Diwylliant Gweledol Cymru: Gweledigaeth yr Oesoedd Canol

The third and final volume of the highly acclaimed Visual Culture of Wales series focuses on the period extending from the collapse of Roman government in the fifth century to the Renaissance of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The text demonstrates how both economic forces and social, political and religious ideas generated images through changing patterns of patronage and practice. At the centre of the volume is a thematic section describing how the cycles of the life of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and the Saints provided a framework for everyday life throughout the Middle Ages.

Over 450 images and artefacts are reproduced in full colour, most of them for the first time. The many works located in churches throughout Wales are the subject of photographs commissioned for the volume from Charles and Patricia Aithie.

The volume reveals a startling richness of imagery surviving in Wales from the Middle Ages. While some workshops and craftspeople produced distinctive and occasionally idiosyncratic work, Welsh visual culture was fully integrated into the mainstream of European Christendom. Indeed, the volume reveals that Welsh patrons were at the forefront of avant-garde taste in the Northern Renaissance of the fifteenth century.

An English version of this volume is also available.
Order this publication online from gwales.com