We visited the Metropolitan exhibit of the complete Belles Heures book for Jean, Duc de Berry, created by two brothers, the Limbourgs. Each page is exquisitely decorated with filigree ornamentation and scenes to illustrate the bible stories, psalms, and stories of the saints. I try to imagine the Duc or his child wife idly (or devoutly?) thumbing the pages, eyes glancing at the text but seduced ultimately by the saturated hues and vivid images of ecstasy and death. I wondered if the faces in the miniature drawings were of people the brother artists knew, and liked --or perhaps did not. Anticipating Michelangelo’s placement of a particularly pesky cardinal in hell on his Sistine Chapel ceiling?
In a world of death, intrigue, richness and plague that was the fifteen century, how did the sumptuous book so carefully crafted for a political figure of power and wealth function? What did it mean? Really?
Now I simply gazed upon each page, using a magnifying glass handily provided by the Met to wonder at the detail, even as the ornate language resembled more organic shapes than words with meaning. In what ways did this artistic creation capture a moment in time that also expanded to absorb and transform the Christian mythological vision of good, evil and the endless battle between them?
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