REGINA: Why does the medieval appeal to you?
Daniel: Medieval books are the single biggest influence on my aesthetic, particularly illuminated manuscripts. The style, and the approach that I have is similar is similar to that of a medieval scribe or illuminator. My work is done on a small scale, mostly with ink and vellum (calfskin).
REGINA: And this is ‘Gothic’, correct?
Daniel: Gothic is the term art historians use for a kind of medieval art that started in the middle of the 12th century. It was influenced by the Church Fathers, in its principles of composition and its use of symbolism to express theological truths. But Gothic art represents a great advance beyond earlier sacred art, in its beauty, its order, its complexity and refinement. Abbot Suger of St. Denis was the catalyst for the beginning of Gothic art.
Gothic art started in France and flourished in the giant cathedrals’ architecture and glass and statuary. Because I make small-scale drawings, I study also later works of Gothic art from the 14th and 15th centuries - the masterpieces in two-dimensional media, such as the illuminated manuscripts of Pucelle, the panel paintings of Van Eyck, millefleur tapestries and early printmaking. By that time, Gothic art had become an international style throughout Latin Christendom; it was embraced by the faithful in England, Spain, northern Italy, Bohemia. By that time, it had even begun to incorporate artistic forms from foreign lands; late Gothic painters used Islamic gold platters as models for haloes, and depicted oriental carpets beneath heavenly thrones.
REGINA: You are a great aficionado of Lindisfarne.
Daniel: When I was 14 years old, I first encountered reproductions of pages from the Lindisfarne Gospels. This is a manuscript made in a Northumbrian monastery around the year 700. It is a toweringly great work of art, and had an enormous impact on me.
The Lindisfarne Gospels of course predates the era of Gothic art; most observers would call its style Celtic. But I think that is demonstrates the same sort of catholicity and magnanimity as the International Gothic; on its pages are Celtic patterns, capital letters resembling Germanic runes, script derived from Coptic and Greek handwriting, portraits of the Evangelists similar to Roman mosaics.
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