Leaf Excised from a Book of Hours: The Nativity
Medium
ink, tempera and liquid gold on vellum
Dimensions
10.8 × 8.2 cm
Classification
Manuscript
Department
Medieval Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection
Accession Number
2011.64
Tags
male
About this artwork
This book, made by an artist of the Ghent-Bruges school of illumination, represents the culmination of Flemish book painting. Its main features were the use of rich colors, decorative and illusionistic effects, a love of landscape, and a strong sense of visual narrative. Its most distinctive innovation was the development of a new style of border decoration featuring realistic motifs which cast shadows onto colored grounds to create an effect of spaciousness. These motifs included a diverse asso...