Master Hugo (fl. c.1130-c.1150) was a Romanesque lay artist and the earliest recorded professional artist in England. His documented career at Bury St Edmunds Abbey spans from before 1136 to after 1148. He is most famous for illuminating the first volume of the

Bury Bible The Bury Bible is a giant illustrated Bible written at Bury Saint Edmunds in Suffolk, England between 1121 and 1148, and illuminated by an artist known as Master Hugo. Since 1575 it has been in the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, ...

, which "have led to a general acknowledgement of Master Hugo as the gifted innovator of the main line of English Romanesque art". This was made for the Abbey in about 1135, and is now in the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

; it is not known whether he illuminated the second volume, of which only a small fragment is known to survive, now in a private collection in the United States. He is also recorded as making bronze doors for the western entry of the Abbey church, a great bell and a carved

crucifix A crucifix (from Latin ''cruci fixus'' meaning "(one) fixed to a cross") is a cross with an image of Jesus on it, as distinct from a bare cross. The representation of Jesus himself on the cross is referred to in English as the ''corpus'' (Lati ...

with figures of

Mary Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religious contexts * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...

and Saint John, for the Monk's Choir (probably a

rood A rood or rood cross, sometimes known as a triumphal cross, is a cross or crucifix, especially the large crucifix set above the entrance to the chancel of a medieval church. Alternatively, it is a large sculpture or painting of the crucifixion ...

). He has been credited with having made the ivory

Cloisters Cross The Cloisters Cross (also known as the Bury St Edmunds Cross), is a complex 12th-century ivory Romanesque altar cross or processional cross. It is named after The Cloisters, part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which acquired it in ...

(or "Bury St Edmunds Cross"), now at

The Cloisters The Cloisters, also known as the Met Cloisters, is a museum in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City. The museum, situated in Fort Tryon Park, specializes in European medieval art and architecture, with a fo ...

, New York, It is not known where Master Hugo was born or trained. According to the

Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard FitzWilliam, 7th Vis ...

, "the magnificent colour patterns of his paintings, the startlingly new Byzantine draperies and the deep-staring eyes of Moses, Aaron and the Jews suggest that he had travelled at least to southern Italy and probably also to Cyprus, Byzantium, and even the Holy Land."

References

* ‘Gesta sacristarum’, ''Memorials of St Edmund's Abbey'', ed. T. Arnold, 2, Rolls Series, 96 (1892), 289–96 * C. M. Kauffmann, ‘The Bury Bible’, ''Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes'', 29 (1966), 60–81 * R. M. Thomson, ‘Early Romanesque book-illustration in England: the dates of the Pierpont Morgan Vitae sancti Edmundi and the Bury Bible’, ''Viator'', 2 (1971), 211–25 * R. M. Thomson, ‘The date of the Bury Bible reexamined’, ''Viator'', 6 (1975), 51–8 * Thomas Hoving, ''King of the Confessors.'' Simon & Schuster. New York, New York: 1981. * C. R. Dodwell, ''The pictorial arts of the West, 800–1200'' (1993), 341–7 * Elizabeth C. Parker & Charles T. Little, ''The Cloisters Cross''. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, N.Y.: 1994. * T. A. Heslop, ‘The production and artistry of the Bury Bible’, ''Bury St Edmunds: medieval art, architecture, archaeology, and economy'', ed. A. Gransden (1998), 172–85

External links

The Cloisters Cross
Medieval English painters Manuscript illuminators 12th-century English artists Romanesque artists Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Year of birth uncertain 12th-century painters 12th-century English people {{England-painter-stub

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Further reading

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