Building the Medieval World
02.03.2010 - 16.05.2010
1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90049/1687, USA
This exhibition explores how medieval artists incorporated architecture into scenes from scripture, literature, and history, manipulated the forms of buildings to convey symbolic meaning, and used architectural elements as decorative motifs to fill the landscape of the painted page .
Architecture in Medieval Life
Medieval buildings often seem far removed from our own modern architecture, but they are sometimes direct ancestors of structures we build today. Beyond the castles and cathedrals that spark our imagination, manuscripts often present the landscapes of the time filled with a variety of other domestic and sacred structures.
Recording Historical Buildings
Illuminated manuscripts often served as historical documents of medieval architecture. The dedication or renovation of a church, an important event, was often represented in books created to celebrate the occasion. Manuscripts sometimes depicted buildings associated with a books owner, making a kind of visual inventory of architectural possessions.
Architecture in Scripture
Many of the manuscripts that survive from the Middle Ages contain texts drawn from the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible. Architecture is a frequent setting for biblical stories, and in some cases buildings themselves play key roles in the narratives. Illustrations of these texts provide intriguing insights into the medieval perception of architecture.
Symbolic Structures
Medieval artists depicted architecture not only to record the world around them, but also to convey meaning. Architecture was often used to suggest the importance or holiness of a figure or event. Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints, as well as secular individuals, were frequently framed by structural elements such as the arch or the niche.
Architecture as Decorative Motif
Columns, arches, niches, and tracery often appear in the borders of illuminated pages, enshrining text and image within the decorative forms of medieval and Renaissance architecture. These bits of buildings do not make sense as standalone structures. Instead, they were used for their aesthetic value and to suggest the grand edifices or sacred spaces they adorned. |
April 2010
