BGuthrie Photos: CA -- Los Angeles -- Getty Center -- Manuscripts (Touching the Past)

CA -- Los Angeles -- Getty Center -- Manuscripts (Touching the Past):

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Description of Pictures: Touching the Past:
The Hand and the Medieval Book:
July 7–September 27, 2015
In the Middle Ages, the hand (manus in Latin) had special status. It was considered the servant of the body and the primary organ of touch. Fingers had exceptional powers of expression and were even said to speak. Manuscript is derived from the Latin phrase meaning “handwritten” (manu scripti). The word reminds us that medieval books were made entirely by hand, for hands. Reading was and remains a manual activity. We “thumb through” a book, a process involving touch as much as vision.
Precious historical artifacts, manuscripts preserve
some of the finest examples of medieval art. As art objects, they are at present only seen behind glass, removed from the realm of touch. It is easy to forget that their lavishly illuminated pages were once turned, stroked, stitched, and sometimes even sliced by generations before us. This exhibition explores manuscripts as tangible, tactile objects that invited touch and were handled -- reverently, carelessly, obsessively, and critically -- by medieval audiences.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. GCENMA_150707_003.JPG: Manufacture: Pippin: What are the hands? Alcuin: The body's workmen. -- Alcuin of York (about 735-800). The Debate between the Princely and Noble Youth Pippin and Alcuin the Scholar The beauty of medieval manuscripts often obscures the story of their arduous making. Faced with the finished product, it is easy to forget that the parchment pages, inks and pigments used for writing and painting, even the wooden boards, string, and leather straps for binding were all products of backbreaking, painstaking manual labor. A cooperative enterprise, making a book took many craftsmen. Though the handiwork of an individual is often difficult to discern, a closer look sometimes reveals the telltale tendencies of an individual scribe or the errors of particular illuminator.
2. GCENMA_150707_009.JPG: Manufacture: Goatskin: This goatskin is well on its way to becoming the parchment pages of a book. Transforming hairy pelts into smooth surfaces suitable for writing and painting involved several labor-intensive steps and required hands trained to each task. First, the animal was carefully selected and skinned. Goats, sheep, and calves were preferred. Scars, even insect bites, caused breaks and holes that compromised quality. The hide was soaked in a lime bath that loosened the fur, which was then removed. While wet on a stretcher, the skin was scraped using a knife with a curved blade. As it dried, the parchment maker adjusted the tension so that it remained taut. This cycle of scraping and stretching was repeated over several days until the desired thinness had been achieved. Finally, the surface was sanded until smooth.
3. GCENMA_150707_013.JPG: It is estimated that a well-trained medieval scribe could write, on average, five or six words per minute. Inclement weather, however, chilled fingers and slowed even the most expert hand. It was likely that less writing was done during the cold, dark months of winter.
4. GCENMA_150707_017.JPG: Touching the Past: The Hand and the Medieval Book: In the Middle Ages, the hand (manus in Latin) had special status. It was considered the servant of the body and the primary organ of touch. Fingers had exceptional powers of expression and were even said to speak. Manuscript is derived from the Latin phrase meaning "handwritten" (manu scripti). The word reminds us that medieval books were made entirely by hand, for hands. Reading was and remains a manual activity. We "thumb through" a book, a process involving touch as much as vision. Precious historical artifacts, manuscripts preserve some of the finest examples of medieval art. As art objects, they are at present only seen behind glass, removed from the realm of touch. It is easy to forget that their lavishly illuminated pages were once turned, stroked, stitched, and sometimes even sliced by generations before us. This exhibition explores manuscripts as tangible, tactile objects that invited touch and were handled -- reverently, carelessly, obsessively, and critically -- by medieval audiences.
5. GCENMA_150707_031.JPG: Astronomical Volvelle, shortly after 1386 A page of this manuscript has been transformed into a simple astronomical instrument called a volvelle, a term derived from the Latin verb volvere meaning "to revolve." The volvelle consists of three overlapping parchment disks. The largest, outermost wheel was drawn directly on the page. The smaller two -- each with large pointers -- were attached to the page by a thin strip of parchment threaded through their centers so that they can turn independently. Directions, written in concentric circles on the uppermost disk, tell the viewer how to set the volvelle in order to predict the shape of the moon on a particular date. In its current position the instrument tells us that the moon will be almost full on July seventh.
6. GCENMA_150707_035.JPG: Initial E: Baruch, about 1270 A reader had to lift a light, gauzy veil to reveal the Old Testament author Baruch, seated in a large initial E and hunched over a book. Nearly all of the vividly colored and gold-leafed initials in this sumptuous, multivolume Bible were once covered by pieces of cloth sewn to the parchment. The thin fabric curtains protected the illuminations as well as the text on the page opposite, since paint could offset or transfer when the book was closed. Though few veils have survived, the practice of veiling images seems to have been relatively common. Traces of stitching -- wisps of thread and holes poked through parchment -- can be seen along the edges of illuminations in several manuscripts on view in this exhibition.
