Early Medieval Art By Lawrence Nees's Early Medieval Art

The object of this book, Early Medieval Art, is to convey the theme “tradition not only receives and transforms, it literally invents a tradition upon which it founded itself” (p. 15) concerning art of the early medieval era. The purpose of this book is to summarize and offer knowledge of medieval art, that will then be included in the greater series of books by other specialists for Oxford University Press. Lawrence Nees accomplished his argument successfully by following the chronological production of the art and the traditions that are imbedded within them. Although, his thesis is strongly supported, Ness’ failure is found in his over reliance on the artwork itself, which then leads to the masking of his personal arguments.

With a skillfully thought out division of the book, Ness is able to execute the timeframe of the creation of medieval art’s traditions and

Within the third chapter, Conversion, Nees offers the idea that the use of multiple religion 's iconography was not a method to induce conversion, rather it was a result of environment. Nees explains “Greek and Roman temples were recognizable by such features as pediments and colonnades, but Christians used any convenient structure” (p. 47). With this assumption in mind, we look to the Baptistry of the Christian meeting-house of Dura (p. 40) where we are presented traces of Greek and Roman architecture. The section of the room that is dedicated to the actual act of baptism is marked by columns and a curved ceiling that resembles a triumphal arch. Future depictions of the ancient architecture can be seen in the Gospel of St Augustine where St Luke is flanked by corinthian columns, while an arch like design sits above him (p. 154). Nees acknowledges this alternative approach to his thesis, but unfortunately does not go into as extensive detail as he did with his main