Indepth Arts News:
"Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art"
2007-11-18 until 2008-03-30
Kimbell Art Museum
Fort Worth, TX,
USA
The Kimbell Art Museum announces "Picturing the Bible: The
Earliest Christian Art," a landmark exhibition of the earliest works of art
illustrating the Old and New Testaments that will be on view from November
18, 2007, to March 30, 2008. Developed and organized by the Kimbell (its
exclusive venue), and guest-curated by Dr. Jeffrey Spier of the University
of Arizona, this highly important exhibition draws upon recent research and
new discoveries to tell the story of how the earliest Christians first gave
visual expression to their religious beliefs.
A spectacular display of many of the greatest treasures of early
Christianity from around the world, "Picturing the Bible" includes major
loans from the Vatican, the Bargello and the Laurentian Library in Florence,
the British Museum, the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
and a number of other international institutions. A landmark event both for
scholarship on the Early Christian era and for the broader appreciation of
this crucial period in world history, this exhibition is the first major
review of third-to sixth-century Christian art since "The Age of
Spirituality" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1977. There have been
many important advances in scholarship since then, as well as a considerable
number of new archaeological discoveries, all of which this exhibition fully
reassesses.
Commented Timothy Potts, director of the Kimbell Art Museum: “The origins
of Christianity have been a very active area of research in recent years
from a variety of perspectives—historical, theological, and artistic. But
there has never been an exhibition that brings this new evidence together,
allowing visitors to see in the works of art themselves how and why a
distinctively Christian visual artistic culture emerged. In "Picturing the
Bible" we see how the early Christians drew upon pagan and Old Testament
motifs to express their new faith; we witness the interplay between the
earliest artistic representations of biblical themes and the doctrinal
debates among early Church Fathers over the correct interpretation of
scripture; and in the process come face to face with many of the finest and
most treasured images that have survived from the tumultuous centuries when
Christianity emerged from persecution to become the state religion of the
Roman Empire. Assembling so many of the most important masterpieces of early
Christian art has been a major challenge—especially the fragile early
Bibles, ivories, and gold glass—and presents a spectacle of early Christian
life that is unlikely to be repeated in our lifetime.”
No Christian images are known to date before the beginning of the third
century A.D., and it seems unlikely that the small Christian community
created distinctive works of art illustrating or expressing their beliefs
before that date. By the early third century, however, Christians had begun
to borrow Old Testament motifs that were regarded as having special
Christian significance, such as images of Abraham and Isaac, Jonah, and
Daniel, as well as symbolic images, including the Good Shepherd and the
fish, the latter an allusion to Jesus (“ichthys” [ICQUS], “fish” in Greek,
being an acrostic for “Jesus Christ, son of God, savior”). Although very
rare in the third century, pictorial scenes from the life of Jesus were
evidently being developed, and by the fourth century, extensive
illustrations of the New Testament were being created in a variety of media,
including catacomb paintings, mosaics, sarcophagi, ivories, and no doubt
Bibles, although none survives till the following century. By the sixth
century, many of these early, innovative images had been replaced by
conventional depictions of the life and miracles of Jesus.
"Picturing the Bible" brings together a wide range of material in an attempt
to help clarify the questions of how Christians in the Greco-Roman period
illustrated their religious beliefs, including frescoes, marble sculpture
and sarcophagi, silver vessels and reliquaries, carved ivories, engraved
gold glass, bronze sculpture, seals in semiprecious stones, illustrated
Bibles, and decorated crosses.
Among the highly important treasures in the exhibition are several that have
never or rarely been lent before, such as the spectacular, gem-encrusted
gold cross presented by the emperor Justin II to Pope John III in the late
sixth century, on loan from the Vatican Museums. This cross functioned as a
reliquary, containing a piece of the True Cross.
Another important reliquary comes from the Museo Diocesano of Milan. An
extremely rare silver reliquary, the “Capsella” of San Nazaro was discovered
in 1578, when Saint Carlo Borromeo, the archbishop of Milan, ordered the
exploration of the area beneath the high altar of the church of San Nazaro
(the fourth-century Basilica Apostolorum). One of the largest silver
reliquaries of the Early Christian period, this box from San Nazaro combines
sacred Christian imagery from the Old and New Testaments with imperial
iconography. The Roman chiton and short, fringed hair worn by Christ while
teaching, and the scene of the enthroned Virgin holding the Christ Child,
recall the classicizing tradition of the imperial court.
Also crafted in silver are two plates depicting scenes from the life of
David, on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Part of a series of
nine plates, these fine silver objects were discovered in a hoard in Cyprus
in 1902. Decorated in relief, the Byzantine fashion of the figures and the
five official stamps on the underside of each plate, applied to only the
highest quality Byzantine silver, reveal the plates’ origins and date them
securely to the reign of Emperor Heraclius (r. 610–41). Most likely they
were intended as imperial gifts.
Carved sculpture, both in stone and in ivory, also form an integral part of
the exhibition. From the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence is the
ivory diptych of Adam Naming the Animals and the Miracles of St. Paul, one
of the masterpieces of their collection. Imposing sarcophagi with scenes of
the life and ministry of Christ as well as depictions of Daniel, Jonah, and
other figures of both the Old and New Testaments on loan from the Vatican
Museums, Trier, Arles, and Algeria are also part of the exhibition.
Illustrated manuscripts are among the rarest and most treasured objects in
the exhibition. Only a handful of illustrated Bibles from the sixth century
have survived, and an unprecedented three of these are included in the
exhibition. The Rabbula Gospels, on loan from the Biblioteca Medicea
Laurenziana in Florence, were inscribed by a monk named Rabbula in a Syrian
monastery, who in 586 a.d. recorded the moment when he had finished the
manuscript. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France is lending an illustrated
folio—only five of which are extant—from the fragmentary Greek Sinope
Gospels, the entire text of which is written in gold on purple-dyed vellum.
On loan from the British Library are several fragments of the Cotton
Genesis, a Greek manuscript probably produced in Egypt. Although the
manuscript was tragically reduced to fragments in 1731 during a fire in the
Cotton Library, several fragments survived.
IMAGE Ivory plaque with Pilate Washing His Hands, Christ Bearing the Cross, and Peter Denying Christ, Rome, c. 420–30, from the Maskell ivories. ©The Trustees of the British Museum, London
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