I came across a short article on Mental Floss about thr thirteenth and fourteenth century delight in adding to the marginalia of illuminated texts pictures of rabbits ( and occasionally other creatures such as snails ) inflicting all manner of violence on human beings.
This artistic motif has attracted attention from scholars and commentators in various academic articles. This recent article, whilst quite short, does offer a sensible interpretation of a frequently used theme which ties in with social norms of the age. Such role inversion is a key element in humour in any century and these violent rabbits fo demonstrate that medieval people did indeed have a sense of humour. Despite the article title these are not what I would describe as ‘doodles’ but rather a conscious artistic decision in counterpoint to the text.
The article can be viewed at Why Medieval Artists Doodled Killer Bunnies in Their Manuscript Margins
No comments:
Post a Comment