Out-of-Bounds Medieval Marginalia Exhibition at Getty Museum
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| Unknown. Initial P: A Funeral Service (ca. 1320-25). French. Tempera colors, gold leaf and ink on parchment. Leaf trim: 16.7 x 11 cm (6 9/16 x 4 3/8 in.). J. Paul Getty Museum. |
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| Spitz Master (French, act. ca. 1415-1425). Saint Catherine Tended by Angels (ca. 1420). Tempera colors, gold and ink on parchment. 20.2 x 14.9 cm (7 5/16 x 5 7/8 in.). J. Paul Getty Museum. |
By STAN PARCHIN
August 3, 2009
Out-of-Bounds: Images in the Margins of Medieval Manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California (September 1-November 8, 2009) examines the interesting and sometimes irreverent illustrations found in the borders of many medieval and Renaissance books' pages.
Drawn entirely from the Getty's collection, the exhibition begins during the Ottonian and Romanesque periods in western Europe, when marginalia were used sparingly as a decorative element in volumes whose parchment pages were a prized commodity during the Middle Ages. From the 10th through 12th Centuries, human, animal and fantastic figures instead occurred within the introductory initials of various manuscripts.
Marginalia flourished during the Gothic era. Miniature scenes expanded or supplemented many religious and biblical texts. Amusing celebrations, battles, playful pastimes, romantic escapades and monstrous races appeared with greater frequency inside the often foliated borders of 13th- and 14th-century manuscripts.
Our-of-Bounds... concludes with illuminated works of late medieval and Renaissance Europe. The artists who decorated the borders of these manuscripts demonstrated their understanding of perspective and painted their observations of the natural world.
Saint Catherine Tended by Angels
One of the exhibition's remarkable works is Saint Catherine Tended by Angels (ca. 1420), created by the anonymous French illuminator known as the Spitz Master. His manuscript exudes the courtly elegance of the International Style and is related stylistically to the Belles Heures (1405-1408/9), a Book of Hours commissioned from the Franco-Netherlandish Limbourg brothers by Jean de France, Duc de Berry. In the Spitz Master's image on display, Catherine of Alexandria, tortured and starved by Roman Emperor Maxentius for her refusal to worship false idols, is visited by angels while imprisoned. The page's marginalia include scenes from the Christian martyr's life.
Sources
Giorgi, Rosa. Saints in Art. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2002, 76-79.
McIlwain Mishimura, Margot. Images in the Margins. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2009.
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