Friday, October 3, 2025

Art Eyewitness Review: Calder Gardens Museum Grand Opening

 

Calder Gardens Museum Grand Opening

Review by Ed Voves

Original Photography by Anne Lloyd

The Benjamin Franklin Parkway is a Parisian-style boulevard in the heart of the City of Brotherly Love. It extends from Philadelphia City Hall to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. On Sunday, September 21, 2025, a brand new cultural institution opened its doors, adding to the Parkway's reputation as Philly's "museum mile."

Calder Gardens, dedicated to the art of Alexander Calder (1898-1976), has been on the "drawing board" of the art establishment and city planners of Philadelphia for over twenty-years. I am delighted to say that the long wait has certainly been worth it.

However, if you drive down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway or walk along, past the Barnes Foundation or one of the other museums flanking the Parkway, you may be forgiven if you comment, "I see gardens, but where's the museum?"



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025)
Exterior view of the Calder Gardens Museum, Philadelphia

The actual Calder museum building is largely a subterranean structure. According to Swiss architect, Jacques Herzog, several early designs were considered and rejected because of conflict with the special ambiance of the Parkway. Instead, Herzog noted, the decision was made to proceed with a "more horizontal, nonlinear layout—a sequence of unexpected spaces that unfold and reveal themselves as visitors move through the building rather than a singular form."



Iwan Baan, Photo (2025)
         Evening view of Calder Gardens

In non-architectural parlance, this means designing literally "ground-level" galleries for Calder's art, with selected masterpieces on view in the street-level landscape gardens above.

The development fact sheet is impressive, even before considering the Calder artworks. The museum and gardens "footprint" is a 1.8 acre site, with an 18,000 square ft. building, surrounded by gardens with 250 varieties of plants and flowers. Part of the building facade was constructed with blackened wood to evoke the barns of Calder's rural New England residence. The interior of the museum exudes 1950's mid-century modernism, in keeping with the cultural tempo of Calder's  heyday. 

Quality of this sort does not come without a hefty price tag. The Calder Gardens project expenditure totaled $90 million. But the supervising group, led by Alexander L.R. Rower of the Calder Foundation, ensured that these funds were money well-spent. Thom Collins, the head of the neighboring Barnes Foundation, served on this committee, and he and the Barnes administrative staff will be responsible for the administration and operations of the new museum.


Portraits of Jacques Herzog, lead architect of the Calder Gardens Museum (photo by Gina Folly) and Piet Oudolf, designer of the landscape gardens of Calder Gardens (photo by Tony Spencer)

Herzog and his colleagues at the Herzog-de Meuron firm were chosen for the challenging mission of designing Calder Gardens. They collaborated with Piet Oudolf, a Dutch garden planner who had gained world-wide renown for the gardens he designed for New York City's High Line urban park. 

Oudolf was tasked with "sculpting" a landscape to fit the oddly-configured piece of unused ground designated for the new museum in Philly.  

To raise the bar even higher, the completed Calder Gardens was conceived as a place for reflection and inspiration, rather than merely galleries for displaying art.

To put such design requirements into practice - above and below ground - meant "squaring the circle." That is just what the Herzog-Oudolf team did.



Iwan Baan, Photo (2025)
 Aerial view of Calder Gardens

Piet Oudolf's gardens have yet to fully mature, but the autumnal flowers currently on view are a dazzling sight. Overall, Oudolf's configurations of gardens and pathways fit perfectly into the "city beautiful" layout of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, as planned in the early years of the 20th century. Equally important, the gardens act as a transit way or portal into the sanctuary/museum of Calder Gardens.

Entering the Calder Gardens galleries is a process, an act of descending into an "otherworld" of sensory experience. Several monumental works, called stabiles, are positioned just beyond the doors and windows of the Calder Garden galleries. These convey an ethereal presence with looming shadows or mirror-like reflections.



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025)
 Alexander Calder's stabile, Tripes, 1974



      Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025)
 Alexander Calder's stabile, Knobs, 1976

The Calder Gardens galleries are a realm of contrasts and chiaroscuro.

Inside, the overhead lighting of the galleries is kept to a manageable minimum. This heightens the effect of beams of natural illumination which flow into the interior at strategic points.



