Getty Museum to Explore Representations of Medieval Architecture
The architectural wonders of soaring cathedrals and majestic palaces are some of the greatest achievements of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. On view at the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Center, March 2–May 16, 2010, Building the Medieval World: Architecture in Illuminated Manuscripts explores representations of medieval architecture in manuscript illumination where artists incorporated examples of medieval church and domestic architecture into scenes drawn from scripture, literature, and history. Architectural settings were also employed to symbolically convey the importance of individuals and events, and artists frequently used architectural elements as decorative motifs to frame text and images.
“This exhibition demonstrates how the daily presence of towering and monumental architectural forms in both cities and in the countryside fascinated medieval viewers and crept into the fictional world of the painted page,” explains Christine Sciacca, assistant curator of manuscripts and curator of the exhibition.
Images found in manuscripts offer insight into how medieval buildings were used as well as reveal the daily life that took place inside and around them. Manuscripts also frequently served as historical documents of medieval architecture. The dedication or renovation of a church was often represented in books of prayer and music created to celebrate the occasion. Manuscripts also depicted buildings associated with a book’s owner, constituting a kind of visual inventory of his architectural possessions. Some of the images found in this exhibition are schematic, merely suggesting the overall look of a structure, while others provide exact records of what particular buildings looked like when their images were painted onto the page...
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“This exhibition demonstrates how the daily presence of towering and monumental architectural forms in both cities and in the countryside fascinated medieval viewers and crept into the fictional world of the painted page,” explains Christine Sciacca, assistant curator of manuscripts and curator of the exhibition.
Images found in manuscripts offer insight into how medieval buildings were used as well as reveal the daily life that took place inside and around them. Manuscripts also frequently served as historical documents of medieval architecture. The dedication or renovation of a church was often represented in books of prayer and music created to celebrate the occasion. Manuscripts also depicted buildings associated with a book’s owner, constituting a kind of visual inventory of his architectural possessions. Some of the images found in this exhibition are schematic, merely suggesting the overall look of a structure, while others provide exact records of what particular buildings looked like when their images were painted onto the page...