alt Hacker NewsIf you think medieval artists lacked skill, check out Villard Honnecourt’s sketchbook, especially the insects on folio 7 and Christ in Majesty on 16:
https://www.medievalists.net/2024/12/sketchbook-villard-honn...
Medieval art is very stylised, but the quality of the lines, the details in the clothes, the crispness of the composition, all that requires a lot of skill. Check out Jean Bondol’s work for instance https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/tapisserie-de-l-apoc...
You may not like the style, but being able to produce works like that requires you to be good at art on some level.
Replies
You convinced me that they lack skill.
The clothing does often look good. In folio 16v ( https://www.medievalists.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Vill... ), it's been overdone and appears to be far wrinklier than fabric could support, suggesting that Jesus is embedded in some kind of strange plant.
The faces are terrible in all cases.
In general, perspective is off, anatomy is off, and you get shown things that aren't physically possible.
Ok, but the Honnecourt sketches are kind of strong. Not professional by today's standards, but decent. I'd be happy to have done them--but I'm not an artist. The tapestry can be appreciated, like Klimt's 2-D-ish stuff can be appreciated. The style is fine. It's not fantastic work, I wouldn't hang it up, but it's reasonably accomplished.
In general, though, yes, I think medieval European artists were short on skill compared to artists from Europe in pre-medieval and post-medieval times, and art from other places between ~500 and ~1300. They had some skill, but not as much.
Artists with limited technique are a real thing. Not everything is taste or style.