Pope handed bible 'work of art'

BBC ^ | 4/4/2008

[markomalley]

Pope handed bible 'work of art'

The Bible is the calligraphic artist's supreme challenge, a daunting task Donald Jackson

A copy of a handwritten illustrated bible that has taken almost 10 years to create has been described by Pope Benedict XVI as a "work for eternity".

The £2.7m project is the work of Monmouthshire-based artist Donald Jackson and his team of calligraphers.

Mr Jackson, senior scribe to the Queen, was commissioned by Benedictine monks of St John's Abbey in Minnesota, US.

The Pope was handed a full-sized reproduction of the seven-volume St John's Bible weighing 50lb (22.7kg).

The bible contains more than 1,000 pages and 160 illuminations - illustrations crafted using hand-cut feather quills in the same way as in medieval times.

As he turned the pages, the Pope described the bible as "a work of art, a great work of art".

The presentation occurred in a private audience at the Vatican in Rome during the annual meeting of the Papal Foundation.

Mr Jackson, the creative force behind the Bible, has described working on the project as his "Sistine Chapel".

One of the 160 illuminations in the Saint John's Bible

He said: "If you're a calligrapher, and I've been one since I was about nine years of age, it's the calligrapher's Sistine Chapel.

"The bibles and the wonderful works of the past have always been the inspiration for lettering artists and calligraphers, so that's always the one you'd love to do.

"I just asked a monastery in the United States if they'd like to have me do it. I just happened to ask at the right time."

The reproduction given to the Pope is one of just 12 copies of the St Peter Apostles edition of the Bible.

Mr Jackson and his team are still working in Monmouth on last two volumes of the bible, which will be kept at Saint John's University in Minnesota.

University president Brother Dietrich Reinhart, said: "From the time that Donald Jackson inscribed the first words of the bible, this has been meant as a bible for all people, a gift to the world.

"Now, after several years of anticipation, our dream of sharing the Bible worldwide has become a reality."

[StAthanasiustheGreat]

You mean Catholics READ the Bible (Sarcasm).

[Teflonic]

That’s art?

[Ann Archy]

"I just asked a monastery in the United States if they'd like to have me do it. I just happened to ask at the right time." The reproduction given to the Pope is one of just 12 copies of the St Peter Apostles edition of the Bible.

The SISTINE CHAPEL????? OMG!! That looks like Chicken scratch!!

[Salvation]

I like your tagline. A good one.

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“You mean Catholics READ the Bible (Sarcasm).”

Noooooooo! They just make pretty pictures in Bibles, right?

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“That’s art?”

Not in my book, er...Bible it isn’t. I know this was a massive project, but overall, the end result is a colorful, but not very attractive Bible. At least all of the medieval illuminations made some sense and were not post modern designs empty of any meaning. I don’t know why Ignatius press doesn’t hire a good artist to make a beautiful incipit page for each book of the Bible. Ignatius could even “borrow” incipit illuminations from the Middle Ages with the proper permissions! Why are so many Bible today just plain ugly or bland? At least the new RSV2CE cover has a beautiful icon motiff, but the pages are devoid of decoration. Have these men no imagination at all? Can they not see how art can teach as well as the Word itself?

[AnAmericanMother]

Hold on guys -- our missalette (the conservative one) uses illuminations from this Bible as cover pages.

I don't know why they chose the one they did to illustrate the article - it's not representative of the best work. (Actually, I do know why they chose it - they were lazy. It's the first page of Genesis.)

Quite a number of artists contributed, so the work is necessarily somewhat uneven. Some is not pleasing to me personally -- the illustration of the Valley of the Dry Bones as a modern scene of a bombing (complete with a preposterously undamaged white sedan that stands out like a neon sign) just doesn't do it for me.

But overall, well executed and artistically sound.

You can cruise around the website and look for yourself here.

[AnAmericanMother]

Just out of curiosity, what do you think of the work of Arthur Szyk?

I have his Haggadah and it is magnificent on every page.

[Quix]

Thanks.

Wonderfully done.

[Tax-chick]

I’ve seen several articles and TV shows about this over the last few years. It’s an amazing work.

[Gumdrop]

If you read the news reports, it says the “pocket” editions are $70 each. The term pocket is extremely misleading. These books are rather large and are fit for display on a coffee table. I would guess the dimensions are about 14 inches by 20 inches - at least. Opened up they would be about 28-30 inches wide.

I have the first 4 books: Gospels, Psalms, Prophets, and Pentateuch. The art work is extremely varied. For instance, on the individual pages with mostly writing, you can see occaional, small, colored drawings of various vegetation and insects common to central Minnesota. So, some are butterflies and are extremely beautiful - but they are small. You can purchase prints of this art work, and you can also purchase boxes of gift cards with the artwork.

The major pages of artwork are varied also - with some being mostly symbolic and hard to decipher. The page on creation takes a bit of time to understand the separation of the 7 days, but with time to ponder it, then you can see what the artist is conveying. Some of the pages have a lot of gold embellishments on them. I understand that the limited reproduction such as the one given to the Vatican, has actual gold leaf on the pages, just like the original. That is why there will only be 14 like it made, and why the high price!

I’m not much for this more modernistic art, but these books are magnificent.

[livius]

I went to the web page, which was quite interesting; thanks for the link. I think some of the work is very nice indeed, although some of it has a touch of the 1980’s about it (there was a certain style in the late 70s-early 80’s where everybody had big hands and flat features). I noticed the Nativity illustration on the cover of a misalette in a church I was visiting last December and I was quite struck by it.

IIRC, the undamaged white sedan is actually something that appeared in a photo of a bombing, although I don’t remember which specific bombing from among the many bombings and attacks over the years.

[AnAmericanMother]

I'm sure it's been seen and photographed somewhere -- explosions are capricious.

But it's too much for that setting - being glossy white and undamaged. It skews the picture. The rest of the detail you have to look very closely at to see what it is, and that one jarring anachronism jumps out at you.

Anachronisms, if you insist on introducing them, should be subtle. The Bible is supposed to be for all time, not just now.

I agree with you that some of the illustrations are too 80s. But the artists who are getting the contracts now started their education in the 80s, so it may be unavoidable to some degree.

[ELS]

bttt

[ELS]

Thanks for the link. Most of the art is too abstract for me.

[AnAmericanMother]

I'm not a big fan of abstract art -- I have to pick and choose.

But if you like more representational work, take a look at Arthur Szyk, the illuminator that I posted upthread.

The Rabbi Hillel summarizing the law for the Roman centurion.

A page from his Haggadah.

His work is somewhat stylized and has characteristic qualities (jewel-like colors, hieratic hand gestures, a particular physiognomy) that make it unique. I was in a Jewish friend's house and saw her illuminated ketubah (marriage certificate) on the wall, and said, "Why, that was done by Arthur Szyk!" She looked at me like I dropped off the moon, but I was right.

4 online exhibitions linked here.

[ELS]

I like his work. IMHO, Szyk gets it when it comes to religious art. Now, if the organizers of the St. John’s Bible project had asked him to illustrate the Old Testament, let’s say, the resulting Bible would have been MUCH more impressive.

[AnAmericanMother]

Unfortunately Mr. Szyk died in the 1950s . . . . what an Old Testament that would have been!

But who would they find to mesh with that style to do the New Testament?

I have a King James Bible that was illustrated by Barry Moser. He also did an Alice in Wonderland that was remarkable. Menacing, but remarkable. He does menace well - holiness, not so well.

[ArrogantBustard]

That looks like Chicken scratch!!

It depicts the seven days of creation.

I find it to be quite ugly.