Christopher Calderhead
Autore di Illuminating the Word: The Making of the Saint John's Bible
Sull'Autore
Christopher Calderhead is a visual artist and graphic designer who has exhibited his letter-based works in the United States and Great Britain
Fonte dell'immagine: Christopher Calderhead
Opere di Christopher Calderhead
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- cir. mid-20th c.
- Sesso
- male
- Nazionalità
- USA
- Luogo di residenza
- New York, New York, USA
- Attività lavorative
- Editor
Artist
Utenti
Recensioni
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 34
- Utenti
- 292
- Popolarità
- #80,152
- Voto
- 4.0
- Recensioni
- 3
- ISBN
- 9
When I worked in archives this summer, I got to see the St. John’s Bible a lot, and there’s a lot of depth in it. Although the project is very traditional, the illuminations are not. They draw on imagery from Native American, Tibetan, Jewish, and Muslim traditions, even including scientific imagery and prehistoric cave paintings. One of the illuminators, Aidan Hart, is actually an anomaly for being a very traditional Orthodox icon painter.
Calderhead does not hesitate to describe the clashes in the creation of the manuscript. Everyone bickered with everyone, in part because everyone was doing something very new. Biblical scholars on the advisory committee had to learn to speak less academically when telling the calligraphers and illuminators what was going on in a parable. Illuminators would propose radical artistic designs that the advisory committee didn’t like. Calligraphers would make mistakes and struggle to fix them.
Donald Jackson, the head calligrapher for the project, describes himself as not being a religious man. But, he points out, if Christians believe that God’s Word is truth and beauty, then why are so many modern editions of the Bible so aesthetically unpleasant? Rather than small text, thin bleed-through pages, numbers and notes every which way, why not a text that reminds us of its beauty at first sight? It’s a convincing argument. People who came to the library to see the St. John’s Bible engaged it differently – not as a collection of doctrinal prooftexts, but as a spiritual encounter. The St. John’s Bible reminds us of the sacramentality of scripture.… (altro)