From medieval board games to jousting, this show at the Getty Center in Los Angeles (16 May–6 August) explores leisure and entertainment in the Middle Ages. The exhibition brings together illuminated manuscripts from the museum’s collections that reveal how play was woven into everyday life at all levels of society. The spiritual and the secular come together on a page from a French manuscript of c. 1300, titled the Ruskin Hours, which depicts the Virgin Mary and her cousin Elizabeth in a tender embrace while below them, amid the border decorations, two men appear engaged in a some kind of wrestling game with monkeys on their shoulders. Elsewhere, a German Tournament Book (c. 1560–70) is filled with elaborate illustrations of jousting and horse-riding figures, painted in vivid shades of silver and gold. Find out more on the Getty Center’s website.
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Page from a psalter depicting the month of May (c. 1200s), unknown Flemish artist. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Page from the Ruskin Hours (detail; c. 1300), unknown French artist. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles