... Forget musty old history books crammed with tiresome facts [I beg your pardon, I beg to differ]. The ingenious artists who illuminated the manuscripts in - Imagining the Past in France 1250-1500 - were in the business of bringing history to life. As illustrators of a rich mix of historical documents, Christian literature, legends and myths, they told stories in dazzling pictures for the delectation and edification of the ruling class in medieval France.
"The manuscripts had a specific function at court .... Like movies today about Alexander the Great, King Arthur, the Trojan War or the Crusades, they were meant to teach, entertain and overwhelm the senses as they celebrated exciting narratives."
Like devotional and liturgical illuminations produced in monasteries, the works are highly detailed compositions in vivid tempera colours and gold on parchment. But they were produced by an urban book trade that responded to a demand for vernacular manuscripts. Often larger than traditional religious books, the secular manuscripts are inventive visual interpretations of stories written in French or translated from latin for an increasingly literate audience.
J. Paul Getty Museum's exhibition "Imagining the Past in France" is a rich mix of manuscripts that illuminate the dazzle of medieval France.
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