The Beginning of Writing about Painting in English: Chaucer to Shakespeare.

Author / Editor
Munsterberg, Marjorie.

Title
The Beginning of Writing about Painting in English: Chaucer to Shakespeare.

Published
British Art Journal 18.1 (2010): 12-25.

Description
Claims that writing about painting in England began with Chaucer's "definition of visual art" in PhyT 6.9ff., sketching classical and medieval background to Chaucer's description, particularly Pliny, Bartholomeus Anglicus, John Trevisa, and the Roman de la Rose. Also comments in detail on Chaucer's visual techniques and uses of ekphrasis in PF and KnT before tracing concerns with art writing, image-making, and iconoclasm in pre-modern English writing and the rise of humanism.

Chaucer Subjects
Parliament of Fowls
Knight and His Tale
Style and Versification
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations