Renaissance art goes green in two exhibits at the Getty Museum

RELIGION NEWS SERVICE
By Kimberly Winston
Giovanni Bellini,'s "Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist and a Female Saint in a Landscape" (detail), about 1501,  tempera and oil on wood panel. Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice. Photo credit: Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali / Art Resource, NY
LOS ANGELES---Think of an illuminated manuscript and a few stock images come to mind: ornate capital letters, high-browed pale ladies, haloed babies and lines of Latin words in Gothic script. But two current shows at the Getty Center, this city’s white Legoland of a hilltop museum, ask viewers to look beyond those conventions to the backgrounds of illustrated religious manuscripts. “The goal of these artists was to promote a deeper meditation,” said Alexandra Kaczenski, co-curator of one of the exhibitions. “The hope was that these images would promote an emotional connection in the viewer that would be the equivalent of being there when Christ was crucified.” [More]

The Getty Museum: "Giovanni Bellini: Landscapes of Faith in Renaissance Venice" (Through January 14, 2018); 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles, CA; (310) 440-7300; getty.edu

The Getty Museum: "Sacred Landscapes: Nature in Renaissance Manuscripts" (Through January 7, 2018); 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles, CA; (310) 440-7300; getty.edu