Cleveland Museum of Art

Leaf Excised from a Book of Hours: The Nativity

Master of the First Prayerbook of Maximillian

Date

c. 1480

Medium

ink, tempera and liquid gold on vellum

Culture

Flanders, Ghent, 15th century

Department

Medieval Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

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 assortment of flowers, butterflies, insects, birds, and sprays of acanthus foliage.

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