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Exhibition: Great Wheels of Fire (Ezekiel 10). Featuring works of art by Jost Amman, Melchior Bocksberger, Unknown artist, Northern Italy and Unknown French artist. Commentaries by Sarah M. Griffin.

UNKNOWN ARTIST, NORTHERN ITALY Descriptio Rote secunde iuxta vitulum. Et secunda pars secunde dispositionis, from Henricus de Carreto's 'De Rotis Ezechielis', c.1313–15, Manuscript illumination Ezekiel 10 Great Wheels of Fire Commentaries by Sarah M. Griffin Works of art by Jost Amman, Melchior Bocksberger, Unknown artist, Northern Italy and Unknown French artist Cite & Share Bible Passage Unable to open [object Object]: HTTP 0 attempting to load TileSource: https://images-live.thevcs.org/iiif/2/AW0655_Jost+Amman_Ezekielsvision+of+the+wheel_ART577296cropped.ptif/info.json JOST AMMAN, AFTER MELCHIOR BOCKSBERGER Ezekiel's Vision of the Wheel and the Four Living Creatures, 1564, Letterpress, woodcut on paper, 110 x 154 mm, The British Museum, London; 1895,0420.240, © The Trustees of the British Museum / Art Resource, NY ‘Fire from between the Whirling Wheels’ Commentary by Sarah M. Griffin Bible Passage Read by Ben Quash The Neuwe Biblische Figuren is an early printed German Bible made up almost entirely of pictures. While many of the images are presented with short excerpts of text (four verses in Latin above and their German translation below), these function largely as marginal commentaries (Cramer 2005: 259). This format demands that the pictures tell the story where text is absent, requiring a high degree of detail in each. To make the prints the artist, Jost Amman, carved the negative space from a woodblock which was then inked and printed onto paper. The resulting work has a linear dynamism, which Amman used to suggest the chaotic energy of the vision. Particularly striking are the finely incised rays of light that emanate from the enthroned God, the outward force of which is continued beyond the clouds in tongues of flame that lick forcefully down towards the earth. The cherubim below are captured in a swirling river of fire (Ezekiel 10:6–7), their wings spread to imply their movement. The scene’s theatricality is further emphasized by the gestures of the human figures. As the group on the left look at one another in disbelief, Ezekiel, overwhelmed by the glory of God, has dropped to his knees in prayer. All of this together gives the viewer a sense of the frightening majesty of the vision, which in its first occurrence (in Ezekiel 1) even caused him to ‘fall upon his face’ (v.28). While the other two works featured in this exhibition focus on a particular part of Ezekiel’s visionary experience, this print represents most of the book of Ezekiel and thus refers to details from other passages. Earlier in the book, God commands that Ezekiel eat his scroll so that he can ‘speak to the house of Israel’ (3:1). Here, Jost Amman shows the scroll flowing from a celestial hand into Ezekiel’s partially opened mouth. In this world of airy energies, it is as if he is breathing in the words of God. References Cramer, Thomas. 2005. ‘From the World of God to the Emblem’, in Visual Culture in the German Middle Ages, ed. by Kathryn Starkey and Horst Wenzel (Springer: New York), pp. 251–71 Cite & Share Unable to open [object Object]: HTTP 0 attempting to load TileSource: https://images-live.thevcs.org/iiif/2/AW0654_Unknown_Descriptio+Rote_BNFedited.ptif/info.json UNKNOWN ARTIST, NORTHERN ITALY Descriptio Rote secunde iuxta vitulum. Et secunda pars secunde dispositionis, from Henricus de Carreto's 'De Rotis Ezechielis', c.1313–15, Manuscript illumination, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris; MS Lat. 12018, fol. 124r, Bibliothèque nationale de France: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10025464s The Entirety of Scripture Commentary by Sarah M. Griffin Bible Passage Read by Ben Quash The wheels of Ezekiel do not only represent one man’s visionary experience; they signify the entirety of Scripture (perfecta sacre scripture). So wrote Henricus de Carreto in the dedication of his manuscript, the De Rotis Ezechielis (‘On the Wheels of Ezekiel’), of which only two copies exist. This image is found in the original copy of the manuscript: a lengthy theological text illustrated with twenty-five diagrams. These show the wheels in various stages of movement and different degrees of scale, to guide the reader through their multiple layers of symbolism. This particular image is one of the first in the series and depicts Ezekiel’s visionary experience in astounding detail, bringing the strangeness of the descriptions to life before the readers’ eyes. Taking the description of the wheels as its model, each wheel has the four faces of the four creatures (Ezekiel 10:14) and all have eyes (v.12). Framing the wheels are the cherubim, who have ‘the form of a human hand under their wings’ (v.8). By following the biblical description exactly, the image maker’s intention was evidently to capture the vision as precisely as possible, with the consequence that both the schematic structures as well as the figures upon them were laden with scriptural meaning. Described as like wheels within wheels (cf. 10:10), the potential of the wheels to b...