Described by David Lodge as "the most gifted and innovative writer of her generation," Muriel Spark had a literary career that spanned from the late 1940s until her death in 2006, and included poems, stories, plays, essays, and, most notably, novels. The extensive bibliography of her works included in this collection reveals the astonishing output of a powerful and sustained creative spirit. Hidden Possibilities gathers a distinguished group of writers from both sides of the Atlantic to offer an informed overview of Muriel Spark's life and work. Critics have often read Spark in a somewhat narrow context-as a Catholic, a woman, or a Scottish writer. The essays in this volume, while making connections between these contexts, cumulatively situate her in a broader European tradition. The volume includes interviews with Spark that cast light both on the course of her professional life and on her notably distinctive personality. Contributors: Regina Barreca, Gerard Carruthers, Barbara Epler, John Glavin, Dan Gunn, Robert E. Hosmer Jr., Joseph Hynes, Gabriel Josipovici, Frank Kermode, John Lanchester, Doris Lessing, David Malcolm, John Mortimer, Alan Taylor, and John Updike.

This probing analysis of three works by Giotto and the patrons who commissioned them goes far beyond the cliches of Giotto as the founding figure of Western painting. It traces the interactions between Franciscan friars and powerful bankers, illuminating the complex interplay between mercantile wealth and the iconography of poverty.

Political strife and religious faction lacerated fourteenth-century Italy. Giotto s commissions are best understood against the background of this social turmoil. They reflected the demands of his patrons, the requirements of the Franciscan Order, and the restlessly inventive genius of the painter. Julian Gardner examines this important period of Giotto s path-breaking career through works originally created for Franciscan churches: "Stigmatization of Saint Francis" from San Francesco at Pisa, now in the Louvre, the Bardi Chapel cycle of the "Life of St. Francis" in Santa Croce at Florence, and the frescoes of the crossing vault above the tomb of Saint Francis in the Lower Church of San Francesco at Assisi.

These murals were executed during a twenty-year period when internal tensions divided the friars themselves and when the Order was confronted by a radical change of papal policy toward its defining vow of poverty. The Order had amassed great wealth and built ostentatious churches, alienating many Franciscans in the process and incurring the hostility of other Orders. Many elements in Giotto s frescoes, including references to St. Peter, Florentine politics, and church architecture, were included to satisfy patrons, redefine the figure of Francis, and celebrate the dominant group within the Franciscan brotherhood.

An examination of the passion and crucifixion of Christ as depicted in the visual and religious culture of Anglo-Norman England. The twelfth century has long been recognised as a period of unusual vibrancy and importance, witnessing seminal changes in the inter-related spheres of theology, devotional practice, and iconography, especially with regard to thecross and the crucifixion of Christ. However, the visual arts of the period have been somewhat neglected, scholarly activity tending to concentrate on its textual and intellectual heritage. This book explores this extraordinarily rich and vibrant visual and religious culture, offering new and exciting insights into its significance, and studying the dynamic relationships between ideas and images in England between 1066 and the first decades of the thirteenth century. In addition to providing the first extensive survey of surviving Passion imagery from the period, it explores those images' contexts: intellectual, cultural, religious, and art-historical. It thus not only enhances our understanding of the place of the cross in Anglo-Norman culture; it also demonstrates how new image theories and patterns of agency shaped the life of the later medieval church. John Munns is a Fellow of MagdaleneCollege, Cambridge.

The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art surveys a broad spectrum of Christian art produced from the late second to the sixth centuries. The first part of the book opens with a general survey of the subject and then presents fifteen essays that discuss specific media of visual art-catacomb paintings, sculpture, mosaics, gold glass, gems, reliquaries, ceramics, icons, ivories, textiles, silver, and illuminated manuscripts. Each is written by a noted expert in the field. The second part of the book takes up themes relevant to the study of early Christian art. These seven chapters consider the ritual practices in decorated spaces, the emergence of images of Christ's Passion and miracles, the functions of Christian secular portraits, the exemplary mosaics of Ravenna, the early modern history of Christian art and archaeology studies, and further reflection on this field called "early Christian art." Each of the volume's chapters includes photographs of many of the objects discussed, plus bibliographic notes and recommendations for further reading. The result is an invaluable introduction to and appraisal of the art that developed out of the spread of Christianity through the late antique world. Undergraduate and graduate students of late classical, early Christian, and Byzantine culture, religion, or art will find it an accessible and insightful orientation to the field. Additionally, professional academics, archivists, and curators working in these areas will also find it valuable as a resource for their own research, as well as a textbook or reference work for their students.

