Interpretation of Medieval art in the scientific illustration of France in the 1820s – 1860s

In the XIX century, the importance of scientific illustration increases. Images of the Middle Ages appear in works on the history of art and material culture, reference books, periodicals, and guidebooks. The characteristic features of scientific illustration are the desire to observe the real proportions and composition of monuments of architecture and fine art, diligence, understanding the patterns of style and reflecting them in graphic reproductions. The publications combine detailed images of architectural monuments and schematically interpreted details of facades and interiors. In the work of Seroux d’Agencourt, separate tables reproduce the exteriors and plans of famous buildings of the Early Middle Ages, Romanesque and Gothic. The dictionary of E. E. Viollet le Duc includes a number of images of works of art; the graphic interpretation of structures and objects of visual arts is clear and concise. The magazines «Le Magasin pittoresque» and «Musée des familles» are widely attracted to landscape views, including architectural structures of the Middle Ages. In «Bulletin monumental» scientific graphics relate to texts and are focused on reliable and detailed interpretation of monuments. At the turn of the XIX–XX centuries, graphic images began to be replaced by photographs, and the genre gradually lost its significance. Over the course of a century, scientific graphics have evolved from a landscape «pictorial» interpretation of the form to a scientifically reliable statement of the appearance of medieval architecture and works of art.