Aries 

This is an image of Aries, made by Claricia around the 13th century in a medieval monastery. It’s painted on vellum, or animal skin. The creation of vellum was an involved process. Animal hides were soaked, limed, dehaired, and stretched on a frame, then scraped with a crescent-shaped knife, a painstaking task. Claricia’s pigments, likely made in the monastery, yield a limited, yet vibrant palette. The ink, carefully applied with a quill, reveals the artist's trained hand. We see a grid of text and symbols, articulated by colored columns, capped with stylized floral and geometric shapes, topped by the astrological symbol of Aries, the ram. The regularity of the lines and letters speaks to the disciplined labor required for manuscript production. The use of costly vellum and pigments indicates the economic investment that went into the production of this book. Looking closely at works like this, we see the intersection of craft, labor, and artistic expression, essential for understanding the full meaning of the artwork and its value in medieval culture.