Marginalia: A Meditation on the Medieval and the Postmodern

Abstract

In that wild and uncertain time once called the Dark Ages, monks at the extreme Western edge of the world - in Ireland, in Iona, in Lindisfarne - laboured for years copying and illustrating Gospels. Perhaps they did not always fully understand what they were transcribing, for they made spelling and translation mistakes. Yet their work remains indescribably moving and powerful. In the centre of each parchment unfolds a story adorned with meticulously beautiful lettering and weirdly gorgeous, slyly animistic images of men and women, animals and strange half-creatures.