MEDIEVAL PSALTERS are on display at the Getty Museum:

Getty displays medieval manuscripts focusing on King David

The collection of medieval illuminated Psalters and religious texts, on display at the museum through Aug. 16, illustrates the Hebrew king's struggle with good and evil.

By Martha Groves (Los Angeles Times)
July 20, 2009

The story of David, the shepherd boy who slew the Philistine Goliath, became the divinely chosen king of the Israelites and seduced Bathsheba, would be compelling in any era.

But for medieval Christians, the poet, harpist and warrior assumed immense importance as an exemplar of piety and penitence, an Everyman on whom they could model their own commitment to God.

So large loomed his legend that throughout the Middle Ages David was credited with being the author of the 150 Psalms, the deeply affecting "songs of praise" initially composed in Hebrew, that were incorporated into the Hebrew Bible and later the Christian Bible.

The Psalms played a vital role in medieval devotion from about 500 to the 1500s, and David's image appears in lavishly illustrated Psalters, volumes containing the Book of Psalms, and choir books of the period. Many of these manuscripts, painted in brilliant hues and decorated with gold leaf, are on view through Aug. 16 in the Getty Museum's North Pavilion.

In an era of e-books, it is impressive to see the enduring beauty of the 21 manuscripts and leaves, or individual pages, displayed in "Temptation and Salvation: The Psalms of King David." All of the examples -- some large, some tiny -- were drawn from the Getty's own collection of the illustrated texts, inaugurated in 1983 with the purchase of 144 manuscripts owned by German chocolate magnate Peter Ludwig and his wife, Irene.

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