including a certain number of pictures in color.

My attempt to briefly describe the main provisions of this solid labor - and I wanted to show the reader that in the book under discussion the lively of the copyright did not obscure the scientificity of the content - alas, it was unsuccessful. Given the encyclopedicity of the style of this, this should be expected.

The through plot of Tom - stories about images of actors and decor in Christian religious texts, sculptures and “ pictures ”. Discussion of the clothes of the baby Jesus, the portal of the Rouen Cathedral, furniture in the room of the woman in labor of Maria, bas-relief-Bestiariy-all this is written clearly, professionally and with constant humor.

In a certain way, such thematically different descriptions, accompanied by comparisons with better “samples”, are a very exciting material for reading and considering .

I would like to emphasize the latter.

At the same time, for me it remained a mystery to how such a diverse and complex graphic material adequately displayed on the grayish paper of dubious quality. (I won’t be surprised if such an assessment is only the fruit of my ignorance in a typographic craft.) And yet ...

So, if you are interested in the Middle Ages as a whole - not only medieval art, but first of all, the "flavor" of the era; If you would like to “get closer” to the understanding of the corresponding language and pathos, the “suffering from the Middle Ages” will open up new opportunities for you.

Rebekah Frumkin