Music and Image/ Image and Music: the Creation and Meaning of Visual-Aural Force Fields in the Later Middle Ages

This study considers the relationship between English late medieval polyphony (both Latin-texted and vernacular) and visual art that is related to it by common religious and devotional themes and by the shared contexts, public and private, that they shared. It considers devotional poetry as evidence of modes of personal engagement (both clerical and lay) with particular subjects and imagery, and relates these to art and music looked at in tandem. In principle its themes and mode of enquiry relate to devotional imagery of all types, but its particular focus is on Midlands 15th-century alabaster sculpture, which evolved exactly coevally with the highly developed English polyphonic tradition under discussion. Both these traditions enjoyed regional, national and international reputations in their own time. It also examines, by way of contrast and control, another instance in visual art that is in many ways complementary to alabaster imagery: 15th-century Flemish religious and devotional painting.