LOS ANGELES, CA.- The close relationship between textiles and manuscripts, two of the most venerated items in the medieval world, is examined in Shrine and Shroud: Textiles in Illuminated Manuscripts, at the Getty Center, through October 2, 2005. The exhibition is the first at the Getty Center to focus on this fascinating subject. It explores the great importance textiles held in secular and spiritual life, and their use in manuscripts as protective and decorative elements and as an integral part of the book’s imagery and message.

Shrine and Shroud features 25 manuscript books, leaves, cuttings, and a textile drawn from the Getty’s permanent collection. It examines the use of cloth fragments in the production of manuscripts, the depiction of textiles in manuscript illumination, and the symbolic value of luxurious fabrics in their various roles as shrines, shrouds, curtains, and cloths of honor. The wide use and representation of textiles in manuscripts demonstrate their importance in medieval society.

Textiles were expensive and much sought-after in the Middle Ages. They were used to transport and handle manuscripts to preserve their delicate metalwork or ivory covers, and textile fragments were sometimes incorporated into bookbindings. In addition, small pieces of cloth were often sewn directly onto the pages as protective “curtains” over miniatures and decorative initials. These prevented wear and damage of the painted areas during reading. Although many of these curtains are now lost, needle holes or remnants of thread in the margins of manuscripts around images indicate their original presence. Curtains could be found in a wide range of illuminated books dating from as early as the ninth century.

Artists began to incorporate simulations of patterns found on costly fabrics as decorative elements in their illuminations in the early Middle Ages. In Saint John the Evangelist from the Helmarshausen Gospels, the illuminator filled the background of the text page with roundels containing lions shown in profile—a common motif in Byzantine silks, which were prized in western Europe at the time, particularly in Germany, where the manuscript was made.

Expensive textiles played a central role in religious ritual and royal ceremonies, and were also used as palace decorations. As a result, they became symbols of power, status, holiness, and importance. The association between cloth hangings and kingship was so strong that it became a convention for manuscript illuminators to depict a royal figure in front of a textile. Beginning in the 14th century, these cloths of honor appear in other contexts, such as religious imagery. A textile hung behind figures such as Christ and Mary indicated their elevated status. In the popular medieval devotional image of Veronica’s Veil, as seen in Saint Veronica Displaying the Sudarium, Veronica presents an important cloth relic, which was said to display a miraculous image of Christ’s face. In addition to their ability to cover and protect, textiles could also honor and enshrine.

Aside from their decorative function, fabrics were often used as curtains to screen doorways and to divide large interior spaces, both in churches and in homes. Because of a curtain’s ability to both conceal and reveal, medieval illuminators adapted this form of textile to convey symbolic and spiritual messages of revelation and epiphany found in biblical stories. In the Annunciation, the long pink curtains that hang from the colonnade are wound around two columns to reveal Mary at the moment she learns that she will give birth to Christ. The drawn-back curtains not only focus attention on Mary but express the symbolic meaning of this Annunciation scene, as Gabriel reveals God’s message to her. This visual combination of both the practical and symbolic nature of textiles is a reflection of their versatile and integral role in many aspects of medieval life.