The exhibition complements Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe, on view October 17, 2010–January 17, 2011, in the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Hall. This exhibition presents a selection of liturgical, academic, and biblical leaves from the museum's permanent collection. Often elaborately decorated in a multitude of styles and formats, illuminated manuscripts flourished in ecclesiastical, monastic, devotional, courtly, legal, and academic contexts throughout the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. The Middle Ages broke with this tradition by considering a literary text as something to be revealed visually to be understood through the written word. In antiquity, literature was thought of as something spoken or heard. These were enlivened by the application of colorful inks, pigments, and gold. Its texts were written on vellum (animal skin), not paper. An illuminated manuscript is a book that was written and decorated by hand sometime between the fall of Rome, in the late 5th century AD, and the perfection of printing technology towards the end of the 15th century. The history of manuscript illumination corresponds almost exactly with the epoch we know as the Middle Ages, a vast period of about a thousand years.

The illuminated manuscript is undoubtedly the most tactile and recognizable of all such collectibles from this era. Their appeal is both intimate and timeless. Prints of 831229 Page from The Imhof Prayerbook, 1511 (tempera on vellum) by Bening, Simon (c.1483-1561) 9圆. Period: the painting is from the 17th century, the frame is from the 19th century. Its history spans at least a millennium, and for many of us today these handwritten, richly embellished works of art represent the quintessential form of medieval artistic expression. Tempera painting on vellum or parchment, depicting a Madonna and Child. Influenced by early Coptic (Egyptian Christian) mats that helped worshipers being prayer. Cross and carpet page, folio 26 verso of the Lindisfarne Gospels, from Northumbria, England, ca. What better way to illustrate our middle class concepts of nostalgia and the ideal childhood than to merge these principles the innocence of the ideal Western childhood with the charm, humor and imaginative aspect of the Medieval Bestiary?Īll the work is egg tempera and 22k gold leaf on vellum (animal skin).The history of the book forms one of the chief categories of the material culture of medieval and Renaissance Europe. Connection to time period-the urnes style was the culmination of three centuries of Viking inventiveness. Children feel a kinship with animals both are felt to be untainted by the artificial structures of human civilization and remain natural and innocent. The figure painting is done in tempera and grisaille (tones of grey) which imparts a surprisingly sculptural.

In examining images from my collection of vintage family photos, I began to notice many images of children with family pets, farm animals or animals at petting zoos. The information was not scientific but served as metaphor or allegory stories easily remembered to show the appearance, strange habits and foibles of each creature and to liven up sermons. In Medieval Bestiaries animal stories were used for moral teaching and to illuminate theological principals. Western societies have had an obsession with childhood since the late 18th century and ubiquitous childhood images pervade our culture through advertising. Combining animals, children and art is not new.

Tempera on vellum