Small World: Illuminated Manuscripts

They may be diminutive--as small as a few square inches--and more detailed than the naked eye can appreciate, but illuminated manuscripts are not a minor art form, according to Thomas Kren, the J. Paul Getty Museum’s curator of illuminated manuscripts. “They are among the great artworks of the Middle Ages. Illuminated manuscripts are part of the history of painting,” he said recently.

That history is selectively on view at the museum in “Acquisitions of Illuminated Manuscripts 1984-1989,” a new exhibition (to Oct. 1) that includes 26 of the 38 works acquired by the Getty in the last five years. The manuscripts date from the 10th to the 16th centuries and come from seven countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, England and Egypt. These recently acquired treasures are predominantly devotional materials--prayer books and other illustrated religious texts--but they range from a rather plain and tatty Coptic leaf, circa 900, to Georg Hoefnagel’s “Two Columbines and Two Cherries,” a model book of calligraphy with pristine botanical illustrations done in Vienna in the late 16th Century.

Between these two extremes are many Biblical subjects--”The Birth of the Virgin,” “The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian,” “David and Goliath”--generally portrayed with such precision that they might be micro-mosaics on the heads of pins. A more broadly painted 15th-Century French book on hunting offers advise on what and how to shoot, as well as the care and training of dogs.

A relatively large book attributed to 15th-Century Flemish painter Simon Marmion illustrates a popular medieval tale about a character called Tondal who was taken on a journey through purgatory, heaven and hell. We catch up with him as he watches “the greedy thrown into the mouth of the giant beast Acheron.” In a dark illustration across the top of a page, the monster’s open maw rages like an infernal fire that demands a constant supply of sinners.

Illuminated manuscripts were not the work of second-rate artists; the finest talents took on the challenge of painting miniatures, Kren said. One work in the exhibition that proves that point is 15th-Century French artist Jean Fouquet’s “Hours of Simon de Varie.” Opened to a tiny double-page spread depicting “Simon de Varie Kneeling in Prayer Before the Virgin and Child,” this book contains richly colored, roundly modeled forms set down with minute points of tempera pigment and highlighted with gold liquid and leaf. A book of hours by another gifted French 15th-Century painter, known as the Boucicaut Master, includes a sensitive portrayal of Mary Magdalene standing serenely in a delicately patterned room.

All eyes are initially drawn to the illustrations in these books and separate leaves, but the paintings are not all there is to see. The lettering--particularly ornate initials--is itself an art form, and floral or emblematic borders around the pages are wondrous networks of decorative pattern and surprising imagery. The border around the Master of Brussels Initials’ page illustrating “The Calling of St. Andrew,” for example, is so full of fantastic beasts that it nearly overpowers the painting. More typically, borders provide a harmonious and comparatively lacy counterpoint to the densely worked paintings.

Very little is known about the identities of most of the monks and other artists who worked on such pages, but scholars believe that the tasks involved in producing a manuscript were apportioned among specialists. The painter of the central scenes probably did not paint the borders, which vary considerably from one manuscript to another. Occasional records of payment and other historical documents indicate that illuminators were well paid for their efforts and that some of them were esteemed members of royal courts.

Most manuscripts, though ostensibly functional, were done to the order of dukes, kings and emperors who used them on ceremonial occasions or displayed them as status symbols. The majority of these manuscripts have been passed on to national libraries. That the illuminations tend to be in astonishingly good condition is due to the fact that they are in closed books instead of hanging on walls where they are exposed to sunlight.

The Getty plunged into the rarefied field of illuminated manuscripts in a spectacular way in 1983, when it purchased 143 pieces from German collectors Peter and Irene Ludwig--the last great private collection of such material. That group of manuscripts is still the core of the Getty’s renowned collection, but Kren has made some important and enchanting additions--most of which are currently displayed like jewels in glass cases and on walls of a darkened gallery.

This is not an exhibition for droves of tourists hell-bent on seeing the Getty’s highly publicized multimillion-dollar paintings and sculptures. The illuminations’ tiny size and infinite detail demand a slow, intimate reading. To indulge in that exercise is to discover an entire world through a peephole.

It’s great fun and painlessly educational, but it can be frustrating because most illuminated manuscripts are bound books that can only be displayed a page or two at a time. To satisfy viewers who want it all, the museum has discreetly installed some facsimile transparencies of additional pages on narrow viewing tables attached to the gallery walls. A new interactive videodisc on illuminated manuscripts, permanently located in the museum’s browsing room, offers a complete view of the contents of books currently exhibited.

An attractive free brochure available in the gallery explains terminology and provides a brief history of illuminated manuscripts--from the 7th-Century work of Irish miniaturists to luxurious 15th-Century European volumes and Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, in 1452, which eventually ended the tradition of lavishing unimaginable effort on the creation of a single handmade book.