ABSTRACT
Demonstrating the chasm between modern and medieval conceptions of the function of art and, incidentally, the cognitive nature and extent of the “reading” process are the assumptions in the twelfth-century treatise De Diuersis Artibus. The criticisms focus on assumptions about artistic quality and the purpose of illustrative pictures which reveal more about modern expectations than medieval ones. In the case of medieval painting, the accepted painting techniques of layering and the use of water-based rather than the new oil-based pigments also contribute to the conventional medieval look. One of the continuities, perhaps surprising to a modern reader is that in both the Anglo-Saxon and late medieval periods the illustrations of English vernacular works dealt in one way or another with the core issues raised by the Byzantine iconoclastic debates. Image-making in the Anglo-Saxon period is more specifically informed by incarnational theology than in the later medieval period when it becomes more broadly based.
