This book explores the range of images in Byzantine art known as donor portraits. It concentrates on the distinctive, supplicatory contact shown between ordinary, mortal figures and their holy, supernatural interlocutors. The topic is approached from a range of perspectives, including art history, theology, structuralist and post-structuralist anthropological theory, and contemporary symbol and metaphor theory. Rico Franses argues that the term 'donor portraits' is inappropriate for the category of images to which it conventionally refers and proposes an alternative title for the category, contact portraits. He contends that the most important feature of the scenes consists in the active role that they play within the belief systems of the supplicants. They are best conceived of not simply as passive expressions of stable, pre-existing ideas and concepts, but as dynamic proponents in a fraught, constantly shifting landscape. The book is important for all scholars and students of Byzantine art and religion.

Two volume set The Second Council of Nicaea (787) decreed that religious images were to set up in churches and venerated. It thereby established the cult of icons as a central element in the piety of the Orthodox churches, as it has remained ever since. In the West its decrees received a new emphasis in the Counter-Reformation, in the defence of the role of art in religion. It is a text of prime importance for the iconoclast controversy of eighth-century Byzantium, one of the most explored and contested topics in Byzantine history. But it has also a more general significance - in the history of culture and the history of art. This edition offers the first translation that is based on the new critical edition of this text in the Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum series, and the first full commentary of this work that has ever been written. It will be of interest to a wide range of readers from a variety of disciplines.

Embroidered in 1885-1886, Reading's version of the famous Bayeux Tapestry is a faithful, full-length replica of the original except in a few beguiling details. True to the principles of the Arts and Crafts movement, its Victorian makers in the Leek Embroidery Society, matched their materials, colours and techniques to those of the eleventh century nuns thought to have created the original. The result is an extraordinarily vibrant reproduction, important in its own right and on permanent display in a purpose-built gallery in Reading Museum. Scene-by-scene, read through the story of the succession to the English throne by first Harold and then William the Conqueror. Find out why the Duke of Normandy had a claim to be King of England and what the original purpose of the tapestry may have been. Discover how Victorian society's values affected the replica and how it came to reside in Reading, so fittingly close to the ruins of the Abbey built by William's youngest son, Henry I.

Im wechselseitigen Gefuge von Original und Kopie setzt das vorliegende Buch den Schwerpunkt auf die Kopie: Von der mittelalterlichen Abschrift bis zur autorisierten Kultbildkopie, von der Kopienpraxis der furstlichen Sammlungen bis zur Reproduktionsfotografie wird die vielfaltig artikulierte Gerichtetheit von Kopien auf ihr Vorbild in den Fokus genommen und auf ihre spezifischen asthetischen wie medialen Eigenschaften hin befragt. Jenseits gangiger Innovationsimperative untersuchen die Beitrage die kunstlerische Wiederholung auf die ihr eigenen Qualitaten hin und lenken den Blick auf ihre spezifischen Formen, Absichten und Kontexte. Dabei erweist sich die Treue der Kopie als produktive Kategorie - auch wenn oder gerade weil die treue Kopie im Kern "nichts Neues schaffen" will.

This book examines the multi-media art patronage of three generations of the Tornabuoni family, who commissioned works from innovative artists, such as Sandro Botticelli and Rosso Fiorentino. Best known for commissioning the fresco cycle in Santa Maria Novella by Domenico Ghirlandaio, a key monument of the Florentine Renaissance, the Tornabuoni ordered a number of still-surviving art works, inspired by their commitment to family, knowledge of ancient literature, music, love, loss, and religious devotion. This extensive body of work makes the Tornabuoni a critically important family of early modern art patrons. However, they are further distinguished by the numerous objects they commissioned to honor female relations who served in different family roles, thus deepening understanding of Florentine Renaissance gender relations. Maria DePrano presents a comprehensive picture of how one Florentine family commissioned art to gain recognition in their society, revere God, honor family members, especially women, and memorialize deceased loved ones.

The cult of the Christ Child flourished in late medieval Europe across lay and religious, as well as geographic and cultural boundaries. Depictions of Christ's boyhood are found throughout popular culture, visual art, and literature. The Christ Child in Medieval Culture is the first interdisciplinary investigation of how representations of the Christ Child were conceptualized and employed in this period. The contributors to this unique volume analyse depictions of the Christ Child through a variety of frameworks, including the interplay of mortality and divinity, the medieval conceit of a suffering Christ Child, and the interrelationships between Christ and other figures, including saints and ordinary children. The Christ Child in Medieval Culture synthesizes various approaches to interpreting the cultural meaning of medieval religious imagery and illuminates the significance of its most central figure.

Bildliche Darstellungen des Propheten Mohammed gab es in Europa schon lange vor dem sogenannten "Karikaturenstreit". Bereits im fruhen Buchdruck erscheint Mohammed als Personifikation der abendlandischen Vorstellungen vom Islam und zugleich als eine faszinierende, schillernde Figur von gesellschaftlicher Relevanz. Anhand von Druckgraphiken in Koranubersetzungen und Biographien des Propheten aus funf Jahrhunderten beschreibt die Studie die Konstanten und Wandlungen der Mohammedbilder in ihrem jeweiligen historischen Kontext. Damit leistet das Buch einen bildwissenschaftlichen Beitrag zur Eroerterung von Alteritatskonstruktionen, zur Frage von Religionsdarstellungen in der bildenden Kunst und zur Geschichte des Islambildes in Westeuropa.