Medieval Mindscapes: Interiority and Imagination in Books of Hours

Centre Street Building, Level 3, Medieval Gallery

In medieval Europe, books of hours provided an opportunity for intimate, daily interaction with art in service of the user’s Christian faith. Images in these books employed innovative visual strategies to engage the imagination of the user through immediate, immersive experiences. Medieval Mindscapes: Interiority and Imagination in Books of Hours looks closely at these artistic strategies through 20 works from the Walters renowned collection of rare books and manuscripts.

These books helped those that engaged with them to build a private devotional world by encouraging imaginative interaction with the open-ended scenes depicted in their personalized, portable manuscripts. Some books were embedded with custom portraits of their owners to encourage the user to picture themselves in the moments included, while others used visual illusions in the margins to help the user discern the interplay between their physical reality and the spiritual world.