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Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > 500 CE to 1400
Sicily is famous for the spectacular mosaics found in its
magnificent palaces, chapels and cathedrals. Commissioned during
the twelfth century by Sicily's Norman rulers and largely the work
of Greek-speaking mosaicists brought to Sicily from Constantinople,
these mosaics are among the most beautiful examples of Byzantine
art in existence. A brief historical introduction about Byzantine,
Arab and Norman domination and the spread of Byzantine art in
Sicily is followed by three chapters dedicated to the greatest
examples of Byzantine influence in Palermo, Cefalu and Monreale.
With more than 175 color photographs, this extensively illustrated
book provides a fascinating look at these mosaics. There are many
close-ups, along with breathtaking views of interior spaces. Text
in English and Italian.
Many spectacular examples of Persianate art survive to the present
day, safeguarded in Istanbul and beyond-celebrating the glory of
the Persian Empire (and, later, the Ottoman Empire). These include
illustrated books, featuring exquisitely painted miniatures
artfully embedded in the texts of literary masterpieces, as well as
tile decorations in medieval Anatolian architecture. Because of
their beauty, many Persianate books were deliberately disassembled,
their illustrations re-used in newer books or possessed as isolated
art objects. As fragments found their way to collections around the
world, the essential integration of text and image in the original
books was lost. Six art historians and a literary
historian-instrumental in reconstruction efforts-trace the long
journey from the destructive dispersal of fragments to the joys of
restoration.
This new history of over 5000 years of African art reveals its true diversity for the first time. Challenging centuries of misconceptions that have obscured the sophisticated nature of African art, Peter Garlake uses the latest research and archaeological findings to offer exciting new insights.
The Cleveland Museum of Art's medieval table fountain, c. 1320-40,
is the only version of its kind to have survived in its complete
form from the Middle Ages. A superb example of French Gothic
goldsmithing, it is an exquisite metalwork structure and a unique
example of courtly taste and princely fashion, which was designed
not for any religious purpose but purely as an indulgence. Its
uncertain provenance has added to its charm. This focus volume
reassesses this extraordinary piece in the context of other similar
luxury objects, analysing specifically the fountain's history,
functionality, materials, and style.
The sacred and the secular in medieval literature have too often
been perceived as opposites, or else relegated to separate but
unequal spheres. In Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular against
the Sacred, Barbara Newman offers a new approach to the many ways
that sacred and secular interact in medieval literature, arguing
that (in contrast to our own cultural situation) the sacred was the
normative, unmarked default category against which the secular
always had to define itself and establish its niche. Newman refers
to this dialectical relationship as "crossover"-which is not a
genre in itself, but a mode of interaction, an openness to the
meeting or even merger of sacred and secular in a wide variety of
forms. Newman sketches a few of the principles that shape their
interaction: the hermeneutics of "both/and," the principle of
double judgment, the confluence of pagan material and Christian
meaning in Arthurian romance, the rule of convergent idealism in
hagiographic romance, and the double-edged sword in parody.
Medieval Crossover explores a wealth of case studies in French,
English, and Latin texts that concentrate on instances of paradox,
collision, and convergence. Newman convincingly and with great
clarity demonstrates the widespread applicability of the crossover
concept as an analytical tool, examining some very disparate works.
These include French and English romances about Lancelot and the
Grail; the mystical writing of Marguerite Porete (placed in the
context of lay spirituality, lyric traditions, and the Romance of
the Rose); multiple examples of parody (sexually obscene,
shockingly anti-Semitic, or cleverly litigious); and Rene of
Anjou's two allegorical dream visions. Some of these texts are
scarcely known to medievalists; others are rarely studied together.
Newman's originality in her choice of these primary works will
inspire new questions and set in motion new fields of exploration
for medievalists working in a large variety of disciplines,
including literature, religious studies, history, and cultural
studies.
In Miserere Mei, Clare Costley King'oo examines the critical
importance of the Penitential Psalms in England between the end of
the fourteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century. During
this period, the Penitential Psalms inspired an enormous amount of
creative and intellectual work: in addition to being copied and
illustrated in Books of Hours and other prayer books, they were
expounded in commentaries, imitated in vernacular translations and
paraphrases, rendered into lyric poetry, and even modified for
singing. Miserere Mei explores these numerous transformations in
materiality and genre. Combining the resources of close literary
analysis with those of the history of the book, it reveals not only
that the Penitential Psalms lay at the heart of Reformation-age
debates over the nature of repentance, but also, and more
significantly, that they constituted a site of theological,
political, artistic, and poetic engagement across the many
polarities that are often said to separate late medieval from early
modern culture. Miserere Mei features twenty-five illustrations and
provides new analyses of works based on the Penitential Psalms by
several key writers of the time, including Richard Maidstone,
Thomas Brampton, John Fisher, Martin Luther, Sir Thomas Wyatt,
George Gascoigne, Sir John Harington, and Richard Verstegan. It
will be of value to anyone interested in the interpretation,
adaptation, and appropriation of biblical literature; the
development of religious plurality in the West; the emergence of
modernity; and the periodization of Western culture. Students and
scholars in the fields of literature, religion, history, art
history, and the history of material texts will find Miserere Mei
particularly instructive and compelling.