Focusing on artists and architectural complexes which until now have eluded scholarly attention in English-language publications, Apostolic Iconography and Florentine Confraternities in the Age of Reform examines through their art programs three different confraternal organizations in Florence at a crucial moment in their histories. Each of the organizations that forms the basis for this study oversaw renovations that included decorative programs centered on the apostles. At the complex of GesA(1) Pellegrino a fresco cycle represents the apostles in their roles as Christ's disciples and proselytizers. At the oratory of the company of Santissima Annunziata a series of frescoes shows their martyrdoms, the terrible price the apostles paid for their mission and their faith. At the oratory of San Giovanni Battista detta dello Scalzo a sculptural program of the apostles stood as an example to each confratello of how Christian piety had its roots in collective effort. Douglas Dow shows that the emphasis on the apostles within these corporate groups demonstrates how the organizations adapted existing iconography to their own purposes. He argues that their willful engagement with apostolic themes reveals the complex interaction between these organizations and the church's program of reform.

Building upon recent scholarly interest in mystics and mysticism in late medieval Europe, this book explores the visual representation of female and male saints depicted as brides or bridegrooms of Christ in northern European art from 1300 to 1550. The mystic marriage imagery of St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. Agnes of Rome, St. John the Evangelist, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and the Blessed Henry Suso is studied through an analysis of a wide range of paintings, illuminated manuscripts, prints, and sculpture. From these case studies, Muir argues that different visual conventions were used in the art of this period to portray the male and female experiences of mystic marriage and suggests possible reasons for these differences. She further considers why comparatively few mystics were visually portrayed in a mystic marriage with Christ, despite the large number recorded as having had that experience. Providing insights into the meanings of the mystical experience when portrayed in visual terms, this book will appeal to art historians as well as to other medievalists with an interest in the intersections of art, religion, and gender.

Both collectively and individually we have a deep and abiding fascination with angels. This book explores depictions of angels in the visual arts and in scripture and associated apocryphal and mystical writings, specifically in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles and Islamic, Zoroastrian and other ancient and latter-day accounts. It examines the visual clues, artistic conventions and attributes that have been set down to help us to recognise angels in their particular roles and functions. Certain writings have had a particularly influential bearing on our understanding of angels. This text focuses on the hierarchies and orders proposed by the likes of Pseudo-Dionysius, St. Thomas Aquinas and others. In a new age of fascination with the metaphysical and supernatural (in film, television, popular mythology and literature), are we cementing or losing our connection with the authentic meaning and purpose that such vibrant and energised beings bring to our table? This book contains more than 30 illustrations in a central colour plates section. It also includes a useful glossary of terms and will prove a rich and enduring reference resource for libraries, as well as a stimulating go-to source for those interested in the world of angels and how human sensibilities and imaginative reasoning have enriched the subject, as a starting point for interreligious dialogue.

Now with a new foreword by Charles Colson.
Antiquated. Unimaginative. Repressive. We've all heard these common reactions to orthodox Christian beliefs. Even Christians themselves are guilty of the tendency to discard historic Christianity. As Charles Colson writes in the foreword, "Evangelicals, despite their professed belief in the Bible, have not been exempt from the influence of the postmodern spirit."
This spirit is averse to Truth and the obedience that follows. And people today, as in Chesterton's day, continue to look anywhere but heavenward for something to believe in.

Bringing to light little-known artistic traditions, the latest volume of Ars Judaica focuses on the local and temporal contexts of objects and their images and explores collective and personal memories and identities in art. Rivka Ben-Sasson examines modes of symbolic perception of nature prevalent in religious thought and art by analysing images of the lulav and etrog. Iwona Brzewska and Waldemar Deluga discuss the significance of Hebrew script in paintings and prints of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries originating from the borderland between the Catholic and Christian Orthodox domains of eastern Europe. Michelle Klein studies the typological development of the havdalah candle-holder, based on an analysis of 170 examples. Matthew Baigell suggests that American Jewish artists are characterized by concern for the betterment of humankind; his sources include Jewish postcards, photographs, and caricatures as well as the work of contemporary American Jewish artists. Astrid Schmetterling discusses how Else Lasker-Schuler's Orientalism offered a serious aesthetic-political challenge to both German and Jewish society. Mor Presiado argues that the contemporary use of sewing and embroidery by contemporary Jewish women artists to depict women's experience of the Holocaust initiates a new, feminist response to the Holocaust. The Special Item in this volume, an article by Shalom Sabar on the earliest illustrated Esther Scroll by Shalom Italia, is an illuminating insight into early modern Jewish art in the making. Also included are exhibition and book reviews. Ars Judaica is an annual publication of the Department of Jewish Art at Bar-Ilan University. It showcases the Jewish contribution to the visual arts and architecture from antiquity to the present from a variety of perspectives, including history, iconography, semiotics, psychology, sociology, and folklore. As such it is a valuable resource for art historians, collectors, curators, and all those interested in the visual arts. Volumes of Ars Judaica are distributed by the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization throughout the world, except Israel. Orders and enquiries from Israeli customers should be directed to: Ars Judaica, Department of Jewish Art, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Telephone 03 5318413; Fax 036359241; Email [email protected]

