EXHIBITIONS
The Fantasy of the Middle Ages
curated by Larisa Grollemond and Bryan C. Keene
The castles, knights, battles, and imaginary creatures of the Middle Ages perpetually inspire art, literature, photography, film, and reenactment. These later fantasy works blend historical source material with legendary or magical elements to create memorable characters, creatures, and cultures. This exhibition explores the ways in which the Middle Ages have been mythologized, dramatized, and re-envisioned time and again, proving an irresistible period for creative reinterpretations ranging from the Brothers Grimm to Game of Thrones.
Getty Museum, 22 June to 11 September 2022
Power, Justice, and Tyranny in the Middle Ages
curated by Larissa Grollemond, Bryan C. Keene, Elizabeth Morrison, and K. Collins
Medieval power structures included royal courts, the church, city governments, and even universities. Although positions of authority were usually inherited, leaders were expected to embrace justice, a virtue associated with godly rule, over tyranny, a vice that ensured downfall and chaos. Social and legal hierarchies exposed in manuscript illumination underscore the tenuous place of women, the poor, and other "out-groups." Examples of good and bad government reveal the constant struggle between base human instincts and loftier ideals. The works in this exhibition reveal the intersections between power, justice, and tyranny and illustrate the constant struggle between noble aspirations and base human instincts.
Getty Museum, 25 May to 15 August 2021
Balthazar: A Black African King in Medieval and Renaissance Art
curated by Bryan C. Keene and K. Collins
Early medieval legends reported that one of the three kings who paid homage to the newborn Christ Child in Bethlehem was from Africa. But it would be nearly one thousand years before artists began representing Balthazar, the youngest of the magi, as a Black African. This exhibition explores the juxtaposition of a seemingly positive image with the painful histories of Afro-European contact, particularly the brutal enslavement of African peoples.
Join the conversation on our blog or @ #BalthazarLA
Getty Museum, 19 November 2019 to 17 February 2020
Google Arts & Culture virtual exhibition (English and Spanish available)
Trade and Empire: African Arts' Golden Age
During the Middle Ages, West Africa was home to rich and dynamic cultures that created objects whose power and beauty continue to resonate today. Most spectacular were those made of gold. In this talk, Gus Casely-Hayford, director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, traces the history of gold and the growth of West Africa’s empires. By exploring this network, which includes the powerful emperor of Mali, Mansa Musa, he reveals the impact these former kingdoms continue to have on contemporary values and cultural expression.
12 January 2020
Read an interview with Gus Casely-Hayford about the Balthazar exhibition.
Place is the Space: Recasting Black Presence and Power through Art
Artists Genevieve Gaignard and Rashaad Newsome address why and how they create spaces for Black histories that explore notions of rulership, power, and place. This conversation, moderated by Tyree Boyd-Pates, curator of Western history at the Autry Museum, poses questions about absence, erasure, and the process of reclaiming history for members of the African diaspora in the spaces of the art museum and beyond.
19 February 2020
Read a reflection by Tyree Boyd-Pates about Adoration of the Magi scenes and race.
The Wondrous Cosmos in Medieval Manuscripts
The cosmos—full of shining stars and orbiting planets—inspired study and devotion among scientists, theologians, and artists alike during the Middle Ages. The belief in angels, demons, and spirits was also translated into lavish works of art, especially on the pages of illuminated manuscripts. This exhibition invites you to explore the complexity of the celestial realm in medieval European faith and science traditions, and to marvel at the wondrous cosmos.
Getty Museum, 30 April to 21 July 2019
Ever Present: Cosmos curated by Sarah Cooper
Afrofuturist performance by Jordi
Wine & Astrology course
Ever Present: Cosmos interdimensional ritual by A.S.T.R.A.L.O.R.A.C.L.E.S with live music accompaniment by ambient composer Ana Roxanne
Artful Words: Calligraphy in Illuminated Manuscripts
curated by Bryan C. Keene and Katherine Sedovic
The written word was an art form in the premodern world. Calligraphers filled the pages of manuscripts with scrolling vines and delicate pen flourishes, and illuminators depicted captivating narratives within large letterforms. These decorative embellishments reveal the monetary, cultural, and spiritual value placed on handmade books at the time. The alphabetic adornments in this exhibition enliven the pages of a range of manuscripts—including sacred scripture, romance literature, and history—produced from England to Central Europe and beyond for nearly one thousand years.