Author portraits are the most common type of figural illustration
in Greek manuscripts. The vast majority of them depict the
evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Being readily comparable
to one another, such images illustrate the stylistic development of
Byzantine painting. In addition, they often contain details which
throw light on elements of Byzantine material culture such as
writing utensils, lamps, domestic furniture, etc. This corpus
offers catalogue descriptions of all evangelist portraits that
survived from the Middle Byzantine period, i.e. from the mid-ninth
to mid-thirteenth century. Items are arranged in roughly
chronological order and are grouped according to common
compositional types: readers will thus be able to trace
iconographic similarities by going through a series of adjacent
entries and to distinguish period styles by browsing through larger
blocks of entries. The book thus provides, in effect, a selective
survey of middle-Byzantine painting. A surprisingly large number of
Byzantine evangelists portraits remain unpublished: seventy-five of
the miniatures reproduced in this volume have never appeared in
print before.
"Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy" represents a departure
from previous studies, both in its focus on demand and in its
emphasis on the history of the material culture of the West. By
demonstrating that the roots of modern consumer society can be
found in Renaissance Italy, Richard Goldthwaite offers a
significant contribution to the growing body of literature on the
history of modern consumerism--a movement which he regards as a
positive force for the formation of new attitudes about things that
is a defining characteristic of modern culture.
In this book, Irina Chernetsky examines how humanists, patrons, and
artists promoted Florence as the reincarnation of the great cities
of pagan and Christian antiquity - Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem. The
architectural image of an ideal Florence was discussed in
chronicles and histories, poetry and prose, and treatises on art
and religious sermons. It was also portrayed in paintings,
sculpture, and sketches, as well as encoded in buildings erected
during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Over time, the
concept of an ideal Florence became inseparable from the real city,
in both its social and architectural structures. Chernetsky
demonstrates how the Renaissance notion of genealogy was applied to
Florence, which was considered to be part of a family of
illustrious cities of both the past and present. She also explores
the concept of the ideal city in its intellectual, political, and
aesthetic contexts, while offering new insights into the experience
of urban space.
The Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst is
housed in the Bode-Museum, part of the ensemble of prestigious
museums on the Museuminsel Berlin. Skulpturensammlung is one of the
largest collections of ancient sculpture in the world (early Middle
Ages to the late eighteenth century), with works from the
German-speaking countries, France, the Low Countries, Italy and
Spain. The collection includes works by legendary sculptors such as
Donatello, Tilman Riemenschneider, Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini and
Andreas Schlüter. The Museum für Byzantinische Kunst is a
collection of Late Antique sarcophagi and sculpture from the
Eastern Roman Empire, and ivory carvings from post-pharaonic, early
Byzantine Egypt. The works presented in this volume are amongst the
most prized by the museum's director, who combines expertise with a
refreshingly personal perspective to invite the reader to
experience them through new eyes.
Essays centred round the representation of weaving, both real and
imagined, in the early middle ages. The triple themes of textile,
text, and intertext, three powerful and evocative subjects within
both Anglo-Saxon studies and Old English literature itself, run
through the essays collected here. Chapters evoke the semantic
complexities of textile references and images drawn from the Bayeux
Tapestry, examine parallels in word-woven poetics, riddling texts,
and interwoven homiletic and historical prose, and identify
iconographical textures in medieval art. The volume thus considers
the images and creative strategies of textiles, texts, and
intertexts, generating a complex and fascinating view of the
material culture and metaphorical landscape of the Anglo-Saxon
peoples. It is therefore a particularly fitting tribute to
Professor Gale R. Owen-Crocker, whose career and lengthy list of
scholarly works have centred on her interests in the meaning and
cultural importance of textiles, manuscripts and text, and
intertextual relationships between text and textile. MAREN CLEGG
HYER is Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator in the
Department of English at Valdosta State University; JILL FREDERICK
is Professor of English at Minnesota State University Moorhead.
Contributors: Marilina Cesario, Elizabeth Coatsworth, Martin Foys,
Jill Frederick, Joyce Hill, Maren Clegg Hyer, Catherine E. Karkov,
Christina Lee, Michael Lewis, Robin Netherton, Carol Neuman de
Vegvar, Donald Scragg, Louise Sylvester, Paul Szarmach, Elaine
Treharne.
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