Weekes 2004
- Weekes, Ursula. Early Engravers and their Public: The Master of the Berlin Passion and Manuscripts from Convents in the Rhine-Maas Region, ca. 1450-1500. Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publisher, 2004.
transitions in methods of book production; "period marked by experimentation, particularly in the production of illustrated books" (14) -- "consequently a variety of hybrid books emerged"
- prints stuck into books during production
- prints hand decorated
- blockbooks with handwritten text
- manuscript illustrated with engravings -- practice that existed only a brief time during period of transition
engravings in 16c came to be associated with independent art
prior to print, "shift from manuscript production as a bespoke trade, dependent on a commission-based market, to a trade increasingly focused on the open market" (15)
bookowner inserted prints into their own books; but those inserted during production between 1450-1500 in Rhine-Mass region "almost always small religious engravings and metalcuts" and most by the Master of the Berlin Passion and his circle (15)
- "I will argue that the Master of the Berlin Passion and his circle specifically targeted their small religious engravings at the market for devotional manuscripts, and that they did so to an extent unparalleled by engravers elsewhere in Europe." (15)
work by Jeffrey Hamburger "has greatly advanced our understanding of the role that images played in the spirituality of women, especially nuns, during the late medieval period. Indeed, he suggests that images served in part as a means of realizing reform in those convents and monasteries where sight had become a complement to contemplation as an accepted avenue of insight and access to the divine." (21)
Master of the Berlin Passion, St. Erasmus Masters and the Masters of the Church Father Borders -- from 1450s-1470s "these printmakers created a niche for their engravings and metalcuts within the manuscript market in an unprecedented manner. Few engravers elsewhere in northern Europe worked so assiduously for this market during what were the key decades of transition in methods of book production from manuscript to print. Consequenty, as manuscript makers in the Rhine-Maas region sought to take advantage of the new technology of printing, they tended to use engravings by this circle of printmakers as a means of illustrating their books." (81)