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025)
Gallery view of the Calder Gardens Museum

The interior of the Calder Gardens impressed me as a "dreamtime" environment. Stark delineation of Calder's art at some points, deep-shaded pools of space where the jutting armature of stabile or the hovering form of a mobile suddenly emerge, commanding our attention.



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025)
Alexander Calder's mobile, entitled Eucalyptus, 1940

This "dreamtime" sensation did not arise by accident. The artworks on display do not have any identifying caption information. The intention of the Calder Gardens curators is to promote a sense of communion between the viewer and the Calder work of art being viewed.

Nor does Calder Gardens have a permanent collection of its own. Every work of art is on loan, mostly from the Calder Foundation in New York City which oversees Calder's legacy. In this premier display of 31 Calder works, MOMA and the Whitney Museum have made generous loans - also without credits.



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025)
Two works by Alexander Calder, both entitled Black Widow.
 The mobile dates to 1948; the stabile, on loan from MOMA, to 1959.

What you see today, you may not see in a few months. New examples of Calder's incredible creative achievement will be rotated-in to take the place of the mobiles and stabiles, the curious - and often humorous - hybrid sculptures and selected paintings and sketches by Calder chosen for the opening of Calder Gardens.



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025)
Standing Mobiles by Alexander Calder
 (from left) Sword Plant (1947) and Thirty-Two Discs, 1951 


Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025)
Gallery view of the Calder Gardens Museum, showing
 ink-on-paper drawings and a Calder oil painting, Untitled (1946),

Alexander Calder would almost certainly have approved of this plan to emphasize the spiritual side of art over factual details. In one of his most notable observations on art, Calder joined ranks with Matisse who had famously decreed that "truth is not exactitude." Calder's comment - which dates to 1943 - is worth quoting here, as it validates the methodology of the Calder Gardens curators.

To achieve creative success, "approximation is necessary," Calder wrote, "for one cannot hope to be absolute in his precision. He cannot see, or even conceive of a thing from all possible points of view, simultaneously. While he perfects the front, the side, or rear may be weak; then while he strengthens the other facade he may be weakening that originally the best. There is no end to this. To finish the work, he must approximate."



Herbert Matter, Photo (1947)
Alexander Calder in his Roxbury, Ct. Studio

Alexander Calder's life was a "work in progress." An endless experiment in approximation, the evolution of Calder's art over five astonishing decades exemplifies the American artistic experience during 20th century. But the decision to refrain from meticulously charting the steps of Calder's artistic career and, rather, to focus upon the spiritual journey of art - which applies to us all - was a wise one. 



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025)
Gallery view of the Calder Gardens Museum, showing
 Alexander Calder's Jerusalem Stabile II, 1976

Be it noted, the Calder Garden's website has all the relevant title, creation date and measurement information readily available. It will be updated as the exhibited works change over the course of time.

At the risk of immediately contradicting myself, I would recommend completing a visit to Calder Gardens with a walking tour of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the Calder artworks to be found there. This may seem like the very art/historical approach which the museum philosophy rejects. But the walk will be good exercise, physical and intellectual.

Calder was a "native son" of Philadelphia, but he actually lived in the city only during his childhood years. Yet Philadelphia is indeed a great site for a Calder museum. The lives and careers of Calder's grandfather (Alexander Milne Calder) and father (Alexander Stirling Calder) are an integral part of the city's cultural legacy. And Calder himself, as we will briefly discuss, made his own mark in the city of his birth.

The Calder Gardens has a small display of art by grandfather and father which certainly sets the stage for appreciating the third generation Calder's works on view in the main galleries.



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025)
Comparative photos of Alexander Milne Calder’s bronze model,
William Penn (1888), and the monumental version placed
 on top of Philadelphia’s City Hall in 1894

However, the best way to view the sculptures of Calder's grandfather and father is to step outside Calder Gardens and have a look for yourself. At one end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, you will see the monumental bronze figure of William Penn, created by the Scottish-born Alexander Milne Calder (1846-1923). Standing 37 feet tall  and weighing 53,000 pounds, it was cast in 14 pieces and erected on top of Philadelphia City Hall in 1894.

Alexander Stirling Calder (1870-1945) designed the art deco Swan Fountain in Logan Square, within easy eyesight of Calder Gardens (below). Enrolling in the Pennsylvania Academy of Art at the age of fifteen, Alexander Stirling was one of the major public art sculptors throughout the U.S. Classical art still held sway during Alexander Stirling's day, but his son would not follow in his footsteps.



