Stone-Carvings of the Tree of Life? Some Considerations on Interpreting Medieval Visual Culture
Stone-Carvings of the Tree of Life? Some Considerations on Interpreting Medieval Visual Culture

Summary/Abstract: This article discusses three stone reliefs from sixteenth-century Tallinn. The reliefs were previously treated by four eminent Estonian art historians - Sten Karling, Armin Tuulse, Mai Lumiste and Helmi Üprus. Their modes of seeing and describing the reliefs, evaluations of artistic quality and hypotheses concerning the meaning of the motifs depicted are compared. Clearly these are very different and even contradictory, depending on the researchers' personal tastes and methodological tools, as well as the historically determined ideological background at the time of publication. Contemporary ways of approaching the artifacts in question and interpreting their iconography are proposed by the author.

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