Published: November 12, 2008 06:08 pm      

Stark Museum to go medieval with paintings

In honor of the Christmas season, the Stark Museum of Art will present a special exhibition Pictured Prayers: Medieval Books of Hours. The exhibition opens officially November 20, 2008, and will be on view through January 6, 2009. Seven beautifully hand-painted manuscripts will be open to devotional images related to the Christmas story.

The Books of Hours manuscripts are prayer books that were used by non-clergy for daily devotions in the Middle Ages. Artists decorated the pages of the handwritten books with lavish illustrations to guide the reader. The Stark collection contains beautiful manuscripts from the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, by French, Flemish and Dutch artists.

The exhibition follows the traditional cycle of the Hours of the Virgin. The Hours of the Virgin typically include illustrations depicting the life of Mary, focused especially on the story of the birth of Jesus. The Hours are divided into eight sections, each for prayer at a different time of day. Traditionally, each of the Hours became associated with specific scenes in the Gospel narrative. The exhibition includes manuscript illuminations of the Virgin and Child, Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, Presentation in the Temple and The Flight into Egypt.

A children's area in the exhibition features an activity for young visitors to create their own illuminated manuscripts and a reading table with books.  

This is the third annual exhibition of the Books of Hours during the Christmas holiday period at the Stark Museum of Art. "Each year that the Museum has exhibited the Books of Hours, we have opened the books to different illuminations. This gives our visitors the opportunity to see new images and to learn more about illuminated manuscripts, while still having the tradition of a holiday exhibition," commented Sarah Boehme, Director of the Stark Museum of Art.

In association with the museum's special exhibition will be a presentation by Dr. Judith Steinhoff from the University of Houston. Her talk, "Medieval Books and Their Readers" will be November 20 at 6:30 pm at the Lutcher Theater, 707 Main Street. The talk is free to the public and will be followed by a reception and exhibit viewing at the Museum. 

To coordinate with the exhibition and special events, the Museum Store will feature new items reproducing the exhibition's signature image, a special Christmas ornament and holiday cards. The Stark Museum of Art will also have a Winter Family Day on January 3, 2009, related to the exhibition.

Located at 712 Green Avenue in Orange, Texas, the Stark Museum of Art is open to the public at no charge Tuesday through Saturday. Hours are from 10 AM - 5 PM. Group tours are available by appointment. For more information call 409.886.ARTS (2787) or visit www.starkmuseum.org.

The Stark Museum of Art focuses on the stunning land, the dramatic people and the diverse wildlife of the American West. Paintings, sculpture and prints interpret the West from nineteenth century frontier artists to the twentieth century artistic colonies in New Mexico. Artists include John James Audubon, Frederic Remington, and Charles Marion Russell.

The Museum also features a significant collection of American Indian objects, including baskets, pottery, clothing and weavings. Other permanent collections in the Museum include the complete porcelain American Bird Series by Dorothy Doughty and the only complete series of The United States in Crystal, a collection of crystal urns produced by Steuben Glass to depict the 50 states and the Union.