What question did this study set out to answer?

The aim is to explore how imagery and text in a luxury psalter reflect formal procedures linked to colonial efforts during the high Middle Ages.

June 19, 2026

Harvesting the Image: Colonial Art and the High-Medieval Landscape

Key Points

The aim is to explore how imagery and text in a luxury psalter reflect formal procedures linked to colonial efforts during the high Middle Ages.
Contextual analysis of the luxury psalter from northern Germany, 12th century.
Examination of imagery, text, and layout in relation to colonial themes.
Interpretation of the ideological framework underlying the high-medieval artistic practices.
Demonstrated a previously undocumented set of formal procedures in the psalter.
Highlight the practice of giving form to the unformed in both art and landscapes.
Provided insight into the ideological justification for the expansion along the Baltic.

Abstract

Scenes of labor and technologies of calculation converge in the prefatory calendar cycle of a luxury psalter made in northern Germany during the second half of the twelfth century. Setting the manuscript in the context of eastward expansion along the Baltic rim, I argue that its program of images, text, and mise-en-page yields a previously undescribed set of formal procedures that underwrote the colonial work of high-medieval art. The distinctive practice of conferring form on the unformed (informis) was transposed from the registers of art and philosophy into the realm of the landscape, providing both a discursive framework and an ideological justification for colonial settlement.

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