There are a myriad ways we could have approached “meditations” and “medieval prayers”; many of the other books in the room could have sat comfortably at this table. So consider this selection as a taster “flight” of approaches. The Hargrett Hours is the medieval book in the room that has been the most thoroughly studied. We know it was made in Paris in the middle of the fifteenth century, that it has been rebound several times and damaged in a fire, and that it is currently missing many pages. Its calendar offers a more detailed organization of time than the other Books of Hours in the room; some of the students here today can talk your ear off about the book! Andrew Anderson’s A Vision in Time (2011) is a portfolio of linocuts that Anderson produced across his career as an artist. Because they were created at different moments and often for particular occasions, they do not all engage directly with meditation or prayer. On his website, Anderson explains the inspiration for many of these linocuts as stemming directly from England’s medieval church settings: By chance, needing to earn a living, I was offered a job that involved visiting, in all weathers and at all times of the year, four hundred rural churches stretching from the Wash to the Stour Valley. You have only to step inside the door of a country church to enter an ethereal world of saints and angels, ladders and cleaners’ buckets, of bells, flags, cross-legged crusaders, and slowly ticking turret clocks. Above all, a country church is a place where there is lettering everywhere − on the walls and floors, in the windows, and in the churchyard. It was out of this arcane environment of ideas and images, sights and sounds, that the linocuts emerged. (Andrew Anderson Prints, “Background”) As you’ll see flipping through the portfolio, Anderson’s cuts are invitations to visual meditation. You will want to read his introduction, in the front of the portfolio. Diane di Prima was a queer poet in the sixties and seventies affiliated with countercultural and revolutionary movements (including the Beats); she collaborated with printmaker Bret Rohmer on several projects, but TBH I can’t find anything particular on him. Like A Vision in Time, their Book of Hours invites deep visual contemplation – but this time paired with di Prima’s poetry. References Andrew Anderson Prints. 2020. https://www.andrewandersonprints.com/ Brady, Andrea. “Diane di Prima’s Revolutionary Poetics.” Berfrois 11 October 2022. https://www.berfrois.com/2022/10/andrea-brady-on-diane-di-prima/ Camp, Cynthia Turner, et al. The Hargrett Hours Edition. UGA Medieval, 2024. https://hargretthours.ugamedieval.com/
