A guided tour of the Zeytun Gospel’s Canon Tables reveals the extraordinary life of a matchless Armenian artwork
Consider this page from the Canon Tables of the Zeytun Gospels, now at the J. Paul Getty Museum.
The illuminated page features an architectural frame supported by three columns. Between the columns are golden grids that contain letters written in the Armenian alphabet. The letters stand for numbers, and the grids are concordance lists of passages that relate the same events in two or more of the four Gospels. In the Middle Ages, canon tables almost always preceded the Gospels. They occupied several pages and were among the most elaborately decorated passages in a manuscript. The Canon Tables of the Zeytun Gospels were created in 1256, the first signed work of Toros Roslin, now recognized as the greatest medieval Armenian illuminator. On this page, you see areas of geometric ornament enhanced with gold ink and jewel-like colors. When you look closely at the ornamental field, you find pairs of partridges and blue birds hidden in the gold leaf, pecking at tendrils. There are two faces staring out from the upper section, their expressions enigmatic. The column capitals are actually ox heads rendered in blue. Plants and animals surround the architectural frame. At the top of the page, two roosters stride confidently towards a jeweled vase, their tail feathers outlined in gold. Flanking the frame are floral motifs and pomegranate trees where two species of birds frolic.
Roslin conceived of his canon tables as matching pairs. When you opened the book, they appeared on two facing pages that echoed each other’s decoration. You can see how the matching page features a similar arrangement, with the same roosters, ox-head column capitals, and pomegranate trees (see Ms. 59, fol. 5v and 6r). As your eye travels from one page to the other, you delight in discerning differences: the roosters nibble at the bottom of the vase rather than striding towards it, the birds are all different, and on the lower row they peck at the column capitals. The hidden faces in the architectural frames have vanished, leaving behind indigo arabesques emerging from horns of plenty.
Continue reading "Finding hidden imagery in an Illuminated Page " »