Class Field Trip: Cloisters

Our Gothic Art professor arranged a field trip to the Cloisters yesterday. Part of the purpose of the trip was to see some of the art works we have been discussing in class (Unicorn Tapestries, Tapestries of the Nine Worthies, the Book of Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux, and the Merode Altarpiece [which we will discuss later in class]); the other reason for the trip was so that each student could choose an object on which to write a paper. I chose the "Psalter and Hours of Bonne of Luxembourg" who was the Duchess of Normandy. The manuscript is small, measuring about 3" x 5" (76 mm x 127 mm) and the painting is exquisite; I love the delicately painted birds scattered among the colorful and leafy vines of the marginalia (I counted about fourteen of them, each one different than the other); the bunny in the lower right of the frame is also très adorable!). It is really incredible how the details in the minuscule faces were painted; the precision and control of the artist(s) is beyond belief--the book must have been painted with a magnifying glass and an eyelash!

I wish I could have gotten a better image, but it is really difficult to take a picture of a book behind glass. The scene on the top seems to be King David (who is typically depicted with a lyre; a very appropriate subject since this is a psalter and many of the psalms are attributed to him) with two other figures who are also holding instruments. The bottom depicts the same David, but captures a scene from his youth just at the moment when the stone has left his hand and is about to hit the Philistine giant Goliath (note the sway and elongation of Goliath's body which are characteristics of the International Gothic Style)