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The Los Angeles Times recently reviewed a show now under way at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles that describes in glowing narrative the story of how the Canterbury Cathedral’s stained glass windows and the St. Albans Psalter happen to be in Los Angeles at the same time and curated together. Check out the full LA Times story here or read the introduction below. The museum’s website describes the show here.
By Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times Art Critic
January 8, 2014
“As family trees go, the one created inside Canterbury Cathedral nearly a thousand years ago is pretty impressive. Monumental stained-glass windows feature nearly life-size figures that represent the ancestors of Christ. The lineup starts with Adam and runs through such memorable Old Testament men (and only men) as Noah and Abraham, along with less well-known folks such as Enoch and Rehoboam.
The colorfully translucent depictions embed ancestry right into the mighty cathedral’s stone walls. Like a family album writ large, the patriarchs of the Christian church appear to help keep the soaring structure standing. Colorfully dappled sunlight transforms the vast interior into a mesmerizing space of shimmering magnificence. The power of history fuses with the power of art, making a politically potent spectacle.
Portions of six of those monumental windows are currently in an unusual exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum, paired with an illuminated manuscript painted slightly earlier and a relatively short distance away. The St. Albans Psalter is a lavishly illustrated volume containing a Book of Psalms. It probably dates from about 50 years before the ambitious program of stained-glass ancestors, 86 in all, was begun in Canterbury.
