Yellow, Orange, and Pink Cards: Archival Backfiles and Research Frontiers at the Index of Medieval Art

The Index of Medieval Art is a research center for the history of medieval visual culture. It comprises a historic card catalogue and photographic archive, organized by subject matter and media, with archival date ranges covering works of art produced from ca. 300 to 1400. The Index also develops an online database for a variety of interdisciplinary scholars of medieval art, with a more expansive date range up to the mid-seventeenth century. The scholars who maintain this system primarily work from integral archival records, such as typed subject descriptions and photo files, to catalog art historical information for wider study.

Within this system of Index “backfiles” there are mystifying roadblocks to research: “temporary” yellow and orange cards, pink cards for missing references, and scant subject or bibliographic information. This paper will discuss these encounters in the Index archive, with unillustrated and unspecific cards, and share the digitization process from “backfiles cataloging.” I will discuss the reliance of Index work on publications, which reflects art historiographic trends and builds up areas of strength in the collection. I seek a fruitful exchange with questions such as, what makes a record useful? And what is archival “completeness”? Particularly, in the case of lost and destroyed works, the visual elements that inspire ideas are reduced to subject tags and history notes. As the Index continuously develops the collection from print, we learn best about our processes from scholarly inquiry and contact, an altogether important research frontier for the archival (and intrepid) art historian.