The exhibition’s only U.S. appearance takes a comprehensive look at the greatest epoch in Flemish illumination.
Los Angeles is hosting some of the most stunning works of art of the Renaissance in a major international exhibition of manuscript painting at the J. Paul Getty Museum.
“Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe” features some of the finest and most ambitiously illuminated manuscripts produced between 1467 and 1561 in what is today Belgium and northern France. Flemish illuminators produced books written and painted by hand on parchment, exhibiting a new naturalism and remarkable illusionist details that captured the imaginations of art collectors across Europe.
The exhibition brings together more than 130 objects from a total of 50 lenders from 14 countries worldwide. This international effort assembles a large body of masterworks that have never been seen together before, including dazzling manuscripts, drawings and paintings from the Getty’s collection and the collections of the British Museum and the British Library, London; the Louvre and the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris; and the Metropolitan Museum and the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. Most of the manuscripts are rarely exhibited due to their fragile nature and susceptibility to damage by exposure to light.
In its only American appearance before traveling to the Royal Academy of Arts in London, this comprehensive look at the greatest epoch in Flemish illumination will be on display at the J. Paul Getty Museum from June 17 until Sept. 7.
This exhibition represents a scholarly collaboration between Thomas Kren, curator of manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Brentwood, and Scot McKendrick, curator at the British Library in London.
The flowering of Flemish illumination displayed in this exhibition marked the last great phase of the art form before Johann Gutenberg’s moveable-type printing forecast its death knell in the mid-15th century, eventually making books produced by hand obsolete.
Flemish illuminators introduced into their works a painterly mastery of light, texture and space with an unsurpassed naturalism in their miniatures with flowers, jewels and other objects casting their own shadows to create the illusion that they were laid directly onto the page.
“Poised on the cusp between the medieval and modern worlds, Flemish illuminators bridged both eras, playing a pivotal role in an interchange between manuscript illumination and other visual art forms, particularly painting,” stated Thomas Kren. “In the process, they left an indelible mark on art history. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see the works of great illuminators and painters side-by-side, including masterpieces by such celebrated figures as Roger Van der Weyden and Pieter Bruegel the Elder.”
The J. Paul Getty Museum collects in seven distinct areas: Greek and Roman antiquities, European paintings, drawings, manuscripts, sculpture, decorative arts, and European and American photographs.
The Getty Villa, nestled in a verdant canyon next to Pacific Coast Highway near Malibu, has been closed since 1997 for extensive renovations that will change the 64-acre hillside property into a museum and center for the study of Greek and Roman antiquities. The project was challenged in the courts by neighbors who feared potential noise and traffic problems despite the Getty’s long history of sensitivity on these issues. The neighbors prevailed in Superior Court but the Getty won the appeal in the appellate process. When the state Supreme Court declined to hear a further appeal by the neighbor group, the Getty announced that construction would proceed with the Villa reopening scheduled for the fall of 2005.
The Getty Center, located at 1200 Getty Center Drive off the 405 Freeway, is open Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. It is closed Mondays and major holidays.
Admission is free. Parking is $5 per car. No parking reservations required on Saturdays or Sundays or after 4 p.m. weekdays. For more information, call 310.440.7300.
-Ray Singer