From Thought to Paper The Saint John’s Bible is the inspiration of Donald Jackson, MVO, scribe to the House of Lords and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Jackson says the title is not
Right: The Garden of Eden. The top mirrors the earlier creation panels, followed by representations of the cave paintings of ancient man. The background is lush with greenery and flowers, bight animals and sea creatures, with man the center of it all. Note, too, how he is surrounded by the coral snake but framed in gold. Gold is used throughout the St. John’s Bible illuminations to represent God. Page opposite: The Ten Commandments. The theological brief from the Committee on Illumination and Text required the artist, Thomas Ingmire, to combine five different passages from Exodus into a single illumination. Since the committee’s brief also suggested that the giving of the Ten Commandments represented a new creation, they were chosen to create the principal image around which to group the others. Depicted along the top of the composition are the burning bush, the first Passover, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the 12 pillars, representing the 12 tribes of Israel, erected at the foot of Mount Sinai. The lower half of the page contains the Ten Commandments, overlapping and dissolving the colored background. [loc.gov/exhibits/stjohnsbible/ stjohns-exhibit.html]
20
S. Cooley
Those are the details of the Saint John’s Bible, but not the essence of the master work. Each page is a feast for the eyes and an inspiration for the soul on many levels, both artistic and spiritual. It is a series of artworks you want to reach out and touch and yet are half afraid to for fear you’ll somehow damage it. It’s a flash of awe, the inexplicable “rush” of being taken with an image, with a text, revealed at once and digested whole, but then inviting you to pause and find the story within it. And it leaves you richer for having done so.