02-02-2022, 01:42 AM
That's an interesting example from the Angers Apocalypse tapestry. The style of nebuly-line with the pattern of running arches, pointing outward on each side, does look very similar to the one in the central rosette. It also looks similar to the one in the middle right rosette, which has the same kind of cloud-band pattern as the central one, but scaled up a bit.
While we've been researching this subject and I've been comparing many different representations of New Jerusalem I'm really struck by how much variation there is. But this is also not surprising given the complexity of the biblical description (and the fact that no one on earth has actually seen this heavenly city with their own eyes, so it requires some imagination!) It would certainly be a challenge to include everything in a single image. They had to choose which details to focus on, or which were the most important to emphasize. I also noticed that certain Apocalypse cycles handled this challenge by making a series of illustrations on different pages, each focusing on different aspects of the biblical description as they are shown to John. A good example of this is from MS. Bodl. 401, which we used as an example of the twelve foundations with a "tiered design". The two images we used are from different pages of that manuscript, and they both include twelve foundations, but f064r shows the twelve gates, and then f066r shows the twelve angels in place of gates:
There are also some interesting examples of the opposite approach, where the artist did try to combine different elements of New Jerusalem into a single image. Just for an example, like this one where the twelve gates and the twelve precious stones (or maybe twelve pearls?) occupy the same space:
Certain elements of New Jerusalem became closely associated with each other, so it made sense to combine them. This is one aspect we are going to elaborate on in the next post.
While we've been researching this subject and I've been comparing many different representations of New Jerusalem I'm really struck by how much variation there is. But this is also not surprising given the complexity of the biblical description (and the fact that no one on earth has actually seen this heavenly city with their own eyes, so it requires some imagination!) It would certainly be a challenge to include everything in a single image. They had to choose which details to focus on, or which were the most important to emphasize. I also noticed that certain Apocalypse cycles handled this challenge by making a series of illustrations on different pages, each focusing on different aspects of the biblical description as they are shown to John. A good example of this is from MS. Bodl. 401, which we used as an example of the twelve foundations with a "tiered design". The two images we used are from different pages of that manuscript, and they both include twelve foundations, but f064r shows the twelve gates, and then f066r shows the twelve angels in place of gates:
There are also some interesting examples of the opposite approach, where the artist did try to combine different elements of New Jerusalem into a single image. Just for an example, like this one where the twelve gates and the twelve precious stones (or maybe twelve pearls?) occupy the same space:
Certain elements of New Jerusalem became closely associated with each other, so it made sense to combine them. This is one aspect we are going to elaborate on in the next post.