Представа дивљег човека на маргини Малих часова војводе од Берија и њена улога у обликовању значења минијатуре Три жива и три мртва

Abstract

The Petite Hours of Jean, Duke of Berry contains a set of vernacular texts which were arranged in the same order as in the Psalter of Bonne of Luxemburg. Though these illustrated portions share the same ideas, the iconography of their illuminations is quite different. This paper explores visual solutions employed in the miniatures of the Three Living and Three Dead and their relationships with the surrounding marginal imagery. Following the trail set by the new iconology, special emphasis is placed on the representation of a wild man in the Petite Hours arguing that this image altered the viewer’s experience of the main illumination, making it similar to the response toward the page in the prayer book of the duke’s mother, Bonne of Luxemburg. The miniatures of the Three Living and Three Dead in both manuscripts, though markedly different, share the distinctive characteristics typical of the iconography developed south of the Alps. These Italian features highlight the gradual process of physical decomposition in order to emphasize the horrors of decay. Thereby, the viewers of both manuscripts were invited to contemplate their own mortality. However, more often than not, the macabre imagery in lay devotional books was employed to remind the owners to pray for the souls of their ancestors and other deceased family members. It has been remarked that the coats of arms placed near the illumination of the Legend in the Psalter of Bonne of Luxemburg fulfilled the role of the reminders. Yet this layer of meaning cannot be read from the representation of the Three Living and Three Dead in the Petites Hours unless the marginal image of the wild man is taken into consideration. Being the frivolous creature of medieval folklore that inhabits places far from the ordered Christian civilized world, the sacred duty to pray for the dead was unknown to the homme sauvage. Therefore, this marginal figure in connection with the image and text of the Legend was designed as an anti-model for the pious viewer, who was reminded not only of his own mortality, but of his responsibility towards the dead ancestors as well.