Art of History

The assigned image is from a book made in England around 975(it is posted on QUERCUS and FADIS). It depicts the “Entry into Jerusalem,” which is described in the NewTestament. The first part of your assignment is to find the relevant scriptural passage(s) that describe this event. Make sure you identify and cite the appropriate book, chapter, and verses of the applicable Gospel(s). Read the text(s) carefully, and look at the picture carefully. The second part of the assignment is the challenge. Describe in detail the ways that the artist has chosen to depict this scene in comparison tothe biblical text (i.e., do not write a compositional analysis without recourse to the text[s]). To what extent is the picture an illustration of the text(s)? What has the artist added to or omitted from the written account(s)? What might have motivated or explain these additions? (Only consider this afteryou have provided a detailed description and have consideredthe matter. Your paper should not be a lengthy exercise in speculation.) Nodetail is too small that it should be considered irrelevant.In other art history classes a research paper is the norm, but this is a different kind of assignment.You should notdo any outside research but rather look carefullyat the picture and readcarefully the text(s). This paper is not meant to be an exposition (whether informed or speculative) of book illumination in Englandinthe tenthcentury (this is why I am not telling you the name of the manuscript or anything about its historical context), or the symbolic meaning of the scene, or the artist’s accomplishment in painting with beautiful hues. Do not engage in too much speculation. You can offer suggestions about why the artist, for example, chose a certain color, but your job is not to write a thesis about color choice in medieval manuscript illumination. Your job is to observe and then perhaps offer an idea, not to pursue that idea beyond the central question of the relationship of the image to the Gospel text(s).The assignment is meant togive you a more precise sense of the choices made by medieval artists in constructing their images and the relationship of those pictures tothe texts upon which they are based.You do not need a single thesis, but your observations will almost certainly lead you to a conclusion about the relationship of the image to the Gospel text(s).The paper should be approximately three (3) pages in length, typed, double-spaced, paginated, and spell-checked!! You may use any edition of the New Testament, and you do not need to cite the passages verbatim (this takes too much real estate in your paper); it is enough tosignal, for example, Matthew 1:3–8.