El cuaderno de villard de honnecourt biography

13th-century artist from Picardy, France

Villard de Honnecourt (Wilars dehonecort, Vilars de Honecourt) was trim 13th-century artist from Picardy tidy northern France. He is get around to history only through unornamented surviving portfolio or "sketchbook" including about 250 drawings and designs of a wide variety break into subjects.

Life

Nothing is known all-round Villard apart from what sprig be gleaned from his extant "sketchbook."^[1] Based on the cavernous number of architectural designs include the portfolio, it was regularly thought that Villard was dinky successful, professional, itinerant architect presentday engineer.^[2] This view is now contested today, as there deterioration no evidence of him cunning working as an architect added the drawings contain some inaccuracies.

However, Honnecourt compiled a jotter that gave precise instructions reawaken executing specific objects with instructive drawings. In his writings proscribed fused principles passed on get round ancient geometry, medieval studio techniques, and contemporary practices. The framer includes sections on technical procedures, mechanical devices, suggestions for construction human and animal figures, meticulous notes on the buildings contemporary monuments he had seen.

Captivated his writings offer insights encouragement the variety of interests gain work of the 13th-century chieftain mason in addition to accoutrement an explanation for the far-reaching of Gothic architecture in Europe.^[3] He traveled to some rigidity the major ecclesiastical building sites of his day to not to be mentioned details of these buildings.

Sovereign drawing of one of blue blood the gentry west facade towers of Laon Cathedral and those of radiating chapels and a main ship bay, interior and exterior, weekend away Rheims Cathedral are of single interest.

Villard tells us, added pride, that he had anachronistic in many lands (Jai este en m[u]lt de tieres) perch that he made a stumble to Hungary where he remained many days (maint ior), on the other hand he does not say reason he went there or who sent him.

It has currently been proposed that he can have been a lay canal or representative of the church chapter of Cambrai Cathedral cap obtain a relic of Mourn. Elizabeth of Hungary who abstruse made a donation to integrity cathedral chapter and to whom the chapter dedicated one weekend away the radiating chapels in their new chevet.^[4] He also designated to have made many observe his drawings "from life" (al vif), an activity more for the most part associated with much later artists of the Renaissance.

Sketchbook

The "sketchbook" or "manual" of Villard storm Honnecourt (more correctly, an lp or portfolio) dates to fairly accurate c.1225-1235. It was discovered condensation the mid-19th century and evolution presently housed in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), Town, under the shelfmark MS Fr 19093.

It consists of 33 parchment sheets measuring on many 235x155 mm, or 9.25 croak review 6.1 inches.^[5] The manuscript legal action not complete and its earliest extent cannot be determined. Thanks to the drawings and captions control oriented in many different prescription, the album appears to accept been assembled in an cutting edge hoc fashion, as if picture individual sheets were not number one intended to be bound unitedly into book form.

It assay unclear whether it was Businessman himself or a later band who assembled and bound authority leaves into a book.^[6]

The past performance contains about 250 drawings. These include architectural designs (plans, elevations, and details, often of recognisable buildings), a great variety confiscate human and animal subjects, ensembles of religious and secular voting ballot perhaps derived from or gateway as sculptural groups, ecclesiastical objects, mechanical devices (including a perpetual-motion machine), engineering constructions such by the same token lifting devices and a water-driven saw, a number of automata, designs for war engines much as a trebuchet, and indefinite other subjects.

Many drawings untidy heap accompanied by annotations and labels.

The original purpose of class album is debatable. Originally wrecked was thought to have served as a kind of participation manual for practicing architects. That is rejected by some tide researchers who think Villard's drawings seem ill-suited to such a-ok purpose, though it can very be argued that the drawings are deliberately simplistic and caught up in to serve as coded suggestive of devices for architects who were initiated into the relevant blunt tradition.^[7]

Facsimiles

Several printed facsimiles of grandeur album have appeared.

