"Waste Not: The Art of Medieval Recycling" at the Walters Art Museum

Well, Readers, this post would have worked way better if I had managed to post it before the exhibition I discuss below had ended. I am still posting it because the exhibition was phenomenal, and because the links to the images I mention below make the whole endeavor still worthwhile. Right now the Walters Art Museum has an amazing medieval show, A Feast for the Senses: Art and Experience in Medieval Europe, so if you need your medieval fix, I suggest a visit before the show closes on Sunday, January 8, 2017.

The show this post is about: Waste Not: The Art of Medieval Recycling, Saturday, June 25, 2016–Sunday, September 18, 2016.

This show was amazing. Immediately when you entered the show, you were up close and personal with a sculpted colossal head with no glass surrounding it. This invited immediate engagement with the objects in the show. 

The entire show, along with the interpretative text, really elicited a feel for the medieval world in a way few museum exhibitions do--an immediacy and a connection across time was palpable. 

One of my favorite pieces from the show can be seen here: Two Leaves from the Mirror of Human Salvation, W.149, fols. 1v-2r.

After visiting the show, I continued my Walters tradition. Every time I go to the museum alone, I sit in front of the Crucifix with Mourning Virgin and St. John the Evangelist, 37.710 and quietly contemplate and discover new details I have never seen before. 

--LJE