Vision and Image in Early Christian England.

Verkerk, Dorothy Hoogland

Vision and Image in Early Christian England. By George Henderson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. xviii + 292 pp. 8 color plates, 94 b.w. illus. $90.00 cloth.

Henderson's introductory chapter provides a summation of the early Christian teachings and practices in regards to images, visions, and typology. His subsequent chapters are more helpful, exploring the impact of book arts from the Mediterranean, imperial patronage, and ecclesiastical and saintly patronage and then finishing with some fine case studies of individual and highly problematical works, such as the Coffin of St. Cuthbert and the Ruthwell Cross.

There are a few points to quibble about in Henderson's book. Not until the last couple of pages of the introduction do we find out anything about Anglo-Saxon uses of imagery, since the first seventeen pages is a discussion of Paulinus of Nola's writings, Pope Gregory's dictum to Bishop Serenus, the art of Ravenna, and typological programs as manifested in works such as the Munich Ascension Ivory. Subsequent chapters go far to rectify this problem, but the Anglo-Saxon vision of images is often lost. The typological discussion is particularly disappointing, as it relies upon on the narrow view of typology as a "cross-referencing" of type and antitype that does not take into consideration work by Frances Young and Sister Charles Murray (F. M. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997]; M. C. Murray, "Review of The Iconography of the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus by Elizabeth Struthers Malbon," Journal of Theological Studies 43 [1992]: 685-90).

Although some of the black-and-white illustrations are of such poor quality as to render them useless (pls. 38, 67), a significant number of the photographs publish relatively obscure works of art, such as incised figures on the Coffin of St. Cuthbert (pls. 47, 66). The colorplates are of good quality, though the choice of the porphyry portrait of the Tetrarchs in detail is questionable. The bibliography is useful, particularly in that the notes and bibliography bring together many primary sources that the student will find helpful. The gathering together of works of art, literary works referencing art, and documentary evidence of lost works is the book's strength.

Dorothy Hoogland Verkerk
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill