A BROADER LOOK | The Lindisfarne Gospels
also framed, subsumed, and surrounded by a
proliferation of the decorative forms, ultimately
deriving from barbarian visual traditions, that
we have already seen moving from jewelry into
books in the Durrow Gospels (see Fig. 15-5)
and the Book of Kells (see FIG. 15–1).
But the paintings in the Lindisfarne
Gospels document more than the developing
sophistication of an abstract artistic tradition.
Roman influence is evident here as well.
Instead of beginning each Gospel with a
symbol of its author, the designer of this book
introduced portraits of the evangelists writing
their texts, drawing on a Roman tradition (see
FIG. 15-7). The monastic library at Wearmouth-
Jarrow, not far from Lindisfarne, is known to
have had a collection of Roman books, and an
author portrait in one of them seems to have
provided the model for an artist there, who
portrayed EZRA RESTORING THE SACRED
This painter worked to emulate the illusionistic
SCRIPTURES within a huge Bible (FIG. 15-8).
traditions of the Greco-Roman world. Ezra is a
modeled, three-dimensional form, sitting on a
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The LINDISFARNE GOSPEL BOOK is one
of the most extraordinary manuscripts ever
created, admired for the astonishing beauty of
its words and pictures (FIGS. 15-6, 15-7; see
also “A Closer Look,” page XXX, FIG. A), but
also notable for the wealth of information we
have about its history. Two and a half centuries
after it was made, a priest named Aldred added
a colophon to the book, outlining with rare
precision its history, as he knew it—that it was
written by Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne (698-
721), and bound by Ethelwald, his successor.
Producing this stupendous work of art was an
expensive and laborious proposition—requiring
300 calfskins to make the vellum and using
pigments imported from as far away as the
Himalayas for the decoration. Preliminary
outlines were made for each of the pictures,
using compasses, dividers, and straight edges
to produce precise under-drawings with a
sharp point of silver or lead, forerunner to
our pencils.
The full pages of ornament set within
cross-shape frameworks (see example in the
Introduction) are breathtakingly complex,
like visual puzzles that require patient and
extended viewing. Hybrid animal forms
tangle in acrobatic interlacing, disciplined
by strict symmetry and sharp framing.
Some have speculated that members of the
religious community at Lindisfarne might
have deciphered the patterns as a spiritual
exercise. But principally the book was carried
in processions and displayed on the altar,
not shelved in the library to be consulted as
a part of intellectual life. The text is heavily
ornamented and abbreviated, difficult to
read. The words that begin the Gospel of
Matthew (see FIG. 15-6)- Liber generationis
ihu xpi filii david filii abraham ("The book of
the generation of Jesus Christ, son of David,
son of Abraham”)-are jammed together,
even stacked on top of each other. They are
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LINDISFARNE GOSPEL BOOK
15-6 PAGE WITH THE BEGINNING OF THE TEXT OF MATTHEW'S GOSPEL,
Lindisfarne. c. 715-720. Ink and tempera on vellum, 133/8" X 9716" (34 x 24 cm). The British
the Latin text, added here in the middle of the tenth century by the same Aldred who added the
The words written in the right margin, just beside the frame, are an Old English gloss translating
Library, London. Cotton MS. Nero D.IV, fol. 277
colophon. They represent the earliest surviving English text of the Gospels.
136
CHAPTER 15 EARLY MEDIFY
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