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Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > 500 CE to 1400 > General
The early Christian and medieval mosaics in Italy are among the
most artistic creations of their time. Richly endowed with
magnificent color plates, this opulent volume draws on 19
outstanding mosaic decorations to present a comprehensive panorama
of this spectacular form of art. Early Christian apse mosaics and
mosaic cycles provided for monumental beginnings to Christian
pictorial art. Although supplemented by new images since the 12th
Century, the early Christian themes were held in high regard up
through the Middle Ages. During the Middle Ages, the mosaic's
stylistic devices already showed a transcendental-Christian
compliant world view. The author's knowledge becomes apparent in
his descriptions of the development of mosaic art in Italy, whose
centers during the early years were found in Rome and Ravenna.
Since the 6th century, the presentations see an increasingly
byzantine influence. After a prolonged interruption there came a
brief revival in Rome around the year 800, but mosaic art only
reached full fruition during the 12th and 13th centuries when, in
addition to Rome, mosaic cycles became evident in Venice, Sicily,
and Florence. These drew heavily from byzantine inspiration. German
text.
The Byzantine era was a time of the formation of the Abrahamic
religions and a battleground for people's hearts and minds. This
book shows that, during the time of the Byzantine Empire, the
synagogues in Palaestina developed a visual language adhering to
traditional literary sources. Until now, scholars believed that
Judaism was oblivious to all art forms, regarding them as mere
"decoration." This book shows that, contrary to those beliefs,
Jewish art was, in fact, flourishing in this period. The visual
language that emerged is a trope that utilizes literal and
figurative readings to arrive at an inquisitive mixture-a probing
language that facilitates learning. It is a visual language of
"becoming," of inward introspection and outward scrutiny. This new
analysis goes beyond the limits of compositional rules, and
requires an analytical, as well as emotive, thought process, to
form a cultural interpretation that reveals the hidden language.
This means that some parts of Judaism and some parts of
Christianity were in agreement despite the commandment of "Thou
shalt not make unto thee any graven image," and operated under the
assumption that paintings were not necessarily the creation of
idols. Thus, we see that the modern movements of art and
architecture were not the first to deal with images through themes
such as abstraction and denotation. The language developed during
the Byzantine period could rival the best of such visual languages.
Considers the definitions and implications of style in Anglo-Saxon
art and literature. Art historian Meyer Schapiro defined style as
"the constant form--and sometimes the constant elements, qualities,
and expression--in the art of an individual or group. "Today, style
is frequently overlooked as a critical tool, with our interest
instead resting with the personal, the ephemeral, and the
fragmentary. Anglo-Saxon Styles demonstrates just how vital style
remains in a methodological and theoretical prism, regardless of
the object, individual, fragment, or process studied. Contributors
from a variety of disciplines--including literature, art history,
manuscript studies, philology, and more--consider the definitions
and implications of style in Anglo-Saxon culture and in
contemporary scholarship. They demonstrate that the idea of style
as a "constant form" has its limitations, and that style is in fact
the ordering of form, both verbal and visual. Anglo-Saxon texts and
images carry meanings and express agendas, presenting us with
paradoxes and riddles that require us to keep questioning the
meanings of style.
This groundbreaking collection of essays by a host of international
authorities addresses the many aspects of the Danse Macabre, a
subject that has been too often overlooked in Anglo-American
scholarship. The Danse was once a major motif that occurred in many
different media and spread across Europe in the course of the
fifteenth century, from France to England, Germany, Scandinavia,
Poland, Spain, Italy and Istria. Yet the Danse is hard to define
because it mixes metaphors, such as dance, dialogue and violence.
The Danse Macabre aimed to confront viewers and readers with the
prospect of their own demise by showing how Death summons each and
every one of us-whether high or low, young or old, rich or poor. It
functioned both as a text and as a visual theme, and often in
combination, while also lending itself well to performance. Now
best known through the satirical woodcuts of Hans Holbein the
Younger, the motif was one of several 'macabre' themes that
developed alongside the moralising tale of the Three Living and the
Three Dead and the stark depiction of the cadaver on tomb
monuments. The Danse Macabre was influenced by earlier themes, but
thanks to its versatility its own impact went much further. As this
corpus of innovative research will show, the Danse inspired
sculptors, portrait artists, authors and dramatists such as
Shakespeare far more than has been recognised until now. From the
mural in 1420s Paris and John Lydgate's poem to the subsequent
dissemination in print, Mixed Metaphors will reveal the lasting
influence of the Danse on European culture from the Middle Ages to
the present day.
