French artist Jean Bourdichon (1457-1521) was probably a pupil of the talented Jean Fouquet (ca. 1415/20-1478/81), well acquainted with many innovations of Italian Renaissance painting. From the end of the Middle Ages through the early years of the French Renaissance, Bourdichon was a prolific court painter, manuscript illuminator and designer of hard currency, gold plate and stained-glass windows.
Books of hours were divided into eight sections of daily prayer, usually accompanied by liturgical calendars, devotions to saints and services for the deceased. The amount of artistic detail afforded each volume's leaves (pages) was a sign of the owner's social status. The Katherine Hours (ca. 1480-1485) is so named because the initial K, prominent in many of the manuscript's borders, is a probable reference to its owner. It was popular in medieval France to name women after Saint Catherine of Alexandria (d. 305 A.D.), the Christian martyr said to have survived death on a spiked wheel. Eventually beheaded in Rome by Emperor Maxentius (d. 312 A.D.) for her beliefs and conversions, milk supposedly flowed from the neck of Catherine's decapitated corpse.
Bourdichon's Nativity from the Katherine Hours, surrounded by a foliated border, features a deep blue nighttime sky. The leaf's (page's) sacred scene is lit by gold stars and celestial rays of light penetrating the manger from above, leading diagonally to the Christ Child. The infant radiates a divine glow from within the manger, illuminating Mary, Joseph, most of their garments' folds and the structure's interior. Beneath the Nativity is a Latin verse from Psalm 69, found customarily in the Hours of the Virgin; it invokes the help of God.
"Radiant Darkness: The Art of Nocturnal Light" is on view from April 24 through July 22, 2007 at the J. Paul Getty Museum (Telephone: 310-440-7330; Website). The museum is open Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM and Friday and Saturday 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM. Admission is free. Parking costs $8.00.
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Stan Parchin, Senior Correspondent for Museums and Special Exhibitions, is a specialist in ancient, late-medieval and Renaissance art and history, and a regular contributor to About Art History. You may read all of his Special Exhibition and Catalogue Reviews here.
