{"id":41293,"date":"2024-10-24T11:00:35","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T15:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/?p=41293"},"modified":"2024-12-03T11:09:44","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T16:09:44","slug":"a-medieval-eye-diagram-travels-to-the-getty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/2024\/10\/24\/a-medieval-eye-diagram-travels-to-the-getty\/","title":{"rendered":"A Medieval Eye Diagram Travels to the Getty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Circulating Now welcomes guest bloggers Kristen Collins and Nancy K. Turner, curator and conservator at The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Together with their Getty Research Institute curator Glenn Phillips, they have co-curated the international exhibition <\/em>Lumen: The Art and Science of Light<\/a>, which includes collection material from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) made available through its institutional loan program<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

The J. Paul Getty Museum is featuring an optical diagram in an early fifteenth-century manuscript<\/a> written in Arabic from the NLM collection for an exhibition on the intersecting worlds of science and spirituality in the so-called \u201clong Middle Ages\u201d (800\u20131600 CE). This lengthy period, which encapsulates the centuries often defined as \u201cthe Renaissance,\u201d was claimed for the Middle Ages in the exhibition because of its cohesive approach to scientific knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese centuries are marked by a sense of cohesion\u2014scholars across the medieval world were working within the parameters of knowledge inherited from ancient Greek and Roman traditions, before the rupture represented by the acceptance of a heliocentric universe and inventions such as the telescope.\u201d \u2014Kristen Collins, Co-curator, <\/em>Lumen exhibition<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"An <\/a>
H\u0323all al-Mu\u0304jiz, 1407 Recto Leaf 167 MS A 67 National Library of Medicine# 9404789 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
Schematic Diagram of the Eye and Visual System in H\u0323all al-Mu\u0304jiz, 1407 Verso Leaf 167 MS A 67 National Library of Medicine# 9404789 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

The diagram shows the visual system, representing the connection from the eyes, shown with black pupils, via the optic nerves drawn with red, to the chambers of the brain, depicted as concentric circles. It illustrates a text titled The Key to the Mujiz<\/em><\/a> written by the Persian scholar Jamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Aqsara\u02bei (Anatolian-Persian, active in Aqsara, T\u00fcrkiye, d. 1379 CE). The NLM\u2019s copy of the text dates to 1407 CE. It contains the work of both Jamal al-Din Aqsara\u2019i and the Syrian physician Ibn al-Nafis (died 1288), who both responded to the earlier Canon of Medicine<\/a><\/em> by Ibn Sina (also known by the Latinized name Avicenna, 980\u20131037 CE and recognized for his considerable contributions to Islamic medicine). This medieval model of textual commentary was a hallmark of science and knowledge transmission during the long Middle Ages, where scholars debated, clarified, and improved earlier optical theories on the physiology of the eye and the mechanics of vision.<\/p>\n

What does an eyeball diagram have to do with an exhibition on light? <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
Gallery view of Lumen: The Art and Science of Light<\/em>,
September 10\u2013December 8, 2024, at the Getty Center
Image \u00a9 2024 J. Paul Getty Trust<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Getty\u2019s exhibition explains that the Latin word lumen<\/em>, or light, has multiple meanings. In the medieval world, lumen meant light\u2014whether from the sun or a lamp\u2014but it also conveyed the substance of light, including its color, and the \u201clight of the eye,\u201d a phrase that demonstrates medieval understanding that light enabled sight. In the medieval world\u2014which was illuminated by oil lamps, fire, and astral bodies such as the sun and the moon\u2014competing theories of light and vision inherited from ancient Greece and Rome were debated, improved upon, and ultimately resolved through the study of vision, called optics.<\/p>\n

The Mechanics of Vision<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the medieval world, the quest to understand vision was approached through physical study of the eye and the use of geometry to model light\u2019s passage in and out of the eye. From antiquity through the Middle Ages, natural philosophers debated two contrasting theories of vision: extramission versus intromission. The extramissionist theory of vision, argued by Plato (about 429\u2013348 BCE), held that light rays (called effluxes, or \u201cfires of the eye\u201d) originated in the eye and flowed outward, mixing with the air (pneuma<\/em>) between the eye and the thing seen. The intromissionist view, first posited by Empedocles (490\u2013430 BCE) and later supported by Aristotle (384\u2013322 BCE), theorized that the diaphanous medium of pneuma<\/em> (air) between the viewer\u2019s eye and the thing seen was activated by light rays, colors, and images emitting from the object that then penetrated the eye. The Arab polymath Ibn al-Haytham (965\u20131040 CE) resolved this debate on the side of intromission. Regarded today as the father of modern optics, he conducted experiments in a camera obscura that allowed him to better understand light\u2019s properties.<\/p>\n

The Getty Lumen<\/em> Exhibition<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Gallery view of Lumen: The Art and Science of Light<\/em>, September 10\u2013December 8, 2024, at the Getty Center. In the foreground: Untitled (Parabolic Lens), 1971, Fred Eversley (The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 782.2017). Artwork \u00a9 Frederick Eversley.
Image \u00a9 2024 J. Paul Getty Trust<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the medieval scholar, sight was the primary sense, necessary for knowledge and cognition. Vision was understood as physically taxing, requiring prolonged attention and scrutiny, and artwork was often used to direct the gaze and bring about a kind of spiritual \u201cseeing.\u201d Focusing on the arts of western Europe, Lumen: The Art and Science of Light<\/a><\/em> \u00a0explores the ways in which the science of light was studied by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim philosophers, theologians, and artists who explored both the mechanics and the metaphorical uses of light and sight. Natural philosophy (the study of the physical universe) served as the connective thread for diverse cultures across Europe and the Mediterranean, uniting scholars who inherited, translated, and improved upon a common foundation of ancient Greek knowledge. Throughout the exhibition, object groupings demonstrate the ways that artists and their patrons harnessed the science of light to create spaces of wonder.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Pentecost<\/em> in a benedictional, about 1030-40 CE, Ottonian, tempera colors, gold, and ink on parchment,
9 1\/8 x 6 5\/16 in. (23.2 x 16 cm) Getty Museum, Ms. Ludwig VII 1 (83.MI.90), fol. 47v<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0\u201cThroughout the exhibition we emphasize that the science of optics, in which light was thought to travel in lines and rays, informed the religious arts in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in which the reception of divine knowledge was enabled by light and sight.\u201d \u2014Nancy Turner, Co-curator, <\/em>Lumen exhibition<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Visit <\/em>Lumen: The Art and Science of Light<\/a> at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California now through December 8, 2024.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Circulating Now welcomes guest bloggers Kristen Collins and Nancy K. Turner, curator and conservator at The J. Paul Getty Museum<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19605840,"featured_media":41299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12763,51014,103,347145303],"tags":[413021,21106,134155,517998,44421,4939160,678875957],"class_list":["post-41293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-collections","category-guests","category-news","category-rare-books-journals","tag-1400s","tag-arabic","tag-eye","tag-manuscript","tag-medieval","tag-on-loan","tag-optics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/MS-A-67_leaf-167_eye_feature.jpg?fit=900%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3xcDk-aK1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19605840"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41293"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41886,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41293\/revisions\/41886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}