Getty Museum, 18 December 2018 to 7 April 2019
The Art of Three Faiths: A Torah, A Bible, and A Qur'an
co-curated by Bryan C. Keene, E. Morrison, and K. Collins
One of the most elaborately illuminated copies of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible created in the Middle Ages, the Rothschild Pentateuch is the first Hebrew manuscript to be added to the collection of the Getty Museum. Its acquisition allows the Getty for the first time to represent the medieval art of illumination in sacred texts of the three Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, founded in that order. These religions trace their belief in the singular God to a common patriarch, the figure of Abraham (Ibrahim). Practitioners of all three religions have been called people of the book for their shared belief in the primacy of the divine word as conveyed through sacred scripture. Copies of the Torah, Christian Bible, and Qur’an are among the most beautifully illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, represented in this exhibition by three remarkable examples.
Getty Museum, 7 August 2018 to 3 February 2019
Pathways to Paradise: Medieval India and Europe
The illuminated pages of medieval manuscripts reveal a dynamically interconnected world filled with ideas about foreign peoples, and places both real and imagined. Many religious thinkers living across Europe and Asia conceived paradise as a place of perfect harmony, but the path for locating such a site or achieving this state of mind varied among these religions. By exploring the terrestrial and celestial realms, this exhibition highlights the spiritual motivations for creating and owning portable and devotional artworks.
Getty Museum, 1 May to 5 August 2018
Designed by Jennifer Minasian
Conservator Jane Bassett examining a sculpture from Nepal
Outcasts: Prejudice and Persecution in Medieval Art
Winner of the Association of Art Museum Curators Award for Excellence "Outstanding Exhibition 2019"
co-curated by Bryan C. Keene and K. Collins
Medieval manuscripts preserve stories of romance, faith, and knowledge, but their luxurious illuminations can reveal hidden prejudices as well. Typically created for the privileged classes, such books nevertheless provide glimpses of the marginalized and powerless, reflecting their tenuous places in society. Attitudes toward Jews and Muslims, the poor, those perceived as sexual or gender deviants, and the peoples beyond European borders can be discerned through caricature and polemical imagery, as well as through marks of erasure and censorship. For today’s viewer, the vivid images and pervasive subtexts in illuminated manuscripts can serve as stark reminders of the power of rhetoric and the danger of prejudice.
Join the conversation on our blog or @ #MedievalOutcasts
Getty Museum, 30 January to 8 April 2018
Sacred Landscapes: Nature in Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts
co-curated by Bryan C. Keene and Alexandra Kaczenski
God is living, being, spirit, all verdant being, all creativity –Hildegard of Bingen
In Renaissance Europe, many people looked to nature for spiritual inspiration and to guide their contemplation of the divine. In manuscripts created for personal or communal devotion, elements of nature—such as rocks, trees, flowers, waterways, mountains, and even the atmosphere—add layers of meaning to the illuminations, which were painted with careful observation of every minute detail. These landscapes remind readers to appreciate, and respect, the wonder of creation.
Getty Museum, 10 October 2017 to 7 January 2018
The Shimmer of Gold: Giovanni di Paolo in Renaissance Siena
Curated by Yvonne Szafran and Bryan C. Keene, with consultation from Davide Gasparotto
Manuscript illuminator and panel painter Giovanni di Paolo was one of the most distinctive and imaginative artists working in Siena, Italy, during the Renaissance. This exhibition reunites several panels from one of his most important commissions—an altarpiece for the Branchini family chapel in the church of San Domenico in Siena—for the first time since its dispersal, and presents illuminated manuscripts and paintings by Giovanni and his close collaborators and contemporaries. Through recent technical findings, the exhibition reveals his creative use of gold and paint to achieve remarkable luminous effects in both media.
The Branchini Altarpiece has been studied by conservators and curators at the Getty Museum as part of a conservation partnership with the Norton Simon Foundation and the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands. The Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena, the Burke Family Collection, James E. and Elizabeth J. Ferrell, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art have generously lent related works of exceptional quality.
Support for this project and exhibition has been provided by the Getty Museum's Paintings Council.
Getty Museum, 11 October 2016 to 8 January 2017
Traversing the Globe through Illuminated Manuscripts
Travel across the Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas through the pages of manuscripts and printed books.
In the premodern era, land and sea routes connected the remarkably mobile peoples of Europe, Africa, and Asia, many of whom were far more aware of the world beyond their doorsteps than one might realize. This exhibition features illuminated manuscripts and painted book arts from the 9th through the 17th century that bring to life in stunning ways the real and imagined places that one encounters on their pages. These highly prized objects allow us to glimpse, admire, and study a world gone by, as well as its peoples, different belief systems, and an interconnected global history of human thought and ideas about art.
