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Art and spirituality: questions about religious iconography

Keywords: Iluminures, Labours of the months, Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, Peasants.

This work proposes to realize an iconographic analysis of the representations of the peasant life in two illuminations present in Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, a book of hour richly illustrated and commissioned in 1413 by Jean de Valois (1340-1416) the Duke of Berry. The charge was initially given to the Limbourg brothers, but was only completed at the end of the 15th century by the illuminator Jean Colombe (1430-1493). We will analyze the illuminations referring to the months of July and September, where wheat and grape harvesting activities are presented respectively. To support our approach, we will start from the problematization of the notions of sacred and profane, recurrent in the visual culture of the Middle Ages, and from some reflections on the visions and interpretations of the medieval peasant.