My own fascination with medieval art derives from that art's strangeness and beauty: its focus on the invisible and/or fantastic realms of gods, angels, monsters, and demons; its rejection of naturalism in favor of expressive distortions of form, abstract
patterning, surprising color juxtapositions; and its exploration of exotic, sumptuous materials, from gold, silver, and precious stones, to mosaic, animal hides, ivory, and limestone. But the more I study medieval art, the more enthralled I become also by two other features: first, the central importance of this art to the world that produced it, as a means of making sense of that world - its greatest fears, most deeply held beliefs, and most heady aspirations; and second, the power of this art to convey complicated ideas, to function as a mode of intellectual communication every bit as
profound and exciting as the best philosophy, political theory, theology, and devotional writing of the period. [cont.]