This title was first published in 2000: Introduced by Joanna
Cannon, this volume of essays by postgraduate students at the
Courtauld Institute, University of London, explores some of the
ways in which art was used to express, to celebrate, and to promote
the political and religious aims and aspirations of those in power
in the city states of central Italy in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. The contributions focus on four centres:
Siena, Arezzo, Pisa and Orvieto, and range over a number of media:
fresco, panel painting, sculpture, metalwork, and translucent
enamel. Employing a variety of methods and approaches, these
stimulating essays offer a fresh look at some of the key artistic
projects of the period. The dates cited in the title, 1261 and
1352, refer to two well-known works, Coppo di Marcovaldo's Madonna
del Bordone and the Guidoriccio Fresco in the Palazzo Pubblico of
Siena, here newly assigned to this date. By concentrating on
individual cases such as these, the essays provide rewardingly
sustained consideration, at the same time raising crucial issues
concerning the role of art in the public life of the period. These
generously-illustrated studies introduce new material and advance
new arguments, and are all based on original research. Clear and
lively presentation ensures that they are also accessible to
students and scholars from other disciplines. Art, Politics and
Civic Religion in Central Italy, 1261-1352 is the first volume in
the new series Courtauld Institute Research Papers. The series
makes available original recently researched material on western
art history from classical antiquity to the present day.
Medieval churchmen typically defended religious art as a form of "book" to teach the unlettered laity their faith, but in late medieval England, Lollard accusations of idolatry stimulated renewed debate over image worship. Popular Piety and Art in the Late Middle Ages places this dispute within the context of the religious beliefs and devotional practices of lay people, showing how they used and responded to holy images in their parish churches, at shrines, and in prayer books. Far more than substitutes for texts, holy images presented a junction of the material and spiritual, offering an increasingly literate laity access to the supernatural through the visual power of "beholding."
Baptismal fonts were necessary to the liturgical life of the
medieval Christian. Baptism marked the entrance of the faithful
into the right relation, with the Catholic Church representing the
main cultural institution of medieval society. In the period
between ca. 1050 and ca. 1220, the decoration of the font often had
an important function: to underscore the theology of baptism in the
context of the sacraments of the Catholic Church. This period
witnessed a surge of concern about sacraments. Just as religious
thinkers attempted to delineate the sacraments and define their
function in sermons and Sentence collections, sculptural programs
visualized the teaching of orthodox ideas for the lay audience.
This book looks at three areas of primary concern around baptism as
a sacrament - incarnation, initiation, and the practice of baptism
within the institution of the Church - and the images that embody
that religious discussion. Baptismal fonts have been recognized as
part of the stylistic production of the Romanesque period, and
their iconography has been generally explored as moral and
didactic. Here, the message of these fonts is set within a very
specific history of medieval Catholic sacramental theology,
connecting erudite thinkers and lay users through their decoration
and use.
This is a catalogue of the pre-Gothic Revival stained glass found
at 50 sites in Cheshire. Many of these are churches, but there are
also domestic residences and other buildings. Highlights include an
important 14th-century regional workshop, probably based in
Chester, whose output survives at 9 sites in the county;
16th-century armorials and donors; a fascinating window of 1581 at
High Legh which demonstrates the Elizabethan religious settlement;
a unique window commemorating the English Civil War; and a plethora
of 17th-century quarries depicting a wide range of subjects such as
English monarchs, classical sibyls, military drill and menial
occupations. The county's outstanding collections of foreign panels
are also catalogued.
The stained glass of the neighbouring county of Lancashire appears
in CVMA, Great Britain, Summary Catalogue 8, The Medieval Stained
Glass of Lancashire. The introduction discusses many aspects of the
stained glass of both counties: documentary sources, donors and
heraldry, condition, iconography, as well as examining the style
and techniques used by the glass-painters. This catalogue will be
essential for scholars and students of the history of medieval and
early modern art, and for all those interested in the social and
religious history of Tudor and Stuart Cheshire.
This series of papers shows that a group of monuments erected by
the French Cistercian monks, and here for the first time fully
described and illustrated, were the earliest Italian buildings
using transitional-Gothic architecture.
Arthur Kingsley Porter here traces the roots of Renaissance
sculpture to the smaller decorative sculptures found on the outside
of churches and other buildings beginning around the turn of the
first millennium A.D.
Carved and decorated stone-work is a rare survival from the period
before the Norman Conquest. In Nottinghamshire it survives as large
crosses and as small fragments - to be found in churches, in public
spaces and in museum collections. This is the first book to provide
an authoritative listing, description and illustration of all
examples of this type of decorated stone sculpture in
Nottinghamshire. Each example is illustrated in a substantial
catalogue containing high quality photographs, maps and
interpretative drawings. In the introductory chapters the authors
explore the geological and historical background of the sculptures
and provide an overview of the types of style and ornament. The new
information revealed by the systematic study of these major
survivals of Anglo-Saxon art and archaeology demonstrates the major
contribution that this category of material can make to an obscure
and under-investigated period in Midlands history. Nottinghamshire
emerges with a distinctive identity in the pre-conquest period,
having strong connections both with the Mercian state to its south
and with the Northumbrians to the north.
In the first English attempt to address the Syriac homilies of
Aphraates, Gavin sets a context for the material by considering the
church and the sermons themselves. The topic of how the Jews are
treated in the homilies is given special attention.
This volume features many carved wooden sculptures of saints from
14th- to 20th-century Russia, which until now have been largely
unknown to the western public. Officially banned by a proclamation
of Peter I, they have nevertheless always been an important part of
Russian religious devotion. The sculptures are grouped
stylistically into two major groups: early ones are characterized
by iconically transcendent austerity, while later ones refl ect
western infl uences in anatomical features and gestures. German
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