7. GCENMA_150707_044.JPG: The Crucifixion, about 1500-1505 The Crucifixion is the only full-page illumination in this missal, a book used by priests for the celebration of Mass throughout the year. The picture precedes the canon, prayers said at every Mass during the ritual transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. Round leather knots are attached to the edges of certain pages. A kind of tab, these knots served as finding aids that helped priests locate a particular text quickly. The size of each knot corresponds to the importance of the text within. Just as the most opulent image was reserved for the canon, so the largest knot was once attached to this page. At some point, the knot fell off, worn out from heavy use.
8. GCENMA_150707_059.JPG: Many English words contain forms of the Latin for hand, manus, within them. Manipulate is either derived from the Latin manipulus, meaning "handful," or manipulare, "to lead by the hand."
9. GCENMA_150707_061.JPG: Manipulation: "Turn the pages slowly, and keep your fingers far away from the letters, for just as hail damages crops, so a useless reader ruins both writing and book." -- Florentius, a scribe (written 945) Books engaged the body, especially the hand. Getting at a manuscript's contents required unfastening clasps, grasping tabs attached to the edges of pages, or lifting protective veils that covered illuminations. Some images were meant to draw the hand in, their meaning dependent on contact or manipulation. These encounters left marks -- the grimy buildup of dirt on a page, a scribbled annotation, the loss of pigment where an illumination was reverently rubbed. These traces of touch show the many ways that medieval readers interacted with books.
10. GCENMA_150707_072.JPG: Counting and even complex calculations were done with the fingers in the Middle Ages. The numbers one through ninety-nine were signed with the left hand and a hundred to 9,999 with the right. Larger numbers were expressed through extravagant gestures that involved the whole upper body.
11. GCENMA_150707_076.JPG: Marginal Manicules, fifteenth century A sign of command or speechmaking, pointing is perhaps the most common gesture encountered in medieval art. Then as now, people pointed by extending the index finger, or "pointer," while keeping the rest of the fingers tucked close to the palm. From the twelfth through the seventeenth century, scribes, illuminators, and readers drew disembodied, pointing hands in the margin of books. We call these manicules, from the Latin maiculae, meaning "little hands." Helping hands, manicules served many purposes, drawing the reader's attention to important passages, errors, and quotes.
12. GCENMA_150707_080.JPG: Manus: "He winketh with the eyes, presseth with the foot, speaketh with the finger." -- Proverbs 6:13 The Middle Ages have been called a "civilization of gesture." As early as the tenth century, novice monks learned systems of sign language through which they communicated while maintaining holy silence. Outside the abbey, the laity swore loyalty, denied charges, cursed, mourned, and married, all with their hands. Such gestures maintained their potency on the page, where hands, often exaggerated in size, were pictured. They point, pray, beckon, and bless, all the while directing the reader's eye to important passages or helping a viewer navigate an image. Certain signs were symbolic, serving almost as words. Artists employed them as a sort of graphic shorthand, to visualize complex narratives and make their pictures talk.
13. GCENMA_150707_084.JPG: Making an Illumination: To create a manuscript painting, the illuminator first made an outline drawing with led point or quill and ink. Next, areas to receive gold leaf were painted with gum (a tree sap) or bole (a refined red clay). Gold leaf was laid down over the sticky area and sometimes burnished to make it more effective. The coloring material was made from a variety of substances: mineral and earth pigments, chemically produced pigments, and organic colorants (dyes) usually extracted from plants. It was mixed with binding medium (egg white or gum) and water until it was the right consistency for painting. The illuminator applied the tempera paint using a quill or brush, working from paler to darker colors. Lastly, fine details such as black outlines and white highlights were added to complete the illumination.
14. GCENMA_150707_093.JPG: Illustrated Fables, about 1450-75 Many of the energetic and inventive drawings in this collection of fables are out of synch with the stories they illustrate. In several places on these pages, the artist painted over the mismatched pictures with a thin white wash. Ghostly outlines of erased scenes can still be seen in the background of each image. Despite these efforts at correction, text and image still do not correspond. Although the text at the top of the page on the right recounts the story of a violent and greedy shepherd, the image immediately below depicts a king conversing with a peacock. The shepherd, gleefully gripping his knife, was squeezed into the lower margin. Such mistakes reveal how tricky the process of picturing could be, especially for artists who may not have been able to read Latin.
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Wikipedia Description: Getty Center
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Getty Center, in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, is one of two locations of the J. Paul Getty Museum. The museum's permanent collection includes "pre-20th-century European paintings, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, and decorative arts; and 19th- and 20th-century American and European photographs". Among the works on display is the painting Irises by Vincent van Gogh.

