ARS SACRA: 800-1200 Peter Lasko - The Pelican History Of Art
For an understanding of the art of the Early Middle Ages it is essential to consider reliquaries and shrines, book bindings and ivory carvings, goldsmith’s work and bronze casting, as much as major sculpture and painting. This Is why The Pelican History of Art is devoting three volumes to art from 800 to 1200: one to sculpture, one to painting, and this, to Ars Sacra—a more evocative title which avoids the customary, but objectionable and almost derogatory term ‘Minor Arts’, Indeed the objects discussed in this volume are ‘sacred’, for the most part made to contain the most precious mortal remains of saints or for the celebration of the Mass and other Sacraments, or the decoration of the altar. Even imperial or royal regalia, which might be thought to be secular, were regarded as divine gifts, symbolic of the sacred power of the ruler: rex et sacerdos, God's vicar on earth. Such regalia were necessary to the anointing and the dedication of kings, part of the ritual of the Church.
