Exhibit at the Walters Art Museum: "Paradise Imagined: The Garden in the Islamic and Christian World"

"Paradise Imagined: The Garden in the Islamic and Christian World" is the current manuscript gallery exhibition at the Walters Art Museum (through September 23rd).

A show of approximately 26 pieces, the manuscript gallery shows are always small but intense. The website describes the exhibit in detail, beginning with this line: "This exhibition explores the art of gardens and the cross-fertilization of garden imagery between the East and West. Gardens have functioned as spaces of invention, imagination and mythmaking, as well as places of repose and recreation, for different cultures across time."

Although I greatly enjoyed the exhibition and would encourage everyone to go, I felt that a good number of the pieces seemed to have been included solely for having a floral motif: an Iznik plate, several leaves from different manuscripts/editions of De materia medica, a covered pot and tray, an alphabet book, a mosque lamp, and several illuminated Qur'an manuscripts. Don't get me wrong, these pieces were all lovely, but I would have liked a bit more explicit "garden" and "paradise" to flesh out the story the exhibition was trying to tell.

However, this is a one room exhibition without loans--in fact, the vast majority of pieces in this exhibition were collected by the younger Walters, Henry. Knowing that can certainly give the exhibit another layer, when one considers what it would mean to have acquired those objects.

This exhibition is also exceptional for something its title notes: its attention to cross-cultural works and exchange. It was wonderful to see such a diverse exhibit which incorporated works from many countries, cultures, languages, and in several media--pottery, an ivory inscription, woodcuts, illuminated manuscripts.

There were many gorgeous works with excellent detailed workmanship. The Walters has an excellent website with digitized images of many of its works. I wrote down the accession numbers of some of my favorite items so I could link to them: an Italian 15th century psalter and a Persian Book of Kings (Shahnama).

It's always worth it to play around on the website, especially since the museum digitized all of their Qur'ans!

So why include a picture I took of a rose that has nothing to do with the exhibition? If this exhibition was about viewing gardens and flowers in different ways across cultures and times, well, I figured, why not (and you know, image permissions and all that jazz)?

--Lael