The Master of Mary of Burgundy's Charming Book of Hours

The Book of Hours in question was created for Engelbert II of Nassau (1451-1504) of the Duchy of Burgundy. The name of the author remains unknown to this day, but  the same hand also produced a Book of Hours for Mary of Burgundy, and so the illuminator bears the name The Master of Mary of Burgundy.

I have a kind of replica of this book, as published by George Braziller, Inc., of New York in 1970. It is the same size of the actual Book of Hours for Engelbert II now held in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England: 4 inches wide by 5 1/2 inches in height. It's a pocket book, that you literally hold in your pocket and then pull out to read at the appointed time for prayers. The book begins with the calendar of the year ,so that Engelbert can check which saint is honored on this day.

The month of October in calendar of the Book of Hours. 

This October page and the writing in the book were not created by the Master of Mary of Burgundy but by two calligraphers. All of the pages by the calligraphers contain whimsical scroll work, as seen in the page on the right above, and birds. The birds fly in and out, like little angel prompters and heralds. Here the birds are piecing together Engelbert of Nassau's coat of arms--just as the birds design and sew Cinderella's first ball gown in the Disney production of Cinderella!

Then follows a prayer to the Holy Face (Saint Veronica's veil) and prayers to the Virgin, which includes the page below.

This page ends the prayer to the Virgin and shows the oat of arms of Philip the Fair and of his family.  Pages done in this mode were created by the Master of Mary of Burgundy. 

Next is a prayer to Saint Sebastian, a prayer to Saint Anthony Abbot, a prayer to Saint Christopher, prayers to Saint Catherine of Alexandria, and prayers to Saint Barbara--all with a painting from the life of the saint surrounded by a flower-filled margin. These are the work of the Master of Mary of Burgundy, although the afore-mentioned calligraphers supply the text.

Then we proceed to the prayers of the Hours of the Cross for both Matins and Lauds.

But what is life without comedy in the face of such tragedy? The book abruptly switches topic from the Hours of the Cross to...a falconer who unleashes his falcon and his greyhound to hunt down and bring to his lady a beautiful magical bird. The story runs for 18 pages, with the angel prompter birds flying about to guide the falconer and guide us through the story. With this insertion, Engelbert II of Nassau could appear to be piously praying with his Book of Hours while actually reading a medieval comic book!

The falconer begins his chase to bring the magical bird to his lady. 

At the conclusion of this story, we resume the prayers for the Hours of the Cross for Prime, Terce, Terce Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. Most of these pages are beautifully illustrated by the Master of Mary of Burgundy, with flowers painted in the borders of the holy picture painted with such accuracy as to suggest that actual flowers had been strewn on the page. 

Next comes the Hours of the Virgin. beginning with the Annunciation, with a border of peacock feathers signifying Engelbert of Nassau II. 

The Annunciation embellished with peacock feathers. 

The painting of the Annunciation on the page is only 3 inches by 1 7/8 inches, yet the Master of Mary of Burgundy has managed to create an entire architectural space within this tiny boundary and created   exquisite facial expressions on both the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Gabriel. 

Toward the end of the Book of Hours of the Virgin are these remarkable pages, a trompe l'oeil of crockery of identifiable types set within painted niches. The placement of crockery within niches is a trompe l'oeil technique that goes back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, as Ms. Mastai and others document. In this painting, the crockery is meant to show the sacramental offerings to the Christ child.

Toward the end of the Book of Hours of the Virgin are these remarkable pages, a trompe l'oeil of crockery within niches. 

The Master of Mary of Burgundy was a skilled practitioner of trompe l'oeil, as his paintings of flowers, insects, and butterflies in this Book of Hours show. My interest in him was piqued when I saw a page of a book that he had painted that had a beautiful flower with the stem painted as if it had been woven through the page itself. I saw this page in black and white in Illusion in Art, Trompe l'Oeil: A History of Pictorial Illusionism by M. L. d'Otrange Mastai but have not been able to find it online.  This painting is a triumph of trompe l'oeil, because it seems so real and the sizing of the flower for the page is perfect. Thus, the text is lovingly surrounded by a reverent offering of completely life-like flowers, a butterfly, and an insect.

