The Cambridge Illuminations, the Fitzwilliam Museum’s exhibition of mediaeval manuscripts, wasn’t very crowded when I visited last Sunday. The show comprises principally images of devotion, damnation and prayer, conceived and produced by men devoted to poverty, chastity and obedience.
That background seems to put a lot of people off. Poverty, chastity and obedience …how much more remote from present-day values can you get? And yet, on closer inspection, The Cambridge Illuminations turns out to be a kind of miracle — a breathtaking collection of stupendous paintings that will delight anyone who loves beautiful things. The art here is not only gorgeous, and executed with an exquisite delicacy rarely equalled anywhere; it is also much less alien than might be expected. Pages intended to intensify religious contemplation have, in their margins, depictions of a man fighting a colossal snail; an ape-doctor solemnly diagnosing a bemused bear-patient; and a lady deciding whether to choose as her lover an elegantly attired knight on horseback or a wild, elemental ‘nature man’ from the forest.
Mediaeval piety was concerned with sin, death and damnation — but laughter never seems to have been far from its surface.
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