Saint Matthew Folio 25 Verso Of The Lindisfarne

Saint Matthew, folio 25 verso of the Lindisfarne is dated in Early Middle Age during 8thcentury in England. He is a symbol of winged man because his Gospel opens with a description of human ancestry of Christ. He sits in a semi-profile view on the left side of a bench facing the accompanying text. This suggests a Mediterranean model employing classical perspective. The double page that opens the Gospel of Matthew provides an example of innovation and synthesis in style. He holds a pen in his right hand, but appeared poised in a moment of thoughtful contemplation. A curtain sets the scene indoors as in classical art. The identity of the represented as a disembodied head and shoulders behind the curtain is uncertain. He could possibly be a

Moses, Christ or Saint Cuthbert holding the closed book of Old Testament in contrast with an open book of Matthew’s New Testament, which is usually common in Medieval Christian art and thought. Painter labeled Matthew in a combination of Greek and Latin to lend the page the prestige of two classical languages. In the portrait, the sun on the Saint Matthew’s head is a simplified clean-shaped circle. The background of the painting is mainly blank and doesn’t include any kind of natural landscape. Hence, the portrait is very abstract and figures are simplified to basic forms. The painter converted fully modeled forms bath in a light into the linear idiom of insular art. The result is vivid new vision of Saint Matthew. Indeed, a stylized trumpeting winged man, his symbol and a descendent of the classical art appears above profile to offer inspiration to many generations.
Saint Matthew, folio 18 of Ebbo Gospels on the other hand is dated around the 9th in France.

Like the Lindisfarne Gospels, this representation of Saint Matthew takes a classical revival style appeared in the Carolingian world. Matthew’s attribute up in the upper-hand corner is a winged man. He looks energetic, very expressive and hunched over in contrast to more modeled images of even the same period and especially of late antique and classic painting. The painter uses a hard frenzied lines and bright colors to illustrate that he is writing frantically. His hair stands on end, his eyes are open wide and the folds of his drapery writhe and vibrate. The landscape behind him rears up alive and is very well conveyed. Cloths and hair of the figure is painted in detail. However, the monuments in the background are rather simplified comparing to other features in the painting. The painter even sets the page’s leaf border in motion. His face, hands, inkhorn, pen and book are focus of the composition. Artist struggles to raise the issues of perspective and tries to give us more three-dimensional view of Matthew. Painter does a terrific job in merging classical illusionism and the northern linear tradition. As the painter of the Lindisfarne Gospels Matthew transformed an important model into an original Hiberno-Saxon, so does the Ebbo Gospels artist transformed a classical prototype into a new Carolingian

vernacular.