ITEMS OF INTEREST August 10, 2009 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

with contributions from David Van Biema

KING DAVID IS MUM and pointing at his tongue. He has promised to speak no evil word, writing, "I will bridle my mouth, so long as the wicked are in my presence." And "the wicked" are in very corporeal attendance. While an angel hovers near the king's head with a concerned look, a furry devil is clutching urgently at his leg.

That tableau, a 13th-century French artist's fanciful interpretation of Psalm 39, is just one of the arresting images in a small but striking show called "Temptation and Salvation: The Psalms of King David" [on display till August 16] at Los Angeles' Getty Center.

Through just 21 objects, the exhibit presents a marvelous 400-year "snapshot" of medieval Christianity as it wrestled the ancient Jewish songs—and the soap-opera saga of King David that had become attached to them—into an acceptable Christian understanding.

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