Getty Exhibits Stained Glass, Manuscript from Middle Ages

Now on view at the Getty Center are two masterpieces of medieval English art: six stained-glass figures depicting the “Ancestors of Christ” from England’s famed Canterbury Cathedral and the St. Albans Psalter, a richly illuminated manuscript that is a landmark of English Romanesque art.
“Canterbury and St. Albans: Treasures from Church and Cloister” will be at the Getty through February 2 and will unite monumental glass painting with the intimate art of book illumination to reveal how specific texts, prayers and environments shaped the medieval viewer’s understanding of these pictures.
Canterbury Cathedral is one of the best-known Christian buildings in England and is part of a World Heritage Site. Famously featured in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” the Cathedral has attracted thousands of pilgrims honoring Saint Thomas Becket, who was murdered in the Cathedral in 1170.
The six figures in the exhibition are part of the “Ancestors of Christ” series, which originally consisted of 86 figures, largely based on the list of names contained in the Gospel of St. Luke, with additional names from the Gospel of St. Matthew. The windows exhibited show the imposing, life-size figures of Jared, Lamech, Noah, Thara, Abraham and Phalec.
“These are the earliest and finest surviving windows from Canterbury, and indeed from 12-century Britain,” said Jeffrey Weaver, associate curator of sculpture and decorative arts at the Getty. “Not only are they vibrant examples of the Romanesque style, they are extraordinarily rare—very little glass from this period remains.”
The St. Albans Psalter (circa 1130) is on loan from the Cathedral Library in Hildesheim, Germany, where it has been since at least the 17th century. The book was made at St. Albans Abbey, on the site where the Romans martyred Alban, England’s first saint. This lavishly decorated manuscript contains life-of-Christ images that act as a preface to the Psalter, which is further decorated with intricately painted and gilded initials. The Psalter contains the most extensive series of life-of-Christ images for its time, as well as illuminated initials that deftly encapsulate complex psalms into singular, powerful images.

Throughout the early and high Middle Ages, the psalter was the preeminent manual for personal devotion among the laity and monastic community alike. From the psalter, individuals learned to read the words they had already committed to memory through years of recitation, both in church and in the home. In the high Middle Ages, when the St. Albans Psalter was made, readers customarily read aloud. The combined experience of seeing, reciting and hearing the psalms enabled the reader to enter into a meditative state of prayer.
Because the Psalter is temporarily unbound, visitors will have the opportunity to walk through several galleries filled with its painted pages. The St. Albans Psalter has never before been exhibited in the United States, and the Getty is the only place where the windows and the manuscript will be shown together.
Contact: getty.edu.