In his
lengthy enumeration of depictions of elephants in medieval manuscripts in "The Elephant in Medieval Legend and Art", G.C.
Druce offers his own opinions on the artistic abilities of each artist, saying
such comments as “[This] is a realistic picture” or “The elephant is like a
pig,” and even that one “[displays] the artists’ disregard for natural
coloring.”[1]
In doing so, Druce slips into the all
too inviting trap of assuming that every medieval illuminator or artist
attempted to make their art as realistic as possible; some just had more skill
than others. He does not, as Nora Flores does in "The Mirror of Nature Distorted", recognize that there may in fact
be multiple purposes for depicting animals. Flores divides medieval animal art
into two categories: “allegorical” and “scientific.”[2]
I would venture to add a third category, that of marginalia, which often
bridges the gap between allegorical and scientific and adds a complication to
our desired, neat categorical division.
The
“allegorical” depiction of animals derives, according to Flores, from the
belief that each animal reflected something about the nature of God or of
humans. The life cycle of the elephant, for example, was held to be an allegory
of the Fall of Man. When the female elephant is ready to mate, she tempts the
male with a mandrake, as Eve tempted Adam. When she gives birth, her mate must
guard her from dragons, symbolic of the snake that tempted Eve. Typically, the
moral lessons one should learn from the animals dictated how they were drawn in
bestiaries; in some cases, “authority rather than reality direct[ed] their
composition.”[3]
If ancient authors, such as the author of the Physiologus, made a claim about a certain, creature, it would
likely be repeated by later authors, even if later observation of the animal
proved such a statement false. For example, it was commonly held that elephants
lacked knees, and when they leaned against a tree to sleep, the tree could be
partially cut and broken by the elephant’s weight, and the elephant
successfully captured. Even as knowledge of elephant joints spread, it is likely
that some artists chose to keep their drawn elephants jointless to match the
description of how an elephant could be hunted. As Bridgette Resl, in "Beyond the Ark: Animals in Medieval Art," writes, “What
mattered first and foremost, therefore, was ease of recognition. In such a
context it was more important for the subject to look typical than realistic.”[4]
The
“scientific” category of animal art is less straight-forward than “allegorical”
art. Flores claims, “By the mid-thirteenth century, artists were also looking
more critically at nature and using it more often as a model for their
creations.”[5]
We see this most clearly in the elephant allegedly drawn from life by Matthew
Paris, who saw the elephant presented to Henry III for his menagerie. Paris
gets the placement of the knee correct, has a very natural-looking trunk, and
even places the tusks in the upper jaw rather than the lower (a flaw Druce is
rather fond of point out). But then again, of course Paris’ sketch looks more
natural than other illuminations; he actually saw an elephant with his own
eyes! But this does not mean that a realistic elephant, or any realistic
creature for that matter, suddenly lost its symbolic meaning. We are reminded
of the 17th-century paintings of birds in a park, a scene that is
entirely realistic, but perhaps has no meaning without an understanding of the
symbolism associated with each type of bird. Flores, then, goes too far with
her assertion that the “scientific” overtook the “allegorical” from the 15th
century on. As I have already mentioned, it was sometimes necessary for the
allegorical purpose of an animal to be clearer to a viewer than the animal’s
actual appearance.
Then there
is the question of marginalia. Are these drawings outside of the text still
related to the text? If not, what is their purpose, especially the incredibly
naturalistic marginalia of the Annunciation in the Hastings Hours? H.W. Janson,
in his chapter on marginalia in Apes and
Ape Lore, gives a number of examples of apes in the margins of manuscripts
in order to discuss specific tropes of apes in art; in those images he chose to
print with the chapter, the images are unfortunately separated from their
larger context on the page. For the sake of argument, let us assume they are
not easily connected to the text with which they appear. Janson goes too far in
stating at the beginning of his chapter “The Ape in Gothic Marginal Art” that
marginalia “have no illustrative function.”[6]
I would propose that marginalia help bridge the gap between allegory and
science that we seem so desirous of creating. Searching for symbolism in each
marginal creature can often prove fruitless; as one student said in class
regarding a particular manuscript page, “I can explain the ape but not the man
with the crossbow.” When no symbolism can be found, what prevents us from
assuming this is the illuminator’s chance to work on their ability to draw from
nature? The Luttrell Psalter artist who drew an ape holding an owl on the back
of a goat (MS 42130, f.38r)[7]
may not have had the chance to see an ape in person, but their owl is fairly
naturalistic. If the typical meaning of ape and owl does not apply to the
accompanying text, then who is to say that the illuminator included it simply
because they were talented at drawing the owls they had observed around their
monastery? One could even come up with a scenario of the Hastings Hours
illuminator, tired of drawing only Biblical scenes they feel no connection to
and yearning to draw the butterflies they see in the cloister every day. Of
course, the anonymity of these artists is more of a hindrance than help in
explaining the exact purpose of marginalia. But I think it is safe to assume
that marginalia fall somewhere in the middle of Flores’ “allegorical” and
“scientific” categories, and therefore show to us that the division between the
two is not as distinct as, for ease of comprehension, we would wish them to be.
RAE
