05.31.07
The Long Weeks Ahead
Here I am in the last two weeks of school and I am not ready to face the music.
How did we get here so quickly? I was sitting in class today amidst a beauitful array of medieval manuscripts, I was actually holding a 12th century Italian prayer book inlaid with gold, when it dawned on me that I should savor this moment when I can absorb the profound wisdom of my professor because the insanity of the next fourteen days would set in as soon as I left the classroom. On the up-side, learning about the manuscripts and being able to read the Middle English was invigorating. I am doing something that I am passionate about. I look at the beauty of these texts and it is sadenning that our books today are so ugly. BOokmaking was once quite the art form and the process it took to get from an animal skin to the finnished folio is impressive. Some of the pages we looked at had beautiful drawings that reminded me of the present trend of vector images that are spirally and loopy abstracts. So gorgeous. The entire experience of reading these ancient texts far surpasses picking up a paperback, cheaply printed and easily tossed aside.
The religious texts in particular reminded me how important it is to actively engage all of our senses when we praise God. It’s tempting to think of the Middle Ages as the dark cesspool of ignorant and unproductive people, too busy fighting with each other to appreciate art. So contrare! The Books of Hours that I was able to touch in class incorporate stunning and very delicate artwork into the prayers that one can imagine people said on a daily basis. The experience of worshiping God was rich and sensual, pleasing to the eye in more ways than one. Such a great reminder that God is the creator of beauty and revels in it as much, if not more, than we do. There are days when I wonder if perhaps contemporary culture is the more repressed society and that the Middle Ages felt so uninhibited in ways we can’t even imagine.
