The first show is titled “Painted Pages: Illuminated Manuscripts from the 13th to 18th Centuries.”
“I kind of became fascinated with illuminated manuscripts when I was doing an exhibition on fantasy illustration at the Norman Rockwell Museum, and looking at some of the old illuminated manuscripts and how a lot of them contained fantasy images, fantasy figures," said Chief Curator Jesse Kowalski. “There’s the Westminster Abbey, they have a bestiary in which they have like 160 different animals painted in one of their illuminated manuscripts, and there's some unicorns and griffins and things. And so, I just became fascinated by the technique and just the amount of time it took to create these things. And so, I thought it'd be neat to share with the public.”
The traveling exhibition comes from the Reading Public Museum in Reading, Pennsylvania. Some of the grandest examples on display come from the European Catholic Church, though examples from the Jewish and Islamic tradition are also included.
“We start from the 1200s here, some early, very early things," Kowalski said. "There's different types of illuminated manuscripts- There’s psalters, which contain books of psalms. There are missals that they would use during Mass, books of hours that were little prayer books that were used different times of the day to read.”
At the time, these intricately manufactured, expensive pieces were a mark of wealth, and patrons would commission monks to create them.
“They had an enormous scriptorium, they called it, in Paris, and many of the writers were women at the time, too," Kowalski explained. "And so, then they became more of a mass-produced thing. And then the printing press came in around 1440, and that was kind of the beginning of the end for the illuminated manuscript, because these would take six months to- I think 33 years was one of the longest to create.”
While Asian and Middle Eastern scribes of the era used paper – invented by the Chinese Han Dynasty in AD 105 – Europeans used vellum.
"They would take, generally, a calf skin- I think you can take about three pages made from a calf skin," said Kowalski. "They boil it, clean off the hair, stretch it, and then clean it with lime to bleach it, and then cut the three pages out and then give it to a writer who would generally kind of do little pinpricks to point out where the images would go, and begin writing lines across the page for how the text would line up and give it to a script writer. He would outline the letters, get someone to approve it, and then either he or someone else would fill in the letters, and then they would pass that off to someone who would do the gold leaf or silver leaf, put that on, and then they would pass that on to someone who would do the painting on top.”
The exacting process yielded manuscripts built to last.
“They would use different natural materials, rocks, flowers, lead, arsenic, cinnabar, mercury to get really great colors, and that's why you'll see a lot of these pieces that are a thousand years old or more, the colors are still pretty vibrant, and that's because of the inks," said Kowalski. "And they mixed it with egg yolk. The paint is very vivid.”
The dimensions of the documents range from the pocket-sized to the grandiose.
“Some of the largest ones are about three feet tall would take several people to carry," said the curator. "That one, I believe it's 100 pounds almost, the full book. So, that will take a few people to carry the songbook.”
The second new exhibition is a continuation of an ongoing re-assessment of the Berkshire Museum’s history titled “120th Anniversary Part 3: Planning for the Future.” Exploring the institution’s journey from the late 70’s to the modern day, it confronts the controversial sale of art from the museum’s collection undertaken in 2018.
“I don't really blame anyone, but I also don't let anybody off easy," said Kowalski. "I think the Berkshire Museum made some mistakes, I think the press made some mistakes, and I think there were people in the public who were not helpful as well. So, I'm not kind to everybody, but I'm not hard on any one person either.”
Condemned internationally by the art world, the auction that included works by iconic Berkshire artist Norman Rockwell originally gifted to the museum helped raise over $50 million. Kowalski said that while he had initially opposed the sale prior to joining the Berkshire Museum – especially coming from the Norman Rockwell Museum – his mind changed as he prepared to examine the fraught chapter in the new exhibition.
“Well, essentially, with [General Electric] leaving, the economy was not doing well in Pittsfield," the curator explained. "Donations are were down. The museum was not doing well, we had to start charging admission in 1991 for the first time ever, so, the museum began a budget deficit every year. So, the endowment would go down and the building was crumbling at the same time. The floors on the second floor were buckling, there was water coming down the walls when it would rain, you would get some ice on the walls from condensation in the winter, things like that- And the insulation was bad. And I don't think a lot of people knew how awful the building was- Like, we couldn't we couldn't show some of the artwork.”
The exhibition also includes highlights from the museum’s move into collecting contemporary art, with pieces by Keith Haring and Berkshire County resident Suzy Frelinghuysen.
Executive Director Kimberley Bush Tomio was on hand to provide an update on the Berkshire Museum’s ongoing renovations that the art sale proceeds are funding.
“It’s all first floor focused," she said. "The big change is that the Little Cinema will be taken out, and the aquarium will be now located where the cinema is. And it will be a lot larger, much more expansive as far as the species that we're going to be showing. We're hoping to have a jellyfish tank that goes from floor to ceiling, and areas for educational programming in there, and all of that. So that's the, probably- We call it the jewel in the crown, because it's the center of the whole first floor, and I think it'll be really exciting and fun and very flexible.”
She says the museum is moving toward finalizing the last round of renovations.
“We finished our design for the renovation, it's going through approvals by the board," said the executive director. "We have to get the cost estimate updated, make sure that we are in the window of what we want to, we feel we can do as far as the final renovation, and once the board has made that decision, we'll make an announcement and show more details about the actual renovation and the timeline. We're hoping to start it this year.”
“Painted Pages: Illuminated Manuscripts from the 13th to 18th Centuries” and “120th Anniversary Part 3: Planning for the Future” are on display at the Berkshire Museum until May 5th.
