It may be hard to imagine today, but tensions between the secular and the nonsecular world did not always run so high ““ in earlier times, scientific study was considered to be a form of spirituality.
That’s just one of many ideas revealed in the more than 50 manuscripts dating from the medieval through early modern period on display now at The Getty Research Institute through April 18.
Pieces from “Migrations of the Mind: Manuscripts from the Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection” explore the subjects of science, medicine, technological innovation and philosophy and show how emerging ideas were expressed in visual terms.
The works on display are collected from diverse locations all around the world. According to curator David Brafman, this global focus traces the transfer of ideas from culture to culture, which was crucial to the development of modern thought.
Whereas people tend to think of the history of modern thought as equal to that of Western thought, the exhibit looks to expose the reality that much of Western thought came from other parts of the world.
“So there’s the idea of migration, that there’s culture interchange ““ Western and Middle Eastern ideas, aesthetic visions, spiritual concepts are all intermingling with each other ““ and that in some ways we should rewrite the borders of history,” Brafman said.
These manuscripts also show that as early as medieval times, people were linked through the ideas and texts they shared, according to Jeremy Glatstein, USC doctorate candidate and research assistant for the exhibit.
“This idea of the global world and global exchange of ideas was actually much earlier than people assume it to be. It predates the modern world and predates the Internet,” Glatstein said.
Set up in a small, L-shaped gallery space, the exhibit is divided thematically into eight sections, forming a narrative of sorts.
It opens with “Intelligent Design,” then proceeds to cover areas including numbers, logic, language and musical harmonies, ending with “Mastering the World.”
According to Brafman, the first half of the exhibit largely contains manuscripts in which humans engage in scientific study as a way to understand the world as a divine creation of God.
The focus then shifts to humans’ attempt to imitate divine creation and their increased ability to manipulate the world and master nature. Works on display include a manuscript on how to find water in the middle of the desert and a world map that helped sailors navigate the seas.
Military manuscripts are also included and give instructions on how to build the best bomb, make fireworks and calculate the trajectory of a cannonball.
“Human exploration of the world turns into conquests of the world and other people,” Brafman said. “It shows how the human evolution of creativity culminates in its more destructive nature.”
Even though the manuscripts are of great scholarly interest, Brafman said he believes the visual aspect of the works makes them accessible to all ages. Diagrams of the moon, lunar eclipses and charts on the Arabic numerals from 0 to 9 are all already understood.
“There’s this really cool 16th century Chinese manuscript showing acupuncture points, so I think anybody in the public audience will understand that. There’s an Arabic surgery manuscript that shows the different scalpels and tools. … I just think every kid will think that’s cool,” Brafman said.
All the works on display were hand-chosen by Brafman from the Lawrence J. Schoenberg collection.
“(Schoenberg) has done enormous service to the cause of higher education by helping pursue manuscripts of the past,” said Brian Copenhaver, director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at UCLA. “What you’re seeing is a result of work he’s done over four, five decades to put together these unique objects.”
According to Copenhaver, a manuscript is by definition one of a kind, since each one had to be copied by hand before the age of books. They are the only existing evidence of these works and ensure the survival of important ideas.
The unique nature of the manuscript also comes from the fact that there’s an artist who worked on every manuscript.
“Not just in a vague abstract sense, not in that somebody creates the binding, somebody is a scribe. But here are real illustrators, artists figuring out how to express these new revolutionary ideas in some kind of visual fashion that has some kind of aesthetic impact,” Brafman said.