Folk manuscript

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Partially colored ink drawing from the Velislaus Bible (14th century).

Folk manuscript refers to a category of Gothic illuminated manuscripts , the illustrations of which are largely made in ink on paper without any artistic claim.

The term was introduced by Hans Wegener in 1926 and is controversial in modern research.

Folk manuscripts first appeared in southern Germany in the 14th century. An ever growing layer of wealthy citizens and civil servants is looking for education and fulfilling the desire to own manuscripts and books. This demand is served by the workshops of letter painters who produce comic-like illustrated manuscripts to order on cheap paper. You will find a model for this in the splendid illuminated manuscripts of court society. In contrast to these, however, the illustrations of the folk manuscripts mostly consist of simple ink drawings and occasional washes , without reaching the artistic level of the magnificent manuscripts.

Conceptual criticism

Modern literary studies regards the term folk manuscript as misleading, since this type of picture manuscript was not intended for the general public, as the term suggests, but rather for a group of interested parties from the lower nobility, the higher civil servants and the wealthy bourgeoisie. The term also implies a qualitative degradation, which may apply in general to manuscripts in this category, but has exceptions.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Hans Wegener: The German folk manuscripts of the late Middle Ages. In: Medieval manuscripts. Festschrift for Hermann Degering . Paleographic, art-historical, literary and library-historical research. Leipzig 1926. pp. 316-324.
  2. ↑ for example Fedja Anzelewsky : Review: L. Fischel: Bildersequences im early Buchdruck. Studies on incunabula illustration in Ulm and Strasbourg, Konstanz / Stuttgart 1963. In: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte . Volume 31, Issue 4, 1968. p. 335.
  3. ^ Albert Boeckler: German book painting of the Gothic. Langewiesche, Königstein / Ts, 1959. p. 8.
  4. ^ Last: Anne Chlustin-Stephan: Artuswelt and Grailwelt im Bild. Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 978-3-89500-357-8 . P. 3, note 17.
  5. ↑ On this the compilation by Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt : Swabian pen drawings. Studies of book illustration in Augsburg in the 15th century. Berlin 1929.