AVISTA - Villard de Honnecourt

AVISTA & Villard de Honnecourt AVISTA was founded in 1984 to promote study of the drawings and recipes (Paris, Bibliothéque Nationale, MS Fr 19093) of a talented, enigmatic 13th-century French artist named Villard de Honnecourt (Wilars dehonecort; Vilars dehoncort). Little is known about his life or his profession, or why he travelled as extensively as he did. Villard's diversity of interests - he has been called a "Gothic Leonardo da Vinci" and exhibited interest in timber and stone construction, mechanical devices, clockwork, and a hydraulic saw, a siege machine, animals, antique statuettes, church furnishings, and more - make him fascinating and the ideal 'patron saint' of our association. For more detailed information about him, see Carl F. Barnes, Jr.'s biography of Villard from the Macmillan Dictionary of Art and an English translation of Barnes' "Le 'Problème' de Villard de Honnecourt" from Les Bâtisseurs des Cathédrales Gothiques.
Portfolio	The link to the left will lead you to pages with some sample images from Villard's manuscipt with basic descriptions.
The Villard Pages	Carl F. Barnes, Jr., professor emeritus of art history, Oakland University, maintains the canonical Villard pages, including a bibliography of writings from 1666 to the present concerning Villard. Barnes' website is www.villardman.net.
Basic Bibliography	This is a basic bibliography on Villard and his notebook. The link to the left will provide it in a web page; it is also available as a MSWord file, WordPerfect 2.0 file, and EndNote file

Those interested in Villard may wish to take notice of AVISTA member, Roland Bechmann's new CD-ROM:	Le Carnet de Villard de Honnecourt, l'Art et les techniques d'un constructeur gothique. Collection Bibliotheque nationale de France/ L'OEIL DE L'HISTORIEN (www.bnf.fr), co-produced with Hexagramm, SDI, with the participation of The British Library, the Centre national de la Cinematographie, the Ministere de la recherche, the Conseil regional de Picardie, and the Conseil regional d'Ile de France. To purchase: CD-ROM (Mac and PC) for €46 Consult: Montparnasse Multimedia (www.montparnasse.net), with associated publishers in Canada and England.

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