Ars oblivionalis, ars inveniendi: The Cherub Figure and the Arts of Memory
Mary Carruthers
To serve their purpose well, many so-called mnemonic images in the Middle Ages facilitated meditation and invention by presenting rich materials a highly abbreviated form, which could be expanded recombined for variety of compositions. abbreviate fruitfully requires rigorous compression selection, kind forgetting that was distinguished both theory practice from rote recitation or learning heart. The twelfth- thirteenth-century diagram called Cherub offers an excellent example how such image used study composition. Focusing on six versions it, this essay demonstrates medieval cherub is not illustration tied to any particular text but functioned independently as analytical tool, art inventing arguments, incorporated methods dialectic rhetoric.
Gesta