The Prayers to the Virgin are followed in the Book of Hours by the Seven Penitential Psalms, which include this beautiful illustration for Psalm 38, where David confronts the giant Goliath. The emotional confrontation of David and Goliath, along with the details and perspective background, a display the Master of Mary of Burgundy's skill. The borders show his ability to paint flowers--columbines and pinks--in an elegantly realistic way. 

Illustration for the penitential Psalm 38.

Then the Book of Hours ends with a Litany and the Office of the Dead. That is the official book ends, but not the real book. We are treated to another cartooned story--the Sequence of the Grotesque Tournament, which begins with the lady preparing the monkey for battle and then the unicorn, and her forces go into battle and win the day. And then the Book of Hours of Engelbert II of Nassau truly ends.

The monkey is prepared for battle.

Then the unicorn. 

The forces race to meet the enemy.

They meet the enemy, and the unicorn and his monkey squires leave the battle triumphant. 

"Wise Men Invented It"

"For one who wishes a clever theory, the invention of painting belongs to the gods--witness on earth all the design with which the Seasons paint the meadows, and the manifestations we see in the heavens. But for one who is merely seeking the origin of art, imitation is an invention most ancient and most akin to nature; and wise men invented it, calling it now painting, now plastic art."

Little did the Greek writer Philostratus the Elder know when he wrote these words in the third century A.D. in his treatise on painting called Imagines, that the origins of art would take us back more than 60,000 years.

That is the conclusion of scientists from a redating of the prehistoric drawings in the La Pesiaga cave in Spain. The scientists calculated the age of tiny samples of the sediment on top of the drawings that they meticulously scraped off, with the startling discovery that the paintings had been done 64,000 years ago—a time when Neanderthals were the only hominids inhabiting Western Europe, the scientists said.

As reported in the Wall Street Journal, "The analysis revealed that the paintings predated early modern humans in the region by at least 20,000 years, leaving the scientists with no alternative but to attribute the artwork to the Neanderthals who made this area their home. ... 'We conclude that this cave art has to be made by Neanderthals,' said physicist Dirk Hoffmann at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, who led researchers from 15 centers in Germany, the U.K., Portugal and Spain. They published their findings in the journals Science and Science Advances."

Now Let Us Praise Famous Women

I have collected many photographs of people who live in Appalachia, and one day as I was looking through them, I was struck by how beautiful some of the older women were--the grandmothers. Here is a selection of photographs of such women. I would love to sit down on their porch and hear some of their stories. I know they have stories that tell of a world different from the one I grew up in and have lived in. As you can see, their bodies are lean from a lifetime of hard work without amenities and less than enough food.

I am interspersing the photographs with excerpts about an Appalachian grandmother from the novel River of Earth (1940) by Kentucky's poet laureate James Still (1906-2001), who lived most of his life in a log house on a creek in coal-producing Knott County, Kentucky. This is a beautiful novel that chronicles how coal mining lured men away from homesteading and into the mines. The story, as told by the son of a farmer turned miner, is remarkable for its detailing of all kinds of plants, planting, and seasons.

Mrs. Frank Henderson, taken by Doris Ulmann.

One morning Grandma said we could wait no longer for Uncle Luce. She took her grapevine walking stick and we went into the cornfield. We worked two days pulling corn from the small hoe-tended stalks. When all the runty ears were gathered, she measured them into pokes, pulling her bonnet down over her face to hide the rheumatic pain. There were sixteen bushels. 'We won't be needing the barn this time,' she said. 'We'll just sack the puny nubbins and put them in the shedroom.'
With the corn in, we waited a few days until Grandma's rheumatism had been doctored with herbs and bitter cherry-bark tea. Then there were the heavy-leaved cabbages, the cashews and sweet potatoes to be gathered. The potatoes had grown large that year. They were fat and big as squashes. Grandma crawled along the rows on her knees, digging in the baked earth with her hands. It was good to see such fine potatoes. 'When Jolly comes home he'll shore eat a bellyful,' she said. 

Mountain woman with grandchild, taken by Jeffrey Potter.

'Eighteen-sixty-eight it was,' Grandmas said, and her words were small against the spring winds bellowing in the chimney top. She spread her hands close to the oak-knot fire. They were blue-veined like a giant spider's web. 'That was the year the pigeons come to Upper Flat Creek, mighty nigh taking the country.... Them pigeon-birds were worse than a plague writ in the Book,' Grandmother said. "Hit was my first married year, and Boone and me had grubbed out a homeseat on Upper Flat, hoe-planting four acres o' corn. We'd got a garden patch put in, and four bee gums working before I turned puny, setting in wait for our first-born. I'd take a peck measure outside and set me down on it where I could see the garden crap growing, and the bees fotching sweetening. There was a powerful bloom that year, as I remember, and a sight of seasoning in the ground.'

