The Golden Gospel

The Codex Aureus (or Golden Gospel) was luxurious manuscript type developed and utilized for the sharing of God’s word to Royalty. Christ in Majesty reflects a page in text produced for Charles the Bald (843-877). It was notable for adapting the forms and stories of antiquity to a highly decorative, symbolic, pictorial language. The contemporary piece utilizes those same ancient images and themes in a contemporary abstract expressionist motif symbolizing the universality of Christ as the majestic king of all ages.

Codex Aureus is Latin for Golden Book. Several Gospel Books from the 9th through 11th centuries were so heavily illuminated with gold leaf that they were referred to as the Codex Aureus.