Today I went to the Getty Museum and was excited to find an exhibition on Medieval portraiture and illuminated manuscripts in the Northern Pavilion of the museum. In real life, these manuscripts were much more impressive. When looking at them up close you can see all of the tiny details and I wondered how it would ever be possible to create such tiny designs without the help of technology. In relation the the "Word and Image" article by Diebold, seeing the illuminated manuscripts in real life also made it clear how the illiterate could use the pictures in the manuscript to understand the stories in the Bible. "The Madonna of the Burning Bush" from the Book of Hours (Provence, 1480) is an example of a manuscript page that would help someone who could not read Latin understand the story.
I also enjoyed the section on Medieval portraiture, something that we have not yet looked at in class. As we have seen in other periods, the main purpose of Medieval art was not to depict the subject as they really appear, but rather to show their social status, religious convictions, or political positions through clothing and objects that held symbolic meaning. There was also a section in the exhibit that placed modern portraits next to medieval portraits and drew comparisons between the two. I enjoyed this section of the exhibit because it helped highlight the important features of both portraits and contrast the different historical periods.
