The Same… Only, Different

How an artist interprets the subject he/she is depicting, varies greatly.

One of the more important types of art created during the Carolingian period (around 1800 years ago) was the illuminated manuscript. These were picture books created by early monks and they told stories of the Bible through easy to understand pictures. However, because more than one artist worked on creating the images, sometimes the same figures are depicted in different ways. Let's look at St Matthew for a moment…

Click for Larger Image The St. Matthew in the Coronation Gospels is an objective, clear and somewhat realistic work.

Click for Larger Image The St. Matthew in the Ebbo Gospels however, is a very subjective, expressionistic piece of work.

Same subject - different interpretations.

Let us look at some more examples…