CALENDAR ART

Since his first experience with time, man has devoted some of his most strenuous efforts to measuring and recording its progress. As early as the 6th century B.C. the Babylonians calculated the duration of a lunar month with a margin of error of only 2.2 sec. With the pyramids the Egyptians created gigantic scientific instruments for measuring the solar year, building their sides trued to the four cardinal directions. Using the Egyptian year, Julius Caesar in 45 B.C. made the Julian calendar standard throughout the Roman world. To these scientific measurements, later calendar makers added an overburden of myth, magic and homely folklore with advice so complete that even the best day for cutting nails and hair was indicated.

One high point in the art of calendar-making, if not in science, is the Zodiac Man (opposite) drawn for Jean de France, Due de Berry, between 1413-16 by the famed manuscript illuminators, the Limbourg brothers. Now one of the treasures of France's Conde Museum and a magnificent compendium of astrological lore, it was meant for the use of physicians, giving the proper time for bloodletting, purgatives, medication and even bathing. Showing a universe divided into quadrants composed of the qualities (moist, dry, cold and warm), and put in harmony with man's organs and appendages (Leo governs the heart; Pisces governs his feet) as well as his temperament (choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic or melancholic), the chart carries the zodiac year on the outer ring, the calendar on the inner ring, to be lined up with the center as a sort of ovaloid slide rule. Behind the Zodiac Man stands a near mirror image of a "Vein Man," another medical illustration, which usually indicates by dots the places appropriate for bleeding.

A century later is the 16th century calendar from a Book of Hours made in Bruges, and included this week by Manhattan's Morgan Library in its display of choice manuscripts. Made to be used year after year, the Bruges calendar has the days of the week numbered alphabetically, with set Feast Days, such as the Annunciation to Mary in March, indicated at right. The "Golden Numbers" at left form a table of the lunar cycles from which Easter and the movable Feast Days can be determined for any given year. Below are delightful vignettes of contemporary 16th century life, showing cardplaying in winter, early planting in March, harvest in July and cattle-slaughtering in October. Although a minor art, such miniature scenes are precious records of everyday secular life over the changing seasons. As such, it pushed forth a hardy sprout in succeeding centuries, blossoming into the full-scale landscapes and genre scenes that along with classical allegory and religious painting became the central concern of later artists.

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