PAST EXHIBITION

Illuminating the Word: The St. John’s Bible

December 11, 2007—March 2, 2008

European Christians have been decorating the Bible for centuries.  In 1998, St. John’s University in Minnesota commissioned a hand-written and illuminated bible, combining a centuries old tradition of craftsmanship with modern imagery, the only handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned since the advent of the printing press more than 500 years ago.  Donald Jackson, the project’s artistic director, is one of the world’s foremost calligraphers and scribe to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s Crown Office at the House of Lords.  During the past several years, Jackson has worked in rural Wales, United Kingdom, with scribes and artists to write and illuminate the St. John’s Bible entirely by hand, using quills and paints hand-ground from precious minerals and stones such as lapis lazuli, vermilion, malachite, silver, copper, and 24-karat gold.  They have created illuminations reflecting a multicultural world, with enormous strides in science, technology, and space travel.  Because the project is an interfaith undertaking, Jackson has incorporated imagery from Eastern and Western religious traditions, as well as influences from Native American cultures.  This exhibition, organized by Minneapolis Institute of Arts, showcases selections from the newly-created Saint John’s Bible – the Gospels and Acts, Pentateuch, and Psalms – and explores the art of book illustration and the tradition of hand-written, illuminated Bibles.  The exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum will include additional items from Walters Art Museum in Baltimore from their exhibition, The Early History of the Bible.

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