Featuring over 100 works including celestial globes, golden altars, and illuminated Qur’ans, this major international loan exhibition is on view at the Getty Center from September 10 through December 8, 2024.
The exhibition is presented in conjunction with PST ART: Art & Science Collide, a groundbreaking regional cultural collaboration that unites more than 70 exhibition and performance spaces around a singular theme, the intersection of art and science.
The Latin word “lumen” has multiple meanings: lumen means light—whether from the sun or a lamp—but it also conveys the substance of light, including its color, and the “light” of the eye, that is, the power of sight. Focusing on the art of western Europe, the exhibition explores how the science of light informed the work of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim philosophers, theologians, and artists during the “Long Middle Ages,” which lasted from approximately year 800 to 1600.
“The natural philosophers and astronomers of antiquity—figures such as Aristotle and Ptolemy—theorized extensively about the nature of matter and light and did much to chart the movements of the planets and stars across the cosmos,” says Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “Building on these achievements, medieval scholars greatly advanced the understanding of astronomy, optics, mathematics, and many other sciences, fueled by the transmission and translation of scholarly treatises of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic scholars throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East. The outcome of this cross-cultural foment was the creation of many extraordinary works of art made to harness the marvel of light, especially in the scared spaces of churches, temples, and mosques."
Organized in three sections, the exhibition reveals how medieval artists harnessed the knowledge of astronomy, geometry, and optics to create immersive, light-filled spaces designed to inspire religiosity and awe. The exhibition also features works by seven contemporary artists who engage with, heighten, and challenge our perception of light: Vija Celmins, E.V. Day, Fred Eversley, Monir Sharoudy Farmanfarmaian, Anish Kapoor, Helen Pashgian, and Charles Ross.
The first section, Astral Light, traces the study of astronomy, presenting some of the earliest instruments used to measure distance and time, including astrolabes, armillary spheres, and volvelles. Astrolabes and other scientific instruments were used to chart the stars, measure the position of celestial bodies, and track seasons and the time of day, helping medieval people determine when to plant crops, celebrate religious holidays, or attend religious services.
On display in this section is a 12th-century manuscript, Monk Measuring the Hours of Night Using Pacificus’s “Horologium Nocturnum” (night clock), showing a monk peering through a tube with inscribed plates attached to the end. This device tells time after sunset by measuring the changing angles of the polestar in relation to the brightest stars in the nearby constellations, often Ursa Major. Monks used it to determine the hour for nightly prayers.
Mathematics enabled astronomers to chart the movements of the stars but religious groups in the Middle Ages also recognized the sacred nature of geometry, which they believed reflected the perfection of God’s divine plan. Considered one of the greatest Hebrew Bibles of the Middle Ages, the Kennicott Bible is displayed alongside an Islamic textile and Qu’ran, all of which use repeating geometric patterns to represent the infinitude of creation.
The second section, Light and Vision, includes artworks that showcase scientific understandings of how people thought light traveled in lines, enabling vision and cognition. Believed to be achieved in phases, medieval vision moved from physical sight to “spiritual seeing” through prolonged meditation and scrutiny of religious objects, leading to revelation within the “mind’s eye.” This section also shows how optical knowledge influenced depictions of divine light in religious art.
A painting of the Annunciation, on loan from the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, shows light representing spiritual vision and cognition flowing from God to the Virgin Mary in seven golden rays. Nearby in the exhibition, the artist E.V. Day has provided a monumental work titled Golden Rays (In Vitro), a piece that uses gilded aircraft cable and fiber optic monofilament to dramatically transpose the golden rays seen in painted depictions of the Annunciation back into the three-dimensional world.
Demonstrating practical advances of medieval optics, the exhibition features a pair of spectacles, an invention of the 13th century that changed the course of human history by improving near vision for aging eyes.
One of the contemporary works in this section, Untitled (Parabolic Lens), by Fred Eversley, is both a sculpture and a functional lens that can reflect, refract, and focus light, sound, and other forms of energy. Looking through the lens, the viewer can see more than their normal field of vision, while also seeing themselves and the environment behind them.
The final section, Aura and Performance, shows how medieval artists used light in religious spaces to evoke divinity, focus attention, and create transformative experiences for the viewer. Whether in a temple, mosque, or church, places of worship are rich with objects that stimulate the senses. The sounds of a chant, smell of incense, and reflection of light across gold all combine to create a layered sensory experience of the divine. Nearly 11 feet in diameter, a monumental Byzantine chandelier, called a choros, hangs high in this section.
The walls and domes of Islamic mosques, shrines, and palaces were often adorned with tiered, honeycomb-like structures called muqarnas. Made of gilded wood, glazed ceramic, or painted plaster, they reflected light and cast shadows. The passage of light from the sun and moon over murqarnas often gave the impression that the textured ceiling was slowly moving, like the rotating dome of heaven. Several historic muqarnas will be on display near a large, mirrored work by Monir Sharoudy Farmanfarmaian, which evokes this historic art form. Other religious objects on display include rare Hebrew Bibles illuminated with golden menorahs, blown glass mosque lamps, incense burners, and a golden altar showing the apostles receiving divine knowledge through streams of light.
“This exhibition presents dazzling light-filled environments like those that medieval artists created by using materials like gold, crystal, and glass to evoke layered realms of the divine,” says Kristen Collins, curator of manuscripts at the Getty Museum. Co-curator Nancy Turner adds, “With this exhibition, we hope to demonstrate that medieval people deployed all of their scientific knowledge of the ways in which light traveled, reflected, and refracted to create environments designed to inspire religiosity and wonder.”
The exhibition includes two stand-alone installations by contemporary artists. On view in the Getty Center’s North Pavilion gallery N106 from August 6, 2024 through January 26, 2025, Lumen: Helen Pashgian features a meditative sculpture and light installation that could be likened to medieval sacred spaces that use light to take the viewer beyond the outside world, energizing and focusing the mind, and creating transformative experiences. On view in the Museum Entrance Hall, Spectrum 14 by Charles Ross is a site-specific commission that helps viewers visualize the earth’s rotational cycle. A precisely placed array of prisms will cast changing patterns of rainbow-colored light across the walls and floor of the rotunda, slowly shifting position as the earth rotates. Spectrum 14 will be on view from September 10, 2024 through summer 2026.
Lumen: The Art and Science of Light was curated by Kristen Collins, curator of manuscripts at the Getty Museum, and Nancy Turner, conservator of manuscripts at the Getty Museum. Contemporary works were curated by Glenn Phillips, senior curator, head of exhibitions, and head of Modern & Contemporary Collections at the Getty Research Institute. Complementing the exhibition is a richly illustrated catalogue published by Getty Publications, edited by Collins and Turner, with contemporary contributions by Phillips and essays by 11 esteemed authors.
This exhibition is part of PST ART, a Getty initiative presenting over 70 exhibitions at institutions across Southern California tied to the theme Art & Science Collide. PST ART is presented by Getty. Lead partners are Bank of America, Alicia Miñana & Rob Lovelace, Getty Patron Program. The principal partner is Simons Foundation. For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, please visit: pst.art