A series of museum special exhibitions focuses on the art and culture of the European Middle Ages.
The art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is the subject of eight special exhibitions in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Canada. A number of their objects have never before left their homes, making these thoughtfully organized shows singular opportunities to see splendid medieval and Renaissance objects from museums and private collections worldwide.
Medieval and Renaissance Highlights: Makers and Markets
Objects made for wealthy patrons and the diverse markets of Renaissance Europe are on display. These include sculptures by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1476-1564), Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) and Giambologna (ca. 1529-1608) as well as German stoneware vessels, Limoges enamels, Spanish lustreware ceramics and Venetian metalwork.
- Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK: March 26, 2007-April 29, 2009
Medieval and Renaissance Treasures from the Victoria and Albert Museum
Currently on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (June 23-October 7, 2007), 35 mostly small-scale works of art from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (ca. 300-1600 A.D.) come from church settings and the private collections of affluent Renaissance patrons. They include ivory carvings, the Reliquary Casket of St. Thomas Becket (ca. 1180), bronze sculptures by Italian masters Donatello (1386/7-1466) and Antico (ca. 1460-1528) and the Codex Forster I (late 15th-early 16th century) of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), a notebook written in the genius' characteristic mirror-script. The exhibition will later visit:
- Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL USA: October 23, 2007-January 6, 2008
- Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY USA: January 22-April 20, 2008
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY USA: May 20-August 17, 2008
- High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA USA: October 11, 2008-January 4, 2009
- Millennium Galleries, Sheffield, England: January 29-May 24, 2009
Music for the Masses: Illuminated Choir Books
More than 40 illuminated choir books and leaves show how manuscripts containing music for Christian church services were illustrated in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
- J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA USA: August 14-October 28, 2007
Glimpses Of Byzantium
A group of 81 impressive objects from the Royal Ontario Museum's Byzantine art collection, mostly from the 6th to 7th Century A.D., is divided into five themes: Processional Crosses; Reliquaries and Pilgrim Tokens; Gold Jewelry and Other Fine Objects; Imagery Within Churches; and Liturgical Silver.
- Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada: October 12, 2007-December 2008
Medieval Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art
This eagerly anticipated exhibition, presently on view at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich, Germany (May 11-September 16, 2007), features more than 120 rare carved ivories, enamels, illuminated manuscripts, paintings, sculptures, textiles, armor and decorative works of gold and silver (3rd through 16th Centuries A.D.). Arranged chronologically and geographically, the display is divided into three sections. Early Christian and Byzantine Art includes the powerful Late Roman marble sculpture Jonah Cast Up (ca. 280-90) from Asia Minor. In Early Medieval Art, the Guelph Treasure, the Portable Altar of Countess Gertrude (ca. 1045) is an exceptional example of ecclesiastical art from medieval Germany. Two highlights of Late Medieval Art are an emotive group of Three Mourners (Pleurants) from the Tomb of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy (1364-1404) by the Netherlandish sculptor Claus de Werve (act. in Burgundy, 1396-1439) and the marvelous Adoration of the Magi (ca. 1440-45) by Sienese painter Giovanni di Paolo (act. 1417-d. 1482).
- J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA USA: October 30, 2007-January 20, 2008
The Decorated Letter
Various illuminated manuscripts from the 9th to 16th centuries demonstrate how medieval artists created their splendid lettering for initials, words and stories, incorporating flora, fauna and mythological beings on the painted page.
- The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA USA: November 13, 2007-January 27, 2008
Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art
This international loan exhibition assembles works in bronze and ivory, decorated crosses, examples of engraved gold glass, frescoes, illustrated Bibles, marble sculptures, sarcophagi, semiprecious stone seals, silver vessels and reliquaries. Together they describe how early Christians from the 3rd to 6th Centuries A.D. expressed their religious beliefs, based upon the Old and New Testaments, through the visual arts. This landmark presentation reflects important developments in the study of Early Christian art and archaeological discoveries since The Age of Spirituality appeared at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1977. Among the significant loans to the Kimbell Art Museum's exclusive presentation are the British Museum's Ivory Plaque with Pilate Washing His Hands, Christ Bearing the Cross, and Peter Denying Christ (ca. 420-30 A.D.), the Vatican's gem-encrusted gold Reliquary Cross of Justin II (568-74) and the Rabbula Gospels, completed in 586 A.D., from Florence's esteemed Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana.
- Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX USA: November 18, 2007-March 30, 2008
Realms of Faith: Medieval Art from the Walters Art Museum
The original function of some 50 liturgical objects from medieval Christianity (ca. 500-1500 A.D.), including images of the Virgin and Child, is the theme of this special exhibition, comparing the religious art and practices of Western Europe with those of Byzantium. Attention is paid to works of personal devotion and the use of animal imagery in Biblical narratives.
- Museum of Biblical Art, New York, NY USA: March 5-July 13, 2008
- Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME USA: September 7, 2008-January 4, 2009
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