 Ella Dunn, midwife and herbalist, who lived in the Ozarks and lived to be 104 years old. 

Emma Dupree, an herb doctor who received the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award in 1992 and lived to be 98 years old. 

Grandma wove her hands together on her knees. 'I been walking on these legs seventy-eight years,' she said. 'I'm figuring to walk a few more miles. I hain't going to set around and let rheumatiz tie 'em in a pinch knot. Hain't wear that breaks a door hinge, hit's rust.'

Two women on a porch, taken by Howard Greenberg.

'If I was stone-blind, I'd know a new season was coming,' Grandma said. ''This time o' year the rheumatiz strikes my hips. The pain sets deep and grinds. Five of my chaps was born in the spring and that might be the causing.' She took to bed for a spell, and Uncle Jolly cooked for us morning and evening.... It plagued her to lie abed, helpless. 'When spring opens,' Grandma said, 'I'll be up and doing. Three days' sun, and I'll be well enough to beat this feather tick and hang it to sweeten.'
One morning I saw a redbird sitting in a plum bush, its body as dark as a wound. 'Spring's a winding,' I told Grandma. 'Coming now for shore.'
'Even come spring,' Grandma said, 'we've got a passel of chills to endure: dogwood winter, redbud, service, foxgrape, blackberry.... There must be seven winters, by count. A chilly snap for every time of bloom.' 

You may also want to see:
Maude Callen (1898-1990)
The Trees by Conrad Richter
Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller
Housekeeping in The Fields

Yale First Building Project 2017

This building for the homeless was featured in a Wall Street Journal article on the best architecture of 2017. The building was created by the Yale School of Architecture Jim Vlock First Year Building Project. I was captivated by the second photo below and the beautiful differentiation of space. Even  1,000-square feet can seem like a palace. Here is the Journal writeup on the building:

This year’s Jim Vlock First Year Building Project, a house for the homeless PHOTO: ZELIG FOK AND HAYLIE CHAN

Not every year delivers major architectural stunners, but sometimes there’s something even better—buildings that contribute to a more promising future. Since 1967, the Yale School of Architecture has required first-year students to set aside theoretical and academic course work to actually build something that benefits the community. Over the years (and depending on available funds), students in the Jim Vlock First Year Building Project have designed and built—hands-on—community centers, bandstands, park pavilions and, most recently, affordable housing. 

This year, the 50th project was completed: a 1,000-square-foot house for the homeless. Clad in cedar with a standing-seam metal roof and several window-seat-deep gables, the prefabricated structure contains one studio and a two-bedroom apartment with abundant built-in storage. Columbus House, a New Haven nonprofit organization, will identify and provide additional support for tenants.

Interior of this year’s Jim Vlock First Year Building Project PHOTO: ZELIG FOK AND HAYLIE CHAN

The Building Project has always been highly commendable (and imitated at other schools), but this year’s house is particularly sophisticated and handsome—worthy of inspiring pride of place in whoever is lucky enough to dwell there.

Little Rose in a Sun Puddle

Musicians of Medieval Marginalia

The word cartoon first came into existence in the beginning of the Renaissance to refer to a study in preparation for a more permanent work of art, such as a painting. Later, in the 19th century the word "cartoon" came to refer to a comic picture with satirical or exaggerated graphic features--as in today's comic books, newspaper funnies, political cartoons, and graphic novels.

However, this leaves out the marginalia of medieval prayerbooks and hymnals. Here, surrounding the image of veneration--a saint, a scene from the life of Christ and of Mary, or a scene from the Old Testament, and calendars, or surrounding the musical notations in hymnals--a rich subterranean and often comic pictorial life flourishes in the marginalia.

For example, we see below that animals are often playing music in the marginalia--forerunners to the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, the Musicians of Bremen. All animals, not just the birds, it seems, had some kind of musical talent back then, even dragons (see last picture).

Happy Easter, Everyone!

The Risen Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalene, Rembrandt van Rijns, 1863