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025)
The Swan Fountain, designed by Alexander Stirling Calder, 1926

Alexander Calder began creating "mobiles" in the 1930's while he was living in France. Calder was inspired by the abstract art of of his close friend Joan Miro, and by that of Piet Mondrian. The name "mobile" was suggested to Calder by Marcel Duchamp. Initially, some of Calder's mobiles were power by small motors. Later, after dedicated study and experimentation, he perfected the "floating" mobiles whose movements are the driven by the slightest of air currents.

After returning to the U.S., Calder established his studio and production facility in Roxbury, Connecticut. But it was in Philadelphia, that he scored the breakout success of his career. 



Herbert Gehr, Life Magazine, Photo (1949)
Alexander Calder installing International Mobile, Third International
 Exhibition of Sculpture. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1949

In 1949, Calder hoisted one of his mobiles over the Great Hall Staircase of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) during a major art conference/exhibition. The event was covered by Life Magazine, the supreme arbiter of American popular taste in the post-war era.



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023)
Alexander Calder's mobile, Ghost (1964), Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Calder mobile now hanging over the Great Hall of the PMA is a later creation, entitled Ghost. It was made in 1964, perhaps ironically, to hang in the Guggenheim Museum for a special exhibition. Calder mobiles really don't need motors; they find ways of moving around all their own!

Calder's 1949 triumph set him on a course of international success that was still going strong at the time of his death in November 1976. He was working on a grand mobile for the new East Wing of the National Gallery in Washington D.C., set to open in 1978. The mobile was completed by Paul Matisse, grandson of the painter, who had joined the design team at Calder's request to help address problems due to the size and weight of the huge mobile. The solution was to use aluminum rather than steel.

Thus, we can consider Calder as a living example of his working creed of approximation: always searching, experimenting, testing to create mobiles which moved gracefully in the gentle air currents and in the hearts and minds of those watching from below.


Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025)
Alexander Calder's Three Segments, 1973

Calder was no doubt correct in choosing approximation rather than hard-edged absolutes as the guiding precept of his art. However, while partaking of the sanctuary-like atmosphere of Calder Gardens, I can affirm one unquestioned "absolute":

When you raise your head and focus your eyes on a Calder masterpiece like the mobile, Three Segments, you are in the presence of undoubted genius.

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved                                                  

Original photography, copyright of Anne Lloyd

Introductory Image: Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) Alexander Calder’s Tripes, 1974. (descriptive information and dimensions below).

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) Exterior view of the Calder Gardens Museum on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, showing the Calder Gardens logo.

Iwan Baan, Photo (2025) Evening view of the Calder Gardens Museum. © 2025 Calder Foundation/Artists Rights Society, NY.

Portrait photos (from left) of Jacques Herzog, lead architect of the Calder Gardens Museum (© 2025 Gina Folly) and Piet Oudolf, designer of the landscape gardens of Calder Gardens (© Tony Spencer)

Iwan Baan, Photo (2025) Aerial view of the Calder Gardens Museum.© 2025 Calder Foundation/Artists Rights Society, NY.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) Tripes,1974. Monumental Sculpture, Stabile. Sheet metal, bolts and paint: 12’ x 11’ x 9’10”. Calder Foundation, New York.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) Knobs, 1976. Monumental Sculpture, Stabile. Sheet metal, bolts and paint:11’ 9” x 5’5 ¾” x 8’1 ½”. Calder Foundation, New York.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) Gallery view of the Calder Gardens Museum.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) Eucalyptus, 1940. Hanging Mobile. Sheet metal, wire and paint: 94 1/2” x 61”. Calder Foundation, New York, gift of Andrea Davidson, Shawn Davidson, Alexander S.C. Rower & Holton Rower, 2010.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) Gallery view of the Calder Gardens Museum, showing Alexander Calder’s Black Widow Mobile (1948) Sheet metal, wire and paint: 128” x 99”. (Instituto de Arquitetos do Brazil; and Black Widow Stabile (1959) Sheet metal, bolts and paint: 92" x 171” x 89”. MOMA collection.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) Sword Plant, 1947. Standing Mobile. Sheet metal, rod, wire and paint: 38 1/2” x 31” x 28 1/2”. Calder Foundation, New York.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) Thirty-two Discs, 1951. Standing Mobile. Sheet metal, rod, wire and paint: 90” x 35" x 31”. Calder Foundation, New York.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) Gallery view of the Calder Gardens Museum, ink on paper drawings from the 1930’s and an oil on canvas painting, Untitled, dating to 1946.

