Whether we care to admit it or not, we have always distinguished between those arts that we consider superior and the lesser or minor forms. Giorgio Vasari is usually credited with formally structuring the primary nature of architecture, painting, and sculpture in his Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, which was first published in 1568. Even though this division was initially applied to Italian art, it was not long before it gained more widespread currency. All of the other arts—such as ivory carving, glass, enamels, and goldsmiths’ work—were lumped together into a secondary group that took on pejorative associations, especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Other labels have been used over time to describe these minor arts, and we have spoken of them as the decorative, applied, ornamental, luxury, sumptuous, or even mechanical arts. This collection explores the way in which these minor arts have fought back to gain wider acceptance in our holistic approach to studying the arts of the Middle Ages. No longer considered secondary, they are now firmly incorporated into our studies. This collection, written by some of the most eminent scholars in the field, looks at minor media from a historiographical perspective and shows how they are gaining wider acceptance.
The contributors are David S. Areford, Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, Frédéric Billiet, Paul Binski, John Cherry, Michael W. Cothren, Thomas E. Dale, Sharon Gerstel, Cynthia Hahn, Jos Koldeweij, Welleda Muller, Alan M. Stahl, Alicia Walker, Laura Weigert, Harald Wolter-von dem Knesebeck, and Kim Woods.
“In many ways, this volume is more than the sum of its parts. The individual essays will, of course, be of interest to scholars of particular objects and media. As a whole, however, it raises important questions about the value and categorization of ‘art’ that will be of general interest to those working on ‘minor’ arts as well as academics engaged in teaching: many undergraduate courses now introduce students to the ‘history of art history’ and problematize the privileging of ‘fine arts.’ This volume offers many examples that could be adapted for this purpose. There is not a sense here of simply wishing to insert these little-studied or marginalised objects to the canon. . . . Rather, the contributors emphasize something more than a ‘major versus minor’ binary, drawing out the more fluid, permeable, and unstable boundaries between genres and hierarchies. Furthermore, the attention the authors all pay to the role of historiography in the shaping of their material—even where this has been limiting—allows for a critical awareness that permeates their own suggestions for alternative approaches to a diverse range of medieval visual culture.”
—Elizabeth L’Estrange, Journal of Art Historiography
