12/14/2023 0 Comments Illuminated manuscripts middle ages![]() Rudolf von Ems (about 1200–1254) based this German World Chronicle on Roman sources, which cast Alexander as an ideal ruler from “the East.” According to the text, Alexander sought the mythical earthly paradise during his military campaigns across Asia. Few contemporary accounts survive about the Macedonian world ruler, but classical and medieval writers in Europe, Central Asia, and India preserved his memory through histories, chronicles, and romances. This range explains some of the transculturation in art from regions like Gandhara. One of the historical figures whose legacy links these cultures is Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE), whose military campaigns took him from Macedonia to Northwest India. The Middle Ages (about 500–1500) witnessed increased movement between Europe, Byzantium, the Islamic world, and India. Head of a Bodhisattva, third century, made in Gandhara. A mostly complete statue from the Norton Simon Museum gives a sense of the various cultural influences (the bodhisattva Maitreya wears a Greco-Roman style toga), and a relief from LACMA shows Buddha Shakyamuni seated near a Corinthian column, another instance of Roman inspiration. In the exhibition, a beautifully carved Gandharan head of a bodhisattva-an enlightened follower of the Buddha who helps others reach Nirvana (release from cycles of desire and suffering)-greets visitors upon entering the gallery. Art from Gandhara (present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan), for example, combined elements from Greece, Rome, Persia, and local traditions, demonstrating the long history of contact at this crossroads of civilizations. Similarly, peoples throughout Europe and the Mediterranean had contact with and developed imagined ideas about the land of India-its peoples, religions, and natural wonders-since ancient times. Image: Empires in the Indian subcontinent, the Hindu Kush, and the Tibetan or Himalayan Plateau shared intertwined histories with principalities to the west, from the Greeks and Romans to the Persianate, Christian, and Islamic kingdoms of Central Asia or East Africa. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of Peter Smoot in memory of Herbert R. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper, 3 × 10 7/8 in. By doing so, our holdings of a ninth-century Qur’an from Tunisia, a silk veil in a thirteenth-century Byzantine Gospel book, and a page from a fifteenth-century Gospel book from Ethiopia find new relationships alongside leaves from Buddhist manuscripts on loan from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art-all of which include areas painted or dyed with the blue pigment indigo, which was largely sourced in India at the time.īuddha Shakyamuni (detail) from a Paramartha Namasangiti manuscript, about 1200, made in Nepal. Exhibitions allow us to expand the traditional narratives about a European Middle Ages to consider a global Middle Ages of trasnational connections. The majority of the manuscripts in the Getty’s collection were produced in Western Europe from the ninth through the sixteenth century, with additional examples from important centers of the Byzantine world (the Eastern Roman Empire), Armenia, Ethiopia, and elsewhere. This post introduces several of the objects from the exhibition. The exhibition Pathways to Paradise: Medieval India and Europe (on view at the Getty Center from May 1 to August 15, 2018) presents a selection of illuminated manuscripts and luxury objects from Asia, Africa, and Europe that communicate the spiritual quests of individuals who sought sacred groves, providential gems, and guides to enlightenment. At right, the many-eyed god Indra and his consort witness the event. He carries the plant to earth along with his wife Satyabhama, who ride together atop an eagle-like mythical being called Garuda. The image above shows the blue-skinned Hindu deity Krishna (an incarnation of Vishnu, “the preserver”) transplanting the sacred parijata tree from heaven. Several world religions share these conceptions of paradise, but the paths for locating it-whether in a physical environment, a metaphysical realm like heaven, or a state of transcendence-have varied greatly. ![]() ![]() The word “paradise” often describes an idyllic place of unmatched beauty, but it can also refer to a mindset of harmony and bliss. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, from the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, Museum Associates Purchase, M.72.1.26. ![]() Opaque watercolor and ink on paper, 7 1/4 × 9 1/2 in. Krishna Uprooting the Parijata Tree from a Bhagavata Purana manuscript, 1525–50, made in Delhi region or Rajasthan, India. ![]()
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