The Art of Reason explores how medieval visual culture shaped and represented ideas of reason, revealing images as active forces in medieval intellectual history.
Full Project Description
The attribution of “irrationality” to the Middle Ages, combined with the complex and multifaceted nature of medieval conceptualizations of reason, has contributed to a fragmented understanding of the history of reason in the medieval period. Medieval images, far from being mere “reflections” of textual discussions of reason, emerge as powerful visual articulations of aspects of reason that were overlooked, marginalized, or only indirectly addressed in medieval texts. At the same time, they functioned as active instruments in shaping and stimulating the very processes of reasoning.
The Art of Reason aims to provide a comprehensive study of the idea of reason throughout the Middle Ages, examining how it was constructed and represented through medieval visual culture.