Many people still perceive images of medieval masters as creations of artists - in the usual sense of the word. Meanwhile, the Middle Ages did not know the concepts of “creativity,” “fidelity to nature,” or “observation,” which are characteristic of the Renaissance and Modern times. Art critic Anna Pozhidaeva strives to reveal the logic of the work of Western European masters of the 11th–13th centuries, primarily miniaturists. What was the extent of their freedom? By what criteria did they choose samples for their own iconographic schemes? How were the works of predecessors reproduced and what was meant by “copy”? In asking such questions, the author focuses on the Western European iconography of the Days of Creation, which mixed several very different visual traditions of early Christianity. Analysis of numerous miniatures allows the researcher to develop the concept of a “mixed puzzle” - an iconographic complex put together by several generations of medieval masters. Anna Pozhidaeva - Candidate of Art History, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Humanities at the National Research University Higher School of Economics.