Rating: 
Summary: Sumptuous
Review: A beautiful book, lavishly illustrated to explain and enhance the text. Many of the images are from private collections thanks to the author's work at Sotheby's.The text is very accessible for the non-expert. The reader's understanding and appreciation of the art and craftsmanship which went into illuminated manuscripts will be greatly increased. Worth every penny.
Rating:
Summary: Sumptuous
Review: A beautiful book, lavishly illustrated to explain and enhance the text. Many of the images are from private collections thanks to the author's work at Sotheby's. The text is very accessible for the non-expert. The reader's understanding and appreciation of the art and craftsmanship which went into illuminated manuscripts will be greatly increased. Worth every penny.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for novices and experts.
Review: Beautiful illustrations; simply page after page of color. While the text is wonderful as well, the medievalist will appreciate it for the large photographs that allow detail to be seen. A must for the manuscript junkie.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for novices and experts.
Review: Beautiful illustrations; simply page after page of color. While the text is wonderful as well, the medievalist will appreciate it for the large photographs that allow detail to be seen. A must for the manuscript junkie.
Rating:
Summary: Frrom someone who should know...
Review: Chris DeHamel works researching books for Sotheby's. That is all he does, and his numerous books on the subject show his mastery and command of the subject. Everyday he goes to work, he is getting time to research, free of teaching committments that fetter the ability of other scholars to pursue their writing. His research and ability shows in this beatiful and well-written book, which is an excellent introduction to the history of the book and to the processes and culture surrounding the book as an object. His book progresses, chapter-by-chapter, through the different groups that books were designed for, describing where and why they were made, and the special challenges of each. Chock-full of photographs of lavish manuscript writing and art, this volume is not only an extremely suitable textbook for art history and history classes dealing with the book or commodity-culture, but also is a great personal or coffeetable volume, and supremely reasonable at the price it is provided at, considering the cost of so many art texts.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful Images
Review: This book is an excellent overview of changing Illumination through the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance. The images are gorgeous and varied. My only real complaint is one of size and proportion. The book fails to give the original sizes of the pages so that the reader has an understanding of scale. Sometimes it can be difficult to determine the origin of the page, if you do want to follow up on size and additional pages.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Images
Review: This book is an excellent overview of changing Illumination through the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance. The images are gorgeous and varied. My only real complaint is one of size and proportion. The book fails to give the original sizes of the pages so that the reader has an understanding of scale. Sometimes it can be difficult to determine the origin of the page, if you do want to follow up on size and additional pages.
Rating:
Summary: outstanding teacher source!
Review: This book provides a good introduction into illuminated pages. I found it useful in writing a lesson for art history.
Rating:
Summary: outstanding teacher source!
Review: This book provides a good introduction into illuminated pages. I found it useful in writing a lesson for art history.
Rating:
Summary: Spectacular teaching tool
Review: This is the first illumination book I encourage my students to purchase (with Drogin's history of calligraphy). This is an entirely reasonable price with abundant color and b&w pictures. Unlike many tretises on the topic, this doesn't limit you to post-1200 Anglo-French. This gives you a true oversight of western european illumination of the entire span of the middle ages (spanish, moorish, greek, latin, etc...) Added to the benefit of examples, de Hamel doesn't subject you to the same pictures you've seen in every other 2-bit book (yes, Victoria, other books existed before 1200 besides the Book of Kells). The text is thoughtful without being dry and boring. This is written for an audience which is expected to appreciate the subject, without assuming you've devoted your life to it already. Walk, do not run, to get this. A must for anyone who is learning how to illuminate.
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