The Mystic Ark: Hugh of Saint Victor, Art, and Thought in the Twelfth Century

Conrad Rudolph

Cambridge University Press, Jun 9, 2014 - Art - 609 pages

In this book, Conrad Rudolph studies and reconstructs Hugh of St. Victor's forty-two-page written work, The Mystic Ark, which describes the medieval painting of the same name. In medieval written sources, works of art are not often referred to, let alone described in any detail. Almost completely ignored by art historians because of the immense difficulty of its text, Hugh of Saint Victor's Mystic Ark (c. 1125-1130) is among the most unusual sources we have for an understanding of medieval artistic culture. Depicting all time, all space, all matter, all human history, and all spiritual striving, this highly polemical painting deals with a series of cultural issues crucial in the education of society's elite during one of the great periods of intellectual change in Western history.

Contents

• THE MYSTIC ARK LECTURES: 1
• colors mentioned in the text with the central cubit set out as: 7
• The Mystic Ark detail The cosmos: 14
• The Mystic Ark diagram The peoples of the Jews and the Gentiles: 20
• The Mystic Ark detail The ascent of the heat ofthe east: 21
• The Mystic Ark detail The ascent of the cold of the east: 22
• Threedimensional reconstruction of The Mystic Ark with the roof cut away to show the relation of the central pillar topped by the central cubit to the...: 23
• The Mystic Ark detail The south door of the central pillar: 24
• The Mystic Ark diagram The Flood the serpent and the sixty men and sixty women: 25
• The Mystic Ark diagram The four ascents with ascentdescent patterns: 26
• The Mystic Ark diagram Main ascent and ladder inscriptions: 28
• The Mystic Ark detail The ascent of the heat of the west: 29
• The Mystic Ark detail The ascent of the cold of the west: 30
• The Mystic Ark diagram Layout of the system of color segments of the four ascents: 31
• 3v: 32
• Hugh conducting the MysticArk lectures: 33
• The Mystic Ark printed and exhibited at full scale at the National Gallery in Washington during the winter of 20082009: 34
• Macromicrocosm Byrhtferths Diagram Oxford Saint Johns: 51
• The Mystic Ark diagram Quaternary harmony: 55
• THE IMAGE OF THE MYSTIC ARK: 59
• Threedimensional reconstruction of the fivestage Ark of the Flood as conceived ofby Origen: 69
• Threedimensional reconstruction of the threestage Ark of the Flood as conceived of by Augustine: 71
• Threedimensional reconstruction of the fivestage form of the Ark of the Flood according to Hugh of SaintVictors critique of Origen as described in t...: 73
• The Ark ofthe Flood Rome Catacomb of Saints Pietro and Marcellino cubiculum no 67: 77
• The Ark ofthe Flood Christian necropolis elBagawât Egypt: 78
• 2v: 80
• 6: 81
• The Ark ofthe Flood Caedmon Genesis Oxford Bodleian Library ms Junius II p 66: 82
• The Ark ofthe Flood Halberstadt Bible: 83
• 1: 114
• 7v: 121
• Parallel tables from Hugh of SaintVictors Chronicon with vertical: 149
• Macromicrocosmic harmony Isidore of Seville De natura rerum: 169
• Macromicrocosmic harmony Bede De natura rerum Munich: 191
• The Ark According to Tropology: 258
• The Mystic Ark detail The first ladder of the ascent of: 290
• The Mystic Ark detail The first ladder of the ascent of the cold of: 305
• The Mystic Ark detail The second ladder of the ascent of the heat: 318
• THE MYSTIC ARK AND: 343
• SaintDenis abbey church west portals: 365
• TRANSLATION OF THE MYSTIC ARK WITH: 379
• The Majesty and angels Nineteenthcentury copy of the Hortus: 384
• The Mystic Ark with Art Historical Commentary: 397
• Notes: 503
• Bibliography: 573
• Index: 597
• 359: 605

About the author

Conrad Rudolph is Professor of Medieval Art History at the University of California, Riverside. He has received fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim, J. Paul Getty, Mellon and Kress foundations, as well as from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the College Art Association. At the University of California, Riverside he has received both the University Distinguished Teaching award and the University Honors Faculty Mentor of the Year award. He is a member of the board of editors of Speculum and of caa.reviews, the online journal of reviews of the College Art Association. He is author of The Things of Greater Importance: Bernard of Clairvaux's Apologia and the Medieval Attitude Toward Art (1990), Artistic Change at St-Denis: Abbot Suger's Program and the Early Twelfth-Century Controversy over Art (1990), Violence and Daily Life: Reading, Art, and Polemics in the Citeaux Moralia in Job (1997), Pilgrimage to the End of the World: The Road to Santiago de Compostela (2004) and First, I Find the Center Point: Reading the Text of Hugh of Saint Victor's The Mystic Ark (2005).

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Mystic Ark: Hugh of Saint Victor, Art, and Thought in the Twelfth Century
• Author: Conrad Rudolph
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2014
• ISBN: 1107037050, 9781107037052
• Length: 609 pages
• Subjects: Art / History / Medieval; HISTORY / Europe / General; History / Europe / Medieval; Philosophy / History & Surveys / Medieval; Political Science / History & Theory; Religion / General