> Are any of you acquainted with studies on the influence of the psalms on
> the paintings, sculptures, altars, murals, and architecture of medieval
> churches?
>
> Given that monasteries were created by and for men who lived the psalms,
> the psalter had to have formed the imaginations of those artists and
> builders. But I haven't yet located any sources on the iconography of
> Benedictine art which explicitly look at the role of the psalms. Durandus'
> Symbolism of Churches & Church Ornament focuses on doctrine, rather than
> imagery from the psalms.
Dear Susan,
This is a difficult question to answer. The Psalms themselves only
reticently lend themselves to illustrative material. Most art
associated witht the Psalms consists in illuminations in Psalters,
such as the early 9th-century Carolingian Utrecht Psalter, and the
three surviving copies made at Canterbury during the 11th and 12th
centuries: the Harley Psalter, the Eadwine Psalter and the so-called
Paris Psalter, on which, see E.T. DeWald, , The Illustrations of
the Utrecht Psalter (Princeton, n.d.); and a recent multi-authored
work on the Eadwine Psalter, edited, I believe, by T.E. Heslop.
In these manuscripts, every psalm is illustrated with an image that
makes use of word play and highly creative narrative extrapolation.
Most psalters in medieval Europe, however, were more
straightforwardly illustrated with scenes of King David, their
supposed author, or typologically, with scenes of Christ's life. An
interesting alternative from the Byzantine sphere were the
late 9th-century marginal psalters, such as the Chludov Psalter and
the Pantocrator Psalter, which usually consist of typological
pairings that make some reference to part of each psalm text;
Kathleen Corrigan has written on the marginal psalters (sorry, I
don't have an exact reference at hand, but there is a book, as well
as articles), and there is also Suzy Dufrenne, L'illustration des
psautiers grecs du moyen age (Paris, 1966) and Anthony Cutler, The
Aristocratic Psalters in Byzantium (Paris, 1984). None of this
answers your question about the influence of the psalms on church
decoration. Although I am sure that such was the case, I know of no
clear examples, and would also be interested in knowing of some. The
only possibility I can think of, offhand, is in the mosaics of the
early 5th-century Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, in which a
couple of the lunettes feature confronted hinds drinking from a
stream or pool. This has been related to Psalm 42: 1: "As a hind
longs for the running streams, so do I long for thee, O God." It is
difficult to say with certainty whether this "parallel" constitutes a
clear case of the influence of the Psalms. It is, however, nicely
indicative of the problems in this area.
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag
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