Meyer Schapiro, eminent mid-twentieth-century scholar of Early Christian, medieval, nineteenth-century, and modern art, gave these six lectures on Insular manuscript illumination in 1968 as the inaugural series of the Franklin Jasper Walls Lectures at the Pierpont Morgan Library. The lectures reflect a segment of Schapiro’s two decades of study on Insular art, most of the results of which were “published” as public lectures in various fora; only three, on specific issues, were sent to press in Schapiro’s lifetime. The impetus to publish the Walls lectures originated with Lillian Schapiro after Schapiro’s death in 1996. The editing process was graciously undertaken by Jane Rosenthal, formerly Schapiro’s student and Columbia professor emerita, who organized the transcription of the tapes of Schapiro’s lectures and provided the citations and illustrations to support Schapiro’s references. Rosenthal has altered very little from the original oral presentations: the title of the volume has changed from Schapiro’s original Early Medieval Book Art to The Language of Form, the term “Insular” has been substituted for the outdated “Hiberno-Saxon,” and a few words of clarification have been added to direct readers who lack the guidance of Schapiro’s pointer in following his excurses on visual form. Notation is sparse, but this...