Herbert Matter, Photo (1947) Alexander Calder in his Roxbury, Ct. Studio. © 2025 Calder Foundation, New York/Artists Rights Society

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) Jerusalem Stabile II,1976. Monumental Sculpture, Stabile. Sheet metal, bolts and paint: 11’9” x 24’ x 11’11”. Calder Foundation, New York. Gift of the Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation, 2005.

Anne Lloyd, Photos (2025) Comparative photos of Alexander Milne Calder’s bronze model, William Penn, 1888: 28 x 9 /1/4 x 14 ¾ in., collection of the Calder Foundation, and the monumental version of William Penn (Bronze: 36 feet tall & cast, 1893) placed on top of Philadelphia’s City Hall in 1894. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) Alexander Stirling Calder’s Swan Fountain, 1926.

Herbert Gehr, Photo (1949) Alexander Calder installing his International Mobile at the Third International Exhibition of Sculpture, Philadelphia Museum of Art, May 14, 1949. © Life Magazine. © 2025 Calder Foundation/Artists Rights Society, NY.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Ghost, 1964. Hanging Mobile. Painted sheet metal and metal rods: 34' in length. Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) Three Segments, 1973. Hanging Mobile, Monumental Sculpture. Sheet metal, rod, wire and paint: 79” x 16’18”. Calder Foundation, New York.


Friday, September 19, 2025

Art Eyewitness Review: Sing a New Song: the Psalms in Medieval Art and Life at the Morgan Library and Museum


 Sing a New Song: the Psalms in Medieval Art and Life 

The Morgan Library & Museum, New York City

September 12, 2025 - January 4, 2026

Reviewed by Ed Voves

The 1993 discovery in northern Israel of fragments of an ancient monument thrilled scholars of ancient history and people devoted to the study of the Holy Bible. The Tel Dan inscription wasn't much to look at, pieces of gray stone inscribed with words in the Aramaic language, dating to nearly three thousand years ago.

The inscription itself was a different matter. Among the words chiseled into the stone was the title of the dynastic rulers of the Kingdom of Judah: "the House of David." It was the first archaeological confirmation of the legendary, giant-slaying King David, revered for centuries afterwards.

The Morgan Library and Museum has just opened a fascinating exhibition devoted to the reverence for King David during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Sing a New Song surveys a thousand years of history, from the last years of the Western Roman Empire to the Reformation of the 1500's. At every point, we find the presence the of the indomitable David.



Lorenzo Monaco, King David as Psalmist, painted in Florence,1408-1410 

Why the medieval-era David? What was the key factor in the continuing adulation for a long-dead monarch? Was it his courageous example in defeating the mighty Goliath with only a sling-shot - or something more?

Indeed, it was another of David's accomplishments which kept his reputation alive. It was a book of 150 poems which Jews and Christians alike believed the harp-playing David had composed and sung himself.

The Psalms.

The word psalm derives from psaillein, the Greek verb form "to pluck." This evolved into psalmos, "a song sung to harp music." 



Page from a Greek psalter, known as Bodmer 24,
 created in Egypt, ca. 225-325

Since Greek was the common language of many ethnic groups of the Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean area, psalmos gained a widespread usage and was adapted by the Latin-speaking western regions.

The indelible image associated with psalm comes, not from etymology, but from the folk memory of the brave Hebrew shepherd boy and, later, deeply-flawed king of Judah. David is the first actual hero known to history (thanks to the Tel Dan inscription). Achilles, Hector and Odysseus may have lived and fought in a war at Troy. But David did live, 1040-970 B.C., and did compose hymns to Yahweh which we call psalms.



 Young David, as depicted in the Crusader Bible, 1244-1254

History, especially that relating to the Bible, is maddeningly complicated. We must acknowledge that David composed several of the 150 Psalms, but not all. Most were inspired by him but composed by other poets, sometimes centuries later.

Christians and Jews during the Middle Ages believed that David was the author of ALL of the Psalms. Since the medieval era was the great Age of Faith, we will bow to their convictions and focus our attention on the magnificent exhibition at the Morgan Library and Museum.