The Center, which opened on December 16, 1997, is also well known for its architecture, gardens, and views (overlooking Los Angeles). Besides the Museum, the Center's buildings house the Getty Research Institute, the Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Foundation, and the administrative offices of the J. Paul Getty Trust, which owns and operates the Center.

Location and history:

The purchase of the land upon which the Center is located -- a campus of 24 acres (97,000 m2) on a 110-acre (0.45 km2) site in the Santa Monica Mountains above Interstate 405, surrounded by 600 acres (2.4 km2) kept in a natural state -- was announced in 1983. The top of the hill is 900 feet (270 m) above I-405, high enough that on a clear day it is possible to see not only the Los Angeles skyline but also the San Bernardino Mountains to the east as well as the Pacific Ocean to the west.

In 1984, Richard Meier was chosen to be the architect of the Center. After an extensive conditional-use permit process, construction began in August 1989.

The construction was significantly delayed, with the planned completion date moved from 1988 to 1995 (as of 1990). By 1995, however, the campus was described as only "more than halfway complete".

The Center finally opened to the public on December 16, 1997. Although the total project cost was estimated to be $350 million as of 1990, it was later estimated to be $1.3 billion.

Architecture:

Richard Meier has exploited the two naturally occurring ridges (which diverge at a 22.5 degree angle) by overlaying two grids along these axes. These grids serve to define the space of the campus while dividing the import of the buildings on it. Along one axis lie the galleries and along the other axis lie the administrative buildings. The primary grid structure is a 30-inch (760 mm) square; most wall and floor elements are 30-inch (760 mm) squares or some derivative thereof.

The buildings at the Getty Center are made from concrete and steel with either travertine or aluminium cladding.

Throughout the campus, numerous fountains provide white noise as a background. The initial design has remained intact, however benches and fences have been installed around the plaza fountains to discourage visitors from wading into the pools. Some additional revisions have been made in deference to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The north promontory is anchored by a circular grass area which serves as a heliport in case of emergencies, and the south promontory is anchored by a succulent plant and cactus garden.

The museum has a seven-story deep underground parking garage with over 1,200 parking spaces. An automated three-car, cable-pulled tram takes passengers to and from the museum.

Museum:

The collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum on display at the Getty Center includes "pre-20th-century European paintings, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, and decorative arts; and 19th- and 20th-century American and European photographs". The paintings include:

* Arii Matamoe (The Royal End) by Paul Gauguin (1892). The Museum's director, Michael Brand, stated that the purchase of the painting was “one of the key moments in the history of our collection”. The literal translation of the Tahitian words of the title are "noble" and "sleeping eyes," which implies "death".
* Irises by Vincent Van Gogh (1889). The Museum purchased the painting in 1990; it had sold for $53.9 million in 1987.
* Portrait of a Halberdier by Pontormo (1528-1530). When the Museum bought the painting for $35.2 million at an auction in 1989, "the price more than tripled the previous record at auction for an Old Master painting".
* A copy of Portrait of Louis XIV, which measures 114 x 62-5/8 inches, by the workshop of Hyacinthe Rigaud (after 1701).

