FRANKFURT.- For the first time, the Museum Angewandte Kunst is showcasing its complete collection of late medieval illuminated manuscripts in the Text & Spirit exhibition. These include books and fragments decorated with exquisite illuminations and ornaments in gold, lapis lazuli or purple. What use are books of hours from the Middle Ages to us today? Text & Spirit sheds light on various parallels between then and now, drawing a comparison between the books of hours and today’s smartphones. The focus lies on the impact of both as life companions, which are simultaneously means of communication and objects of prestige. Their significance reaches the status of fashionable, performative accessories. The fact that the use of both media leads to a mental detachment from the immediate environment and becoming encapsulated in the mind is particularly impressive. The exhibition thus offers a new perspective on medieval books of hours based on the 21st century as the age of digital communication.
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Digitisation project of the City of Frankfurt am Main
Text & Spirit is part of a digitisation project funded by the Department of Culture and Science of the City of Frankfurt am Main. As part of the digitisation project, the Museum Angewandte Kunst selected works of art from its collection that were rarely or never exhibited and researched before due to their fragility and exceptional value: Christian prayer books from the late Middle Ages in the form of psalters, breviaries and books of hours as illuminated manuscripts, which originate from the private collections of the brothers Michael (1830-1892) and Albert Linel (1833-1916) and Wilhelm Peter Metzler (1818-1904). The texts are written on parchment, presented in book form and elaborately and artistically decorated according to Christian prayer practice.
The manuscripts, as the museum's most valuable collection, were scanned in their entirety with the aim of making these books and book fragments (cuttings) publicly available on the museum’s digital collection platform. In the exhibition the manuscripts, with their illuminating aesthetic composed of text, painting, and the employment of precious materials, will be shown in their original form. Accompanying questions relating to everyday rituals, standards of value, fashion, art, restoration, or religion open up a dialog with these books and their epoch. For a later, independent study of the subject area, the exhibition also includes video interviews with experts and in-depth literature to accompany the digital copies. The digitisation project and the exhibition offer an opportunity to present this important museum collection to the public for discovery and research.
Contemporary recontextualisation
However, what do these books mean to us today? Which life strategies developed back then still continue to resonate today — even extending beyond Christian religious praxis? What inspiration can we draw from this collection for today’s digitally interactive and increasingly emotionalised mediality? And to what extent are there interfaces between the books of hours of the time and today’s smartphones?
Books of hours as fashionable, performative accessories
The digitisation project and the exhibition focus on the medium book as a holistic event between visual, haptic and acoustic means of expression in the context of Christian prayer practice. Employing fixed sequences indicating when and how God is to be called upon, they structured the whole of earthly life. Having arrived in the secular world of the Late Middle Ages, characterised by seeing and being seen, they advanced to become the most popular type of book outside the monastery. In order to demonstrate one’s own godliness, as a means to secure heavenly salvation in an urban community, the illuminated prayer books became highly exclusive and prestigious luxury objects: they assumed the role of performative fashion accessories. Due to the fact that they are both handy and a vessel, books are a source of inspiration for exclusive handbag designs, as evidenced by the brands Jil Sander and Kostas Murkudis. As such, they can be viewed as a continuation of the medieval custom of carrying books as an accessory attached to the belt in a pouch thanks to their compact format.
In addition, the structure and design principles of books of hours are still passed on today, particularly in fashion and lifestyle magazines. On the one hand, this relates to their connection to seasons in the sense that they are published regularly every month, connecting the reader fatefully with cosmic, supratemporal dimensions by means of horoscopes and at the same time embodying the relevance of the times through fashion trends. On the other hand, the tradition of illuminated manuscripts is also reflected in the layout of the periodicals with their calligraphic accentuation of text beginnings, initials, playfullness with the typesetting and the disproportionate relationship between text and image. In both lifestyle magazines and books of hours, it is not the reading of the text that makes up the quality of the experience: Although the text and its content is not an insignificant element, it is primarily effective as a visual component in the interaction between image and text. The experiential character of graphic and pictorial forms is thus subject to the intention of imagining readers into other spheres.
Books of hours and smartphones
The reference to the usage of smartphones opens up a new realm of imagination in terms of comparability between the epochs. This concerns both the media-related role of books of hours and of smartphones in their capacity not only to be life companions at the interface between communicative, text- and image-based transition strategies, but also to structure daily schedules and express them in a relevant and performative way. The fact that the use of both media leads to a mental detachment from the immediate environment and becoming encapsulated in the mind is particularly impressive. In both cases, this is the prerequisite for mentally connecting with another sphere and entering into communication outside the immediate surroundings. With the book of hours in the hand we can call on God, while with the smartphone we can enter into an exchange with the whole world. Both of them make demands on our potential to imagine, although each in their own way.
Furthermore, both books of hours and smartphones have the potential to be used in different areas. The multifunctionality of both media takes place under the condition of simultaneously embodying a complex space of meaning from different reference systems, opening it up emotionally and intuitively and drawing vital life fulfillment from this »all-roundness«. The fact that users can connect both media to the body via the universally available decorative element of decorative chains as fashionable, performative accessories contributes to their further comprehensibility.
The question of value
Another topic is the preciousness of the codices as the most expensive objects of their time. How does the value of things that people pay for come about and how much of their lives are they prepared to invest? This raises the question of what value can mean. The exhibition addresses this by means of an LED sign displaying the ten most expensive objects in the world. The Concept Store Maria, which will temporarily be hosted by the museum on the occasion of the exhibition, will be open on Sundays between 2 pm and 5 pm as well as on special museum occasions. It will invite visitors to engage with the question of value in an applied form.
Video interviews
Eva Linhart interviewed twelve different experts on art, culture, fashion and banking about the digitisation project and the Museum Angewandte Kunst’s collection of illuminated manuscripts. The resulting videos explore different approaches to prayer books as media and as companions in life.
The video interviews are available in the exhibition space on the gallery and on the YouTube channel of the Museum Angewandte Kunst.
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