Text and image are interwoven with each other, resulting in intricate geometric designs.ĭeep knowledge of the Hebrew text of the Psalms has resulted in an iconographic schema which bears little relation to the established Christian iconography of the Psalms, itself influenced by the Vulgate translation of Psalm 23:4. ![]() One artist is thought to have produced all its 102 illuminations. Puzzlingly, this Psalter seems alone in having escaped the prohibition on human representation that applied to (extant) contemporaneous Ashkanazi manuscripts (see Beit-Arie, Silver & Metzger 1996: 103–07). The Parma Psalter is a rare example of a Jewish illuminated Psalter, produced in Italy during a time of Jewish persecution. Grant, Simon 2005: ‘A Terrible Beauty’, Tate Etc, 5, available at Whether Fenton’s photograph suggests a continuation of that divine protection, is entirely ambiguous. Here in the photograph, the ‘valley of the shadow of death’ from which the Lord is said to provide protection is a literal valley scattered with the debris of modern warfare, in which many experienced great ‘darkness’. The connection of the landscape in this photograph with Psalm 23 by the authors of the 1855 exhibition catalogue (who appended the title to the image) brings new meaning to the notion of the ‘valley of the shadow of death’ evoked in 23:4. Instead, the barren hills and the snaking road are covered in cannonballs and other debris, a grim reminder of the human loss that the landscape repeatedly bore witness to throughout the war. ![]() Thus this image, exhibited by Fenton on his return from the Crimea in 1855, depicts the aftermath of a battle in the area referred to by the troops as ‘the valley of death’ (see Psalm 23:4), a location that was also immortalized by Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854).įenton’s landscape is devoid of human, animal, or indeed any living presence. Because Victorian sensibilities could not tolerate graphic photographs, Fenton focused on the ‘landscape of aftermath’ (Grant 2005). The British familiarity with the Psalm was largely due to the multiple woodcut versions of Pilgrim’s Progress that had flooded the market since the late seventeenth century and which all featured an image of Christian in the ‘valley of the shadow of death’.įenton, one of the first war photographers, had been commissioned to take photos of the Crimean War. It is both a reinterpretation of the Psalm for the age of modern warfare, and testament to the Psalm’s ubiquity within British culture. Roger Fenton’s photograph of the Crimean ‘valley of death’ (the ravine that ran between the British and Russian camps during the Crimean war) represents a key moment within the reception history of Psalm 23. Theodoret of Cyrus: Commentary on the Psalms, 1-72, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: CUA Press) The combination of the tree (which recalls the tree of knowledge of Genesis 2:17) the serpent (which is viewed within Christian theology as the bringer of death to humankind, see Genesis 3) and the haloed Shepherd, a figure who, in the New Testament, is often linked with Christ, implies that in this illumination, Psalm 23 is being interpreted ‘typologically’ (when the Old Testament is read through the prism of the New).īearing the cross as the Shepherd in the Psalm bears his staff, Christ opens the way to salvation, and leads his people along it. ![]() The ‘evil’ referenced in verse 4 is here suggested by the snake wrapped around the base of the tree to the ‘Shepherd’s’ right, which he is calmly subduing with his extended right hand. The ‘still waters’ of Psalm 23:2 are represented by the stream on whose banks the ‘Shepherd’ stands, and the green pastures (also of Psalm 23:2) by the two trees to his right and left (painted in markedly different styles). The Psalmist himself, the speaker of the Psalm, is noticeably absent. In the centre, in the heavy, brightly-coloured style that is characteristic of the Stuttgart, stands the Shepherd, nimbed with a halo and holding a staff or ferula (Psalm 23:4). In contrast to the almost contemporary Utrecht Psalter, which is characterized by a concern to illustrate every detail of the ‘word-pictures’ in the Psalms, the Stuttgart Psalter takes a more pared down approach.Īccordingly, in this illumination made to accompany Psalm 23, one theme is prioritized, that of the protective ‘Shepherd / Lord’ of Psalm 23:1–4. ![]() The manuscript uses 316 illuminations to accompany the Psalter. This ninth-century Carolingian illumination of Psalm 23 is found in the Stuttgart Psalter.
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