Jerusalem, Through Curators’ Eyes
“Jerusalem 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven” on view through Jan. 8 at The Met Fifth Avenue is filled with treasures both secular and sacred, along with explorations of history, evocations of mystery and an undeniable sense of awe. The exquisite exhibition presents 200 works gathered over the course of six years. The manuscripts, devotional works, sculptures, historical objects and architectural elements all reference and paint a picture of Jerusalem close to a 1,000 years ago, when it was considered by many the spiritual, commercial and cultural center of the world.
How can we, in the technology driven 21st century, relate to these works from a distant past? In surprisingly simple and straightforward ways, if we have the keys.
The curators, Barbara Drake Boehm, the Paul and Jill Ruddock Senior Curator for The Met Cloisters, and Melanie Holcomb, curator, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, who know these works on a deeply personal level, graciously provide their insights into two remarkable works, hoping you’ll see in them the same wonders they do.
“I think the language that art works in is often things that we can completely still understand today — materials and color and emotion and stories,” Holcomb said. “Something that was attempting to dazzle back then, still dazzles today. And something that’s trying to take you into a quiet and reflective place back then can still do that today. I would love to say to people don’t worry. ... You can see a mother and child and not have to understand any of the theological implications of that. Just look at the way that that mother interacts with that baby or the way that that finger kind of presses into the plump skin of the baby. That’s something you can connect with now.”
“I don’t think anybody needs any training to fall in love with these objects,” agreed Boehm. An illustrated page of the “Gospel Book of Queen Mariun” from 1346 depicts the Nativity as well as a much more everyday experience. “It’s a beautiful book that belonged to an Armenian queen, Queen Mariun, and we have it open to that page that shows the birth of Jesus. In one of those amazing medieval time travels, Queen Mariun, the owner of the book, the woman for whom the book was made, is present at the birth of Jesus.
“In the same way that people go to a holy places to have that deeper experience, this image is like that kind of armchair travel. The page is an image of the birth of Jesus. She may not be in Bethlehem but she transports herself in her mind,” Boehm said.
“In this particular bit of the subject the baby Jesus is about to have a bath and she, the queen, is pouring the water from a ewer into the little bathtub. The midwife is holding the baby, and she’s reaching out and touching the water. It’s quite clear she’s not entirely sure that that royal person has checked to make sure that the water isn’t too hot or too cold for the baby. It’s just a very human kind of moment. You don’t even have to know who that baby is. You just see that one woman is checking up on the other to make sure she got it right with the water.
Anyone can understand that. If you don’t know the stories,” she suggests, “you look for things like that.”
Holcomb pointed out a group of Jewish Wedding Rings made in the first half of the 14th century in the Rhine River valley. “They are among the rarest of the rare. Precious things in gold and silver from this period ... some people estimate only 1 percent of it survives. Jewish art is also the rarest of the rare — a minority community — we have so very, very little.”
“There are a half dozen of these that still survive, and we have three of them in the exhibition,” she added. “It truly does make them one of the stars of the exhibition.”
“I thought they were so appealing because people got married then, and they get married now, and what was a beautiful and rare thing then, is similarly the case now,” she said. “Part of often what I find most dazzling is not necessarily lots of sparkles ... but that it’s this kind of miniature wonder. It’s as though you’re pulled into a little building that you just want to find a way to shrink yourself and get inside. It has that same marvelous quality of anything teeny tiny. It seems like a wonder, a miracle. There are also wonderful and poignant ideas about the loss temple and the temple as the home, but the thing, in and of itself, is such a marvel. ... They represent little, tiny fluted columns, these little narrow apertures that make up the windows, the spires that kind of soar in their own little miniature worlds. They’re full of these details you can find on a grand cathedral, but they’re represented in such a way that you can hold it in the palm of your hand.”
Though they were made near the Rhine, “We brought them to the show because,” Holcomb said, “we wanted to also get at the idea that the city was an inspiration for works of art even for those who might never get there, who have to imagine it from afar, who feel its emotional and spiritual tug even though it’s so far away.”
To make them even more accessible to today’s audience, she added, “On one, there’s a little inscription on the roof that says ‘mazal tov.’ Talk about being able to jump between then and now. It’s right there. Isn’t that great?”