The Visual Culture of Wales

The Visual Culture of Wales: Medieval Vision. By PETER LORD, with the assistance of J. Morgan-Guy (Cardiff: U. of Wales P., 2003; pp. 287. £30). THIS volume is the third (though chronologically the first) in a series which seeks to record and explain the ‘visual culture of Wales’. Lavishly illustrated and in large format, it surveys more than a millennium, from the fourth century AD to the mid-sixteenth century. ‘Image’ and ‘imaged’ are frequently used words to convey what the author and his collaborators mean by a ‘medieval vision’; though a significant decision was taken at the outset to exclude architecture, ‘except in so far as a building can be considered as an image’ (p. 8), which surviving medieval structures surely can. The most notable features of the book are its unprecedentedly large selection of high-quality colour illustrations of artefacts, representations and decorative arts related to Wales, and its success in placing Wales's medieval experience in a wider cultural context. Excluding ‘images’ of town houses (like the fifteenth-century merchant's house in Conwy), and mottes and castles—whether they be of English or Welsh construction (for example, Rhuddlan or Dolbadarn)—inevitably means that the chosen images are overwhelmingly Christian in inspiration, context and patronage, a strong thread which runs through all five of the book's chapters. Clear too are the connections between the visual arts as they are represented in Wales and those in Ireland, England and parts of the continent, especially France and the Low Countries, for cultural influences know no political or ethnic boundaries: from numerous carved and inscribed stones and crosses (c.400–1100) with Irish counterparts and Roman inscriptions (in ch. 1), to the Anglo-Norman Romanesque building at Llandaff (ch. 2), and the fifteenth-century English alabasters of Christ and saints at Llangollen (ch. 5)

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Context (archaeology · Fifteenth · Middle Ages · Visual arts · Visual culture · Welsh · Architecture · Classics · Historical Studies of British Isles · History · Maritime and Coastal Archaeology · Scottish History and National Identity

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