The five museum buildings, called pavilions, are North, East, South, West and the Exhibitions Pavilion. The Exhibitions Pavilion acts as the temporary residence for traveling art collections and the Foundation's artwork for which the permanent pavilions have no room. The permanent collection is displayed throughout the other four pavilions chronologically: the North houses the oldest art while the West houses the newest. The first-floor galleries house light-sensitive art, such as illuminated manuscripts, furniture, or photography. Computer-controlled skylights on the second floor galleries allow paintings to be displayed in natural light. The second floors are connected by a series of glass-enclosed bridges and open terraces, both of which offer views of the surrounding hillsides and central plaza.

Central Garden:

The 134,000-square-foot (12,400 m2) Central Garden at the Getty Center is the work of artist Robert Irwin. Planning for the garden began in 1992, construction started in 1996, and the garden was completed in December 1997.

Irwin was quoted as saying that the Central Garden "is a sculpture in the form of a garden, which aims to be art". A tree-lined walkway descends to a plaza, while water in a stream criss-crosses the walkway, continues through the plaza, and goes over a stone waterfall into a round pool. A maze of azaleas floats in the pool, around which is a series of specialty gardens. More than 500 varieties of plant material are used for the Central Garden, but the selection is "always changing, never twice the same".

Getty Research Institute (GRI):

The Getty Research Institute (GRI) is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts". Among other holdings, GRI's research library contains over 900,000 volumes of books, periodicals, and auction catalogs; special collections; and two million photographs of art and architecture. GRI's other activities include exhibitions, publications, and a residential scholars program. At the Getty Center, GRI is located to the west of the museum.

Getty Conservation Institute (GCI):

The Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), which is headquartered at the Getty Center but also has facilities at the Getty Villa, commenced operation in 1985. It "serves the conservation community through scientific research, education and training, model field projects, and the dissemination of the results of both its own work and the work of others in the field" and "adheres to the principles that guide the work of the Getty Trust: service, philanthropy, teaching, and access". GCI has activities in both art conservation and architectural conservation. Its offices are north of the museum.

Getty Foundation:

The Getty Foundation awards grants for "the understanding and preservation of the visual arts". In addition, it runs the Getty Leadership Institute for "current and future museum leaders". Its offices are north of the museum.

J. Paul Getty Trust:

The J. Paul Getty Trust oversees the Getty Conservation Institute, Getty Foundation, Getty Research Institute, and J. Paul Getty Museum. Its offices are north of the museum.

Preparation for natural disasters:

Earthquakes:

Although the Center's site was thought to have little motion during earthquakes which are frequent in the Los Angeles area, in 1994, as the Center was being constructed, the Northridge earthquake struck. It caused "disturbing hairline cracks... in the welds and plated joints of the steel framework". As a result, the steelwork through the site was retrofitted. The Center's buildings are thought to be able to survive an earthquake of 7.5 magnitude on the Richter scale.

Fires:

A number of measures were or are taken to help prevent fires at the Center, including:

* In the 16 electrical transformers at the Center, silicone fluid is used as a coolant "with less risk of ignition" than hydrocarbon coolant.
* The native flammable chaparral was removed and fire-resistant poverty weed was added to the slopes around the Center.
* Each year, a herd of goats is rented to clear brush on the surrounding hills.

A number of other measures help to suppress any fires that might occur or to prevent damage from them, including:

* At the north end of the Center, a tank with a million gallons of water, together with a grass-covered helipad, allow helicopters to collect water.
* The access ramp from the entry plaza to the museum was constructed to allow a fire truck to pass over it.
* Inside the museum, the sprinkler system is designed to balance "between the potential damage of a fire and the risk of water damage to valuable artwork"/
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