For those seeking refuge from holiday revelry, two important exhibitions in Los Angeles offer sublime moments of solitary contemplation. Though separated by five centuries, the benefactors behind the art in each show were men of enormous wealth and power who passionately sought objects of beauty. In the early 15th century, Jean de France, duc de Berry (1340-1416), commissioned the Limbourg brothers to create a luxurious devotional book known as ‘The Belles Heures.’ The work proved to be his crowning achievement as a patron. Regarded as one of the finest illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, the book is now on view in its unbound state at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Jump ahead to the early 20th century when William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951) voraciously collected hundreds of paintings and sculptures and amassed the largest private holding of tapestries, antiquities, silver, and arms and armor of his time. This bounty furnished no fewer than six palatial residences. ‘Hearst the Collector,’ now on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, reunites nearly 150 of the best works of art from the media tycoon’s vast and varied holdings. Belles Heures’ Is ‘Open Book’ Museum visitors are accustomed to seeing illuminated manuscripts opened to a single page. To see one of the greatest illuminated manuscripts ever in all its unbound glory provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to walk through its pages. Such is the case with ‘The Belles Heures,’ the collaborative work of brothers Paul, Herman and Jean de Limbourg, commissioned by John, the Duke of Berry. One of the jewels of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Cloisters Collection, the medieval manuscript was recently unbound to allow restoration. Before being rebound, its 180 pages, containing more than 80 miniatures, will be exhibited in just two places: here in Los Angeles through February 8, and next fall in New York at the Metropolitan Museum. ‘One can get carried away using superlatives about this exhibition,’ said Thomas Kren, senior curator of manuscripts at the Getty, during a recent interview. ‘I can’t emphasize enough how this is one of the greatest manuscripts the Getty has ever shown and probably will ever show.’ ‘The Belle Heures’ of the Duke of Berry is beloved not only for the splendor of its miniatures, but also for its sheer ambition. While every book of hours contains a collection of devotions with corresponding illustrations, the duke found the Limbourgs’ style so new and exciting that he decided to make the book much larger. In addition to the familiar subjects common to most personal prayer books’such as the story of the infancy of Christ’the Limbourgs added more extensive cycles. They included 11 miniatures of the life of Saint Catherine, a saint especially beloved by the French royal family (the duke of Berry was a son, brother, and uncle of three successive French kings), and 12 miniatures from the life of Saint Jerome, with whom the duke felt a special affinity. The pages instantly transport viewers to the early 1400s and a world full of contrasts, with images of nobles and peasants, holiness and horror, and pleasure and violence existing side by side. Two of the Limbourg brothers were still teenagers when they moved to Paris from Holland circa 1402. Despite their young age, they demonstrated a mature skill as narrative artists, depicting the body and capturing movement and expressions in an entirely new way. ‘Within the tradition of miniature painting, their work is as good as it gets,’ says Kren. ‘They were tremendous colorists whose sensitivity to the effects of light gave their works such delicacy and radiance.’ For those lucky enough to snag one of the magnifying glasses provided in the galleries (or better yet, bring your own or buy one in the gift shop), the nuance of gesture and fineness of individual brush strokes can be savored up close. ‘The book is so well preserved,’ notes Kren. ‘There’s a remarkable freshness and purity of color. It’s as if the artist had just laid down his brush.’ Reframing Hearst as Collector No magnifying glass is necessary when viewing ‘Hearst the Collector’ at LACMA. The exhibition, on view through February 1, is filled with monumental objects, including four full suits of armor and several enormous Renaissance tapestries. Such was the taste of Hearst, whose habits in art collecting mirrored his robust personality as a newspaper tycoon and politician. ‘Hearst did not collect with the intense forethought of J.P. Morgan, Isabella Gardner, or Henry Clay Frick. He was not focused, analytical, introspective or cerebral. He was extravagant, amusing, intuitive and voracious.’ So writes Mary Levkoff, LACMA curator and organizer of the exhibition, in an early chapter of ‘Hearst the Collector,’ the companion catalog. Nonetheless, one of the objectives of the exhibition is to reveal Hearst as an accomplished and discriminating collector, not simply a flamboyant consumer. The exhibition highlights Hearst’s most important acquisitions, including his particularly strong collections of arms and armor, silver, and tapestries. In each of these areas, he surpassed virtually all his contemporaries, amassing the greatest quantity of top-tier works. Hearst also formed legendary treasuries of medieval and Renaissance goldsmith’s work and Limoges enamels. Levkoff surmises the dismissive attitude toward Hearst by many art historians stems from a bias that favors collectors of paintings (even so, the exhibition is not void of paintings’ major works by Boucher, Copley, van Dyck, Fragonard and others are on display). Another contributing factor is that much of Hearst’s collection was dispersed and sold during a liquidity crisis in the late 1930s. Many of his best works of art were bought by benefactors who donated them to other museums, and Hearst’s name subsequently was lost from view. It’s fitting for LACMA to host a reassessment of Hearst’s achievements. He is the museum’s greatest individual donor, and LACMA houses the second largest repository of Hearst’s treasures after Hearst Castle in San Simeon. Standouts in the exhibition include a mother-of-pearl box dotted with garnets and topped by emeralds dating from 1532 and lent by the Louvre. ‘The Lansdowne Venus’ by Antonio Canova, a historic marble statue, is one of many objects on loan from Hearst Castle. A nice complement to the show are drawings by Julia Morgan, Hearst’s preferred architect, who is best known for her work on Hearst Castle.
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