             Ed Voves, Photo (2025) 
Gallery view of Sing a New Song: the Psalms in Medieval Art and Life

Sing a New Song: the Psalms in Medieval Art and Life is a sterling example of the Morgan curatorial staff at their best. Such a multi-faceted exhibition, combining religion and art, word and image is a trademark of this great institution. No one presents exhibits of this complexity with greater skill and insight than the Morgan.



            Ed Voves, Photo (2025) 
Gallery view of Sing a New Song, showing a medieval-style"cut-out"

Sing a New Song took seven years to develop, design and mount, much of the time and difficulty due to effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The "team effort" was led by Roger Wieck, the department head of the Morgan Library's incomparable collection of medieval manuscripts.

In his remarks at the press preview of a Sing a New Song, Wieck, referred to a particularly beautiful, hand-written book of psalms, known as the Lewis Psalter.  This illuminated manuscript is on loan to the Morgan from the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia and Wieck was clearly delighted to present it.


           Ed Voves, Photo (2025) 

Roger Wieck, Department Head of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at the Morgan Library and Museum


 Ed Voves, Photo (2025) 
The Lewis Psalter, Scenes from the Passion of Christ, ca. 1225-30

"To have the opportunity to hold the Lewis Psalter," Wieck proclaimed, "is like having Chartres Cathedral in your hands."

This remark is very astute for two reasons. The Lewis Psalter dates to the Gothic era or the High Middle Ages.This was the golden age of cathedral building, as well as creating illuminated manuscripts. Most of these splendidly illustrated books give a prominent place to pictures of David vs. Goliath, the latter always being depicted in the chain-mail fighting gear of knights of the contemporary era. 




   Ed Voves, Photo (2025) 
David and Goliath from the Bible Historiale, ca. 1325

Magnificent devotional books like the Bible Historiale (above) in which David, clad in gold in the lower left hand-corner, takes aim at the hulking Goliath, were not the exclusive property of the Christian Church. The Morgan exhibition presents a Hebrew illuminated manuscript, the Carcassone Bible (1422)This handsome volume is comparable in the quality of its written text, the handwork of Simon ben Rabbi Samuel, and the beauty of its illustrations to Christian books of the same period.  



Simon ben Rabbi Samuel (copyist), The Carcassone Bible (1422)

The second point to Roger Wieck's remark that holding an illuminated manuscript like the Lewes Psalter "is like having Chartres Cathedral in your hands" was literally true during the Middle Ages. 



Jean Poyer (illuminator), The Hours of Henry VIII, showing
  St. Anne Instructing the Virgin, 1500

For devout people in medieval times, having the psalms at your disposal was to be able to worship God anywhere and everywhere. Whether you were part of a congregation at a cathedral or monastery, praying in your home or - as we will see - locked in a prison cell in the Tower of London, the Book of Psalms provided divine help to match your needs.

The illuminated manuscripts on view in Sing a New Song fall into four basic categories: psalters, books of hours, breviaries and primers. Psalms constituted vital components in each, particularly psalters. 

All 150 of the psalms were included in a psalter because the Christian clergy were required to read and pray all of them in a weekly ritual known as the Divine Office. The sequence varied according to the season of the Church year and the psalter was essential in keeping the correct order.

Initially, lavish pictures were seldom included in psalters. This can be seen in one of the most important works on view in the Morgan exhibit. It is relatively nondescript in appearance - compared with illuminated manuscripts from the Gothic era - but looks are deceiving, especially in the case of the Blickling Psalter.


The Blickling Psalter, ca. 730. This illustration shows Psalm 80: “ExultateDeo” (Rejoice to God) in Latin with Old English glosses.

The Blickling Psalter dates to the year 730, making it one of the oldest works in English literature. This is ironical since the main text is in Latin, written in a script known as i nsular majuscule which had been developed by Irish monks for the Book of Kells and then brought to their missionary outposts in the north of England. 


Scribes in England, most likely in Northumbria, composed this majestic work, now reduced to a fragment. They included explanatory glosses in between the lines of the Latin text. These words are in Old English, making the Blickling Psalter a vital source book for comprehending the development of the English language, as well as a testament to the rise of Christian faith in England.