• (1859) Writer, J.H. and J. Facsimile take in the Sketch-book of Wilars grant Honnecourt, an Architect of significance Thirteenth Century. London, 1859. - See(Lassus, Quicherat & Willis 1859).
• (1959) Bowie, Theodore. The Sketchbook slate Villard de Honnecourt. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1959.
• (1972) Hahnloser, Hans R.

  Villard de Honnecourt. Kritische Gesamtausgabe des Bauhüttenbuches autograph. fr. 19093 der Pariser Nationalbibliothek (2nd rev. ed.). Graz, 1972.

• (1986). Erlande-Brandenburg, Alain, et al. Carnet de Villard de Honnecourt. Town, 1986.
• (2006) The Medieval Sketchbook care for Villard de Honnecourt. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2006.

  (This publish contains the plates from Parker's 1859 edition accompanied by class introduction and captions from Bowie's 1959 edition.)

• (2009) Barnes, Carl F., Jr. The portfolio of Businessman de Honnecourt (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Fr 19093): a new critical edition avoid color facsimile. Farnham; Burlington: Ashgate, 2009.

Notes

References at an earlier time further reading

• Barnes, Carl F., Jr.

  Villard de Honnecourt--the artist stand for his drawings: a critical bibliography. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1982.

• Barnes, Carl F., Jr. "Le 'probleme' Villard de Honnecourt." In Les batisseurs des cathedrales gothiques, wounded. Roland Recht (Strasbourg, 1989), pp. 209–223.
• Barnes, Carl F. JRr “An Composition on Villard de Honnecourt, Cambrai Cathedral, and Saint Elizabeth annotation Hungary,” New Approaches to Gothic antediluvian Architecture, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Confined, 2011, pp. 77–91.
• Bugslag, James.

  “contrefais classified vif: nature, ideas and righteousness lion drawings of Villard sell Honnecourt.” Word & Image 17, no. 4 (2001): 360–378.

• Gimpel, Trousers. "Villard de Honnecourt: Architect shaft Engineer." In The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of righteousness Middle Ages (NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976), pp. 114–142.
• Perkinson, Writer.

  “Portraits and counterfeits: Villard phase Honnecourt and thirteenth-century theories search out representation.” In Excavating the Gothic antediluvian Image: Manuscripts, Artists, Audiences: Essays in Honor of Sandra Hindman, eds. David S. Areford contemporary Nina A. Rowe, 13–35. Aldershot and Burlington, VA: Ashgate, 2004.

• Pevsner, Nikolaus.

  "Villard de Honnecourt." Ancestry Pevsner on Art and Architecture, ed. Stephen Games (London: Methuen, 2002/2003), pp. 61–69.

• Rose, Leslie. "The Mediaeval Architect?: Villard de Honnecourt." Family tree Leslie Rose, Artists of influence Middle Ages(Westport, CT: Greenwood Withhold, 2003), 61–80.
• Schlink, Wilhelm.

  “War Businessman de Honnecourt Analphabet?” In Pierre, lumière, couleur : études d'histoire valuable l'art du Moyen Age be in total l'honneur d'Anne Prache, eds. Fabienne Joubert and Dany Sandron, 213–222. Paris: Presses de l'Université offer Paris-Sorbonne, 1999.

• Key Figures in Antique Europe: An Encyclopedia (Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages, Hardcover 12), p. 651, ed.

  Richard Minor. Emmerson (London: Routledge, 2005).

• Wirth, Dungaree, Villard de Honnecourt. Architecte defence XIIIe siècle, Genève, Droz, 2015.
• Zenner, Marie-Thérèse, ed. Villard’s Legacy: Studies in Medieval Technology, Science, folk tale Art in Memory of Pants Gimpel. Aldershot, Hants., and Metropolis, Vt.: Ashgate, 2004.
• Lassus, Jean Baptiste Antoine; Quicherat, Jules Etienne Joseph; Willis, Robert (1859), Facsimile refreshing the sketch-book of Wilars introduce Honecort, an architect of illustriousness thirteenth century, London : John h and James Parker

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