The Walters Art Museum, St. John's Bible, Book of Hours, The Office, and digitizing Islamic books
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
When Lead Graffiti set up this adventure for the Chesapeake Chapter The Walters originally said 10 was about as many as they could hold. We had 11. Things were tight and fun as you'll see from the photos below.
The original premise was to see the exhibition of the stunning new St. John's Bible manuscript that is currently underway, but the hospitality of the Manuscripts staff enlarged that to three separate tours.
St. John's Bible exhibition: The focus of the exhibition is 22 illuminted speads of the 2' x 3' pages with additional, generally religious books / scrolls which allow you to see how various versions compare and also how they've evolved. Ben Tillson, one of the curators of the exhibition gave us a first-hand tour of the exhibition, connecting the supporting books and manuscripts with the St. John's Bible. It became clear that the complexity and symbology used in the St. John's Bible went far beyond what was visually apparent to the casual viewer.
A keepsake printed via letterpress (shown below) was provided by Lead Graffiti to all attendees using a quote from Donald Jackson, the director of the St. John's Bible project.
Book of Hours exhibition: Kathryn Gerry, also a curator for the St. John's exhibition gave us a tour of an exhibition of Books of Hours which had been pulled from the Walters's extensive collection.
During the late Middle Ages, Books of Hours became common tools for private devotion as well as important status symbols. Carried by fashionable ladies and collected by wealthy bibliophiles, Books of Hours differed greatly in style and ornament but were fairly predictable in terms of the imagery they contained. The manuscripts in this exhibition are exceptions in that they present unusual images that challenge our understanding of the relationship between the words of the prayers and their illustrations. Along with coded prayers, the exhibition also explored patronage at the court of King Francis I (1494-1547), a time when the controversies over humanism, reformation, and orthodoxy shaped the intellectual life of discerning patrons.
Our group. Left to right: Kathryn Gerry, Mike Denker, Roland Hoover, Greg Robison, Ron Schwartz, Mike Denker, Tray Nichols, Melissa Lentz, Stan Nelson, Jill Cypher, and Ray Nichols behind the camera.
Greg Robison taking a closer look.
Manuscripts and Rare Book Room:
Our tour completed with an hour-long visit to Will Noel in the Manuscripts and Rare Book Room. Will pulled a dozen outstanding examples from the Walters's collection. It is often nice to just let someone bring out what they think is important as you get some wonderful surprises.
Below are a variety of photos of the group really getting close and personal. Will Noel is the second from the left below.
This might give you an idea of what to do with those old, musty 13th century manuscripts if you are in need of something to cover a book.
These 'turtle' bookmarks (tabs glued to the edges of important pages) was something we hadn't seen before.
Stan Nelson and Roland Hoover comparing type between two documents from the early days of printing in Mainz, Germany.
This was an interesting example of printing with gold (and not just the kind that sort of looks like gold).
Jill Cypher and Will look over a book by Aldus Manitius that was once owned by Erasmus.
The group pouring over a ten-page foldout map.
Islamic Digitizing Project:
As we were leaving Will took us to the 'digitizing' room where they are digitizing their Islamic collection. This was a copy stand from Star Trek.
Most of the group gathered for a photo at the Center Street door of the Walters as we were leaving.
And then the group gathered for a nice lunch at Sacha's across the street for a continuing conversation about books, type, and things printing. From left to right: Melissa Lentz, Greg Robison, Jill Cypher, Ray Nichols, Roland Hoover, Jackie Coleburn, Ron Schwartz, Chris Manson, and Stan Nelson.
Story and photos by Ray Nichols, Jill Cypher, Tray Nichols, and Mike Denker.