The complex - and fascinating - details of the Blickling Psalter can be found in the "backstories" of most of the illuminated manuscripts on view in Sing a New Song. Likewise, the distinctions between a psalter and a book of hours provides vital insights into the rise of literacy and private devotion which reached new heights in the Gothic era. 



 Deirdre Jackson, Photo (2025) 
The Lodi Choirbook (1470-95) opened to the pages for Matins for Easter

Added to these important themes, there was the parallel development of music in medieval Europe. The Morgan exhibit highlights the role of music by displaying one of the large-format choir books which enabled psalms to be sung in powerful, emotion-charged accompaniment to the celebration of Christian Mass.

Sing a New Song has a millenium of history to narrate, with many details, especially of theology and religious practice, which may be unfamiliar to modern-day art lovers. To enlighten curious, perhaps puzzled, visitors to the exhibition,  Roger Wieck and his team, Diedre Jackson, Joshua O'Driscoll and Frederica Law-Turner have contributed essays to the exhibit catalog which are both instructive and enjoyable.



Like the illuminated manuscripts chronicled in its pages, the catalog of Sing a New Song, published by the D. Giles company, is truly a book to cherish. Sing a New Song is also a worthy counterpart to another Morgan/D.Giles collaboration, the Imperial Splendor exhibit (2021), which surveyed culture and religion in the Germanic realms of the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.

Medieval people certainly cherished their psalters and books of hours. Psalms, however, were valued for more than their words of moral encouragement or consolation. For Christians and Jews they were a form of spiritual armor to help resist temptation and ward-off demons and devils.

Considering that King David had dismally failed to observe the sixth and ninth commandments in the case of Bathsheba, Christian clergyman must have struggled with using the all-too-human monarch as an exemplar of morality. 



 Ed Voves, Photo (2025) 
Triumphant Christ, depicted on a Reliquary Panel, 11th-13th century

One technique, was to emphasize the role of Jesus, as a descendant of David, who was shown (as above) fulfilling the words of Psalm 90 (13). "Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk: and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon."

Another instance of using the psalms to thwart demons and devils was the Jewish practice in the Middle East, fifth to eighth centuries, of burying incantation bowls in the corners of homes and by doorways. These were inscribed with verses of the psalms, especially Psalm 90 (91) and stories of rabbis battling malign spirits.



 Ed Voves, Photo (2025) 
Incantation bowls, from Nippur, Iraq, 5th-8th century

Given the many dangers faced by people during the Middle Ages, one should refrain from raising a bemused eyebrow at these practices. Human beings grasp at whatever comes to hand - or to mind - in times of crisis. 

For the medieval world, the greatest catastrophe came in 1347-48, when the Bubonic Plague ravaged Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Prayer books and incantation bowls had little effect, as close to half of Europe's population succumbed to the dread disease.



Ed Voves, Photo (2025) 
Memento Mori Rosary Terminal Bead,  ca. 1500-1525

The exhibit objects in the last gallery of Sing a New Song bear the mark of the Black Death. The image of death appeared on the pages of psalters, statues, paintings and religious objects. Death was an inescapable fact of life during the late Middle Ages and chanting psalms was often the only relief.



Hans Holbein the Younger, Sir Thomas More, 1527

For Sir Thomas More, imprisoned for resisting the usurpation of King Henry VIII as head of the Church of England, the Psalms were the inspiration for the poignant poems and essays he wrote while in the Tower of London.

The final book on display in Sing a New Song is not an illuminated manuscript. Rather, it is a prayer book printed in 1530 with the new movable type technology. A combination psalter and book of hours, it was used by Thomas More during his imprisonment and was likely the last book he read before going to the block on July 6, 1535.


 
Ed Voves, Photo (2025)
 Prayer book of Sir Thomas More, 1530

It was difficult for me to control my emotions while looking on the prayer book of the "Man for all Seasons." More wrote poetry in the margins of this book, including his "psalm-like prayer," now called A Godly Meditation. Excerpts from these meditations appear below: 

Give me Thy grace, good Lord, to set the world at naught; to set my mind fast upon thee; and not to hang upon the blast of men's mouths.

To bear the cross with Christ; to have the last things in remembrance; to have ever afore mine eye my death that is ever at hand; to make death no stranger to me; to foresee and consider the everlasting fire of hell; to pray for pardon before the Judge come. 

