Conrad Rudolph’s recent book, The Mystic Ark: Hugh of Saint Victor, Art, and Thought in the Twelfth Century (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 2014), has won the 2014-2015 Emory Elliott Book Award from the UCR Center for Ideas and Society.

In medieval written sources, works of art are not often referred to, let alone described in any detail. When they are mentioned, it is seldom with more than a word or phrase, at the most a sentence. Almost completely ignored by art historians because of the immense difficulty of its text, Hugh of Saint Victor’s Mystic Ark (c.1125-1130) is a forty-two page description of the most complex individual work of figural art of the Middle Ages, a painting also known as The Mystic Ark. Depicting all time, all space, all matter, all human history, and all spiritual striving, this highly polemical image deals with a series of cultural issues crucial in the education of society’s elite during one of the great periods of intellectual change in Western history. Meant to be copied by others, it is among the most unusual sources we have for an understanding of medieval artistic culture.

Small Moments of Change: Medical Humanitieses
An interview conducted with Art History Chair Jeanette Kohl by Katherine Miller

With the introduction of consistent and effective medical practices in the 1900s patients lived longer, healthier lives. But with the onset of WWI, medical staff encountered a new challenge: patients who survived the trauma of face mutilation but were unable to look at themselves in a mirror. Doctor and academy trained artist Henry Tonks found a solution in using watercolors to paint new representations of his patients. Through his art he was able to create beautiful, touching renditions of their disfigurements, and his patients were able to look at themselves for the first time.

Dr. Jeanette Kohl uses this historic example to show how the humanities can foster human connection. Professor Kohl—Chair of the Art History Department at UCR, and passionate art historian with an interest in the history of the body as well as Renaissance portraiture and sculpture—supports creating more inclusive programs linking the humanities and sciences. Last December she organized “Vesalius and His Worlds: Medical Illustrations during the Renaissances” at The Huntington. She explains how this conference brought together people who were interested in the subject from a collecting point of view, a visual point of view, and an academic point of view.