There is a stimulating relationship between the Bible for the literate and the Bible for the illiterate. The word invokes different and elusive associations, while the image clarifies and consolidates them. This relationship can perhaps best be seen in illuminated manuscripts, particularly those dating from the Middle Ages. Initials, miniatures, appliqués, and the sheer beauty of the script itself set the pace of reading as if it were a musical composition, transforming reading into a celebration. One such miniature, The Crucifixionfeatured in Strossmayer's book of hours, appears on this year's Easter stamp issued by Croatian Post.
Josip Juraj Strossmayer gifted his collection of 256 artworks to the Croatian – then Yugoslav, i.e. South Slavic – Academy of Sciences and Arts, which, in his words, he cherished for several decades. The Academy was founded on his ideas and efforts (1866), and its gallery was an important building block in the bishop's extensive cultural, educational and political project. It opened on 9 November 1884. In his programmatic speech, Strossmayer explicitly referred to this book of hours as an exceptional treasure. To mark the Academy's 150th anniversary, a reprint of the book of hours was published. It is accompanied by extensive research by Dr. Iva Pasini Tržec in a separate volume. She found that the book of hours originated in Paris after 1491, at the very end of the 15th century, and that its main painter was the so-called Master of Jacques de Besançon. Strossmayer first acquired the book of hours in Rome in 1877: The beautiful manuscript would travel to Zagreb for almost four hundred years.
The scene, featuring a small number of people, is set in an idyllic landscape on a gentle green hill, with the monumental, surrounded city of Jerusalem in the background, with towers and turrets, but also small-town houses and slanted roofs. It more closely resembles the European medieval setting than the biblical barren landscape. The scene has a certain ideographic stasis, but at the same time retains a Renaissance concept of space, the richness of volume and the vivacity of individual characters. Actually, the scene is emotionally bisected in line with the narrative: On one side, Mother Mary and John, the disciple whom Jesus loved the most and who offers Mary his sheltering hand; they stand mute and frozen, outside of time, not looking towards the murdered Son of God. On the other side, we see a group of soldiers, absorbed in what is happening, discussing it, looking at the crucified Jesus and pointing at him. It is difficult to determine the moment at which it all takes place. Jesus is already dead, his body has been pierced by a spear, the murder and torture instruments lie scattered about, yet darkness has not fallen over the whole earth, instead two heavenly lights in the clear blue sky, the sun and the moon, bear witness to the terrible death on the cross for the universe. Between emotional stylization and narrative realism is the cross and on it the lifeless Christ as a bisector, as a dividing line between the everyday and the eternal. This scene could also be interpreted as the manifestation of two spiritual moments – one inherited from the Middle Ages and the other from the Renaissance.
Easter has also two sides, a dark and a bright and shiny one. In the inevitable course of a year, of human life and of time on earth, they meet and interchange. Easter scenes thus represent countless different visions of the same realities, the same drama, from the event itself and its gravity to the liberated meaning and its lightness. All of this is a legacy of Easter. And the miniature from Strossmayer's book of hours represents a precious part of this heritage, which we respectfully open our hearts to and proudly show to the world.
Academician Željka Čorak