The exhibition is drawn primarily from the Museum’s collection, augmented with several generous and important loans from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Norton Simon Museum, the Huntington Library, and the Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA. This exhibition is presented in two parts. The pages of the manuscripts will be turned to reveal further treasures on April 12, 2016.
Getty Museum, 26 January to 26 June 2016
Winner of the Global Fine Art Awards, "Best Renaissance, Baroque, Old Masters, and Asian Dynasties" Exhibition 2017
Winner of the inaugural You-2 Social Media Award for Best Exhibition (voted by over 100,000 Twitter users)
Designed by Elie Glyn
Renaissance Splendors of the Northern Italian Courts
The Renaissance courts of northern Italy, among the wealthiest and most sophisticated in Europe, attracted innovative artists who created objects of remarkable beauty. Princes and courtiers offered painters and illuminators favorable contracts and social prestige in return for lavishly decorated panels and books. These works prominently displayed their owners' scholarly learning, religious devotion, and elite status. Drawn primarily from the Getty Museum's permanent collection of manuscripts, this exhibition celebrates the magnificent illuminations that emerged from this courtly context—an array of visual riches fit for the highest-ranking members of Renaissance society.
Accompanying the show is an online virtual exhibition, produced in collaboration with institutions in Ferrara, Mantua, Milan, Venice, and Verona, that allows visitors to view additional illuminated manuscripts by artists active in the northern Italian courts as well as items owned by various patrons who lived there.
Gallery installation. Designed by Robert Checchi.
Choral ensemble singing from a fifteenth-century choir book.
Virtual Exhibition produced in collaboration with the following institutions:
Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice (Carmelo Grasso, Abbot Norberto Villa, and the Benedictine community);
Archivio e Biblioteca Capitolare di Sant’Ambrogio, Milan (Marco Petoletti and Miriam Tessera);
Archivio Storico Civico e Biblioteca Trivulziana, Milan (Claudio Salsi, Isabella Fiorentini and Marzia Pontone)
Archivio Storico Diocesano, Mantua (Mons. Giancarlo Manzoli, Licia Mari and Mauro Bini);
Fondazione Cini, Venice (Luca Massimo Barbero, Alessandro Martoni and Simone Guerriero);
Musei civici di Arte Antica, Ferrara (Elena Bonatti and Giovanni Sassu);
Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona (Paola Marini, Ettore Napione and Arianna Strazieri);
Private collections, United States and United Kingdom
Gardens of the Renaissance
Whether part of a grandiose villa or an extension of a common kitchen, gardens in the Renaissance were planted and treasured in all reaches of society. Due to their ephemeral nature, most gardens have changed or been lost since the Renaissance, but illuminated manuscripts of the period offer a glimpse into how people at the time pictured, used, and enjoyed these idyllic green spaces. Through a wide range of works drawn from the Getty Museum's permanent collection, this exhibition explores gardens on many levels—from the literary Garden of Love and the biblical Garden of Eden to courtly gardens of the nobility—and reports on the many activities both reputable and scandalous that took place there.
Getty Museum, 28 May to 11 August 2013
Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance: Painting and Illumination, 1300-1350
A groundbreaking look at the artistic community that gave rise to the Italian Renaissance.
In the early 1300s, creativity was flourishing in Florence at a time of unprecedented prosperity, urban expansion, and intellectual innovation. The Renaissance was awakening. In this dynamic climate, master painter Giotto di Bondone revolutionized painting with a new, more naturalistic approach to the human form. He—along with the iconic literary figure Dante Alighieri and accomplished panel painters and illuminators—formed a thriving artistic community that responded to the great demand for art and literature in the growing city, both for the decoration of sacred and secular buildings and for the illumination of luxurious manuscripts.
This major international loan exhibition presents seven breathtaking paintings by Giotto, the largest number ever assembled in North America, as well as extraordinary works by his Florentine contemporaries, including painters Bernardo Daddi and Taddeo Gaddi and painter-illuminators Pacino di Bonaguida, the Master of the Dominican Effigies, and the Master of the Codex of Saint George. Among the highlights are the earliest illuminated copies of Dante's masterpiece the Divine Comedy, and nearly all the surviving leaves from the most important illuminated manuscript commission of the early 1300s, the Laudario of Sant'Agnese.
In a fresh approach to this material, paintings, manuscript illumination, and stained glass are examined side by side, in concert with new scientific analysis and findings about artists' techniques and workshops, to reveal a complex and nuanced picture of the beauty of Florentine art during this pivotal moment in history.
Getty Museum, 13 November 2012 to 10 February 2013
