Theophilus' On Diverse Arts: The Persona of the Artist and the Production of Art in the Twelfth Century.

Abstract

De diversis artibus (On Diverse Arts) is one of the rare tracts on art and art-making to survive from the Middle Ages. Written by a monk using the pseudonym Theophilus, dated to the early twelfth century, and localized to northern Germany, the treatise comprises three books of instructions on the arts of painting, glass, and metalwork, each introduced by a prologue. Eight nearly complete copies of the text survive, including two from the mid-twelfth century. Seventeen additional manuscripts preserve either incomplete copies or excerpts. Drawing on the evidence of all these manuscripts, the dissertation examines how the text may have been read and understood in its twelfth-century context and later, and what it might reveal about attitudes toward art-making. When prologues and instructions are studied together, On Diverse Arts emerges as an integrated, carefully structured text with a sophisticated agenda. Emphasizing material hierarchies and spiritual ascent, it effectively unifies the theory and practice of art. The first chapter of the dissertation introduces the manuscript copies of On Diverse Arts and follows the remarkable story of its reception over the centuries: manuscripts were avidly collected and read by artisans, humanists, and antiquarians, and their interests still affect our own. The second chapter draws evidence from one early manuscript to uncover the internal structure of the text and to set the stage for a discussion of the parallels between On Diverse Arts and contemporary pedagogical and exegetical literature. The third chapter reexamines the identification of Theophilus as the monastic artisan Roger of Helmarshausen in the oldest copy of the text. I propose that the memory of the artist gave specific meaning to style and ornament in a network of monasteries, and I thereby I redirect questions of identity to issues of memory. The fourth chapter starts with one manuscript’s marginal notations to demonstrate how Theophilus’ tract moralizes the labor of the artist, transforming art-making into the practice of virtue or vice. Finally, the fifth chapter draws upon a composite manuscript to shed light on the variable generic status of On Diverse Arts and the place of art-making within medieval schemes of knowledge.