To think my most enemies my best friends; for the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good with their love and favour as they did him with their malice and hatred.

What better description for the Psalms can we have than "godly meditations"? 

Whatever language was used to write them and whether or not they are illustrated with hand-painted pictures is of secondary importance. These precious books of psalms, on view at the Morgan, are all godly meditations, written-down by many hands, but not by the hand of man alone.

***

Text and original photos: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved 

Introductory Image: The Windmill Psalter, England, London, late 13th century. Cantate Domino canticum novum (Ps. 97): Clerics Singing. Codex: 320 x 215 mm. Morgan MS M.102, fols. 99v-100r Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1902

Lorenzo Monaco (13-14) King David as Psalmist, painted in Italy, Florence, ca.1408-1410) Panel painting: 568 x 432 mm. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 65.14.

The Crusader Bible. Young David, one of four scenes in the life of King David, depicted on a page of the Crusader Bible, created in Paris, France, ca. 1244-1254. Single Leaf: 390 x 300 mm. Morgan  MS M.638, fol. 25v.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Gallery view of Sing a New Song: the Psalms in Medieval Art and Life at the Morgan Library and Museum.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Gallery view of Sing a New Song: the Psalms in Medieval Art and Life, showing a "cut-out"in the medieval Gothic style.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Portrait of Roger Wieck, Department Head of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts of the Morgan Library and Museum.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) The Lewis Psalter, illuminated by the Leber Group, France, Paris, ca. 1225-30. Codex: 230 x 165 mm. Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia, Lewis MS E 185, fols. 14v–15r

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) David and Goliath from the Bible Historiale (French). Illuminated by the workshop of Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston. Codex: 425 x 310 mm. France, Paris, ca. 1325 The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.323, fols. 1v–2r | Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1907.

Carcassone Bible, France, Avignon, 1422. Codex, written by Simon ben Rabbi Samuel for Vidal Astruc de Carcassone: 288 x 203 mm. Morgan MS G.48, fols. 438r-437v

Hours of Henry VIII. St. Anne Instructing the Virgin. Illuminated by Jean Poyer France, Tours, ca. 1500. Codex: 256 x 180 mm. The Morgan Library & Museum, MS H.8, fols. 186v–187r | Gift of the Heineman Foundation,1977

Blickling Psalter, England, ca. 730. Psalm 80: “Exultate Deo” (Rejoice to God) in Latin with Old English glosses. Codex: 306 x 230 mm. The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.776, fols. 39v–40r | Purchased, 1932

Diedre Jackson, Photo (2025 Gallery view of Sing a New Song, showing the Lodi Book (Latin) opened to Resurrection (Matins for Easter. Created in Milan, ca. 1470-95. Codex: 560 x 410 mm. The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.686, fols. 2v–3r | Purchased, before 1921.

Book cover illustration of Sing a New Song: the Psalms in Medieval Art and Life, courtesy of D. Giles, Ltd.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Triumphant Christ on a Reliquary panel. Made in Belgium, Mosan workshop, late eleventh century (panel) and thirteenth century (frame). Silver, gilded silver, gilded copper, rock crystal, champlevé enamel and other materials: 585 x 380 x 50 mm. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 57.519

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Gallery view of Sing a New Song at the Morgan Library and Museum, showing Incantation bowls, inscribed in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. From Iraq, Nippur, ca. fifth–seventh century. Penn Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, B2923, B9009, B2945 | Penn Babylonian Expeditions, 1889-90.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Front and back views of Memento Mori Rosary Terminal Bead, ca. 1500-1525. Made in Northern France or Flanders. Elephant ivory, with emerald pendant, silver-gilt mount: 136 x 40 x 43 mm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917; 17.190.305

Hans Holbein the Younger. Sir Thomas More, 1527. Drawing in black and colored chalks, with outlines pricked for transfer: 39.8 x 29.9 cm.. Royal Collection Trust, England, RCIN 912268 Photo: © King Charles III 2025.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) The Prayer Book of Sir Thomas More (Combined Psalter/Book of Hours: the Book of Hours section was printed in Paris by François Regnault, 1530. The Psalter section was printed by Franz Birckman in Paris, 1522) Codex: 220 mm (quarto) Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, MS Vault More| Gift of Edwin J. Beinecke, Yale 1907, and Frederick W. Beinecke, Yale 1909