Why Is Medieval Art So Weird?

Agencies – Sudan Events

To today’s audiences, medieval art can look outright bizarre. Before the stylistic shifts that defined the Renaissance, medieval illustrations often featured flat, unrealistic figures and fantastical scenes.
But the details that make these drawings so baffling are also uniquely endearing. Now, author Olivia Swarthout hopes to capture the beauty of such oddball images in her new book, Weird Medieval Guys: How to Live, Laugh, Love (and Die) in Dark Times, which pulls from maps, artworks, manuscripts and more.
“A lot of it is about showing characters, people or creatures in medieval art that jump out of the page and have their own personality,” Swarthout tells Artnet’s Min Chen. “Humor is a really big part of it. I think it’s what makes people connect with it—they want to be in on the joke.”
Although the illustrations in the book are otherworldy, Swarthout manages to connect them to the present day, “noting the many parallels between medieval and modern life,” says Marianne Tatepo, publishing director of the imprint Square Peg, to the Bookseller. “From how hard wooing is, to landlord issues and the whole plague thing, we have much in common with our forebears.”