Otherworldly Color in the Vision of Tundale: Getty Ms. 30

Abstract

In a rare opportunity to examine the colors recorded in medieval visions of heaven and hell, this paper will compare the original Latin of the Vision of Tundale against a French translation along with its illustrations in a deluxe illuminated manuscript (Getty Ms. 30). The aim is to identify how both the texts in question, rather than using a vocabulary of color, relied primarily on a vocabulary of light and dark and described both objects and materials with reference to their distinct light-reflecting or light-absorbing qualities. The illuminations, for the most part without cues from either text, employed a wide range of colors to communicate the varying qualities of light in both heaven and hell. This paper will not attempt to interpret the colors in text or image but rather to consider the interplay between text and image in communicating medieval color theories concerning light and darkness with systematic comparisons between text and image, analysis of color frequencies (histograms), categorization by scene type. It is a study to compare what language and what image can achieve in the realm of light and color.