In Renaissance Florence, certain paintings and sculptures of the Virgin Mary and Christ were believed to have extraordinary efficacy in activating potent sacred intercession. Cults sprung up around these "miraculous images" in the city and surrounding countryside beginning in the late 13th century. In The Miraculous Image in Renaissance Florence, Megan Holmes questions what distinguished these paintings and sculptures from other similar sacred images, looking closely at their material and formal properties, the process of enshrinement, and the foundation legends and miracles associated with specific images. Whereas some of the images presented in this fascinating book are well known, such as Bernardo Daddi's Madonna of Orsanmichele, many others have been little studied until now. Holmes's efforts center on the recovery and contextualization of these revered images, reintegrating them and their related cults into an art-historical account of the period. By challenging prevailing views and offering a reassessment of the Renaissance, this generously illustrated and comprehensive survey makes a significant contribution to the field.

Carol Berry and her husband met and befriended Henri Nouwen when she sat in his course on compassion at Yale Divinity School in the 1970s. At the request of Henri Nouwen's literary estate, she has written this book, which includes unpublished material recorded from Nouwen's lectures. As an art educator, Berry is uniquely situated to develop Nouwen's work on Vincent van Gogh and to add her own research. She fills in background on the much misunderstood spiritual context of van Gogh's work, and reinterprets van Gogh's art (presented here in full color) in light of Nouwen's lectures. Berry also brings in her own experience in ministry, sharing how Nouwen and van Gogh, each in his own way, led her to the richness and beauty of the compassionate life.

This collection of artwork from European comics master Sergio Toppi focuses on illustrations of biblical characters he drew during his lengthy collaboration with the journal Il Giornalino. Hundreds of character portraits and key scene illustrations from both the Old and New Testament are presented in Toppi's inimitable pen-and-ink style. Master artist Sergio Toppi depicts iconic scenes from the most widely read scripture in the world. Sergio Toppi's work has been hailed as an influence by such artistic masters as Sean Gordon Murphy and Walter Simonson. See his amazing vision for The Bible across many beautiful illustrations of biblical characters drawn during Toppi's lengthy collaboration with the journal Il Giornalino. Hundreds of character portraits and key scene illustrations from both the Old and New Testament are presented in Toppi's inimitable pen-and-ink style. From the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis through the many moving character tales throughout the Old Testament to the gospels and tales of the apostles in the New Testament, this stunningly illustrated volume will give new life and visual reference for some of the most familiar passages in the Bible.

The first book to put the sacred and sensuous bronze statues from India's Chola dynasty in social context From the ninth through the thirteenth century, the Chola dynasty of southern India produced thousands of statues of Hindu deities, whose physical perfection was meant to reflect spiritual beauty and divine transcendence. During festivals, these bronze sculptures-including Shiva, referred to in a saintly vision as "the thief who stole my heart"-were adorned with jewels and flowers and paraded through towns as active participants in Chola worship. In this richly illustrated book, leading art historian Vidya Dehejia introduces the bronzes within the full context of Chola history, culture, and religion. In doing so, she brings the bronzes and Chola society to life before our very eyes. Dehejia presents the bronzes as material objects that interacted in meaningful ways with the people and practices of their era. Describing the role of the statues in everyday activities, she reveals not only the importance of the bronzes for the empire, but also little-known facets of Chola life. She considers the source of the copper and jewels used for the deities, proposing that the need for such resources may have influenced the Chola empire's political engagement with Sri Lanka. She also investigates the role of women patrons in bronze commissions and discusses the vast public records, many appearing here in translation for the first time, inscribed on temple walls. From the Cholas' religious customs to their agriculture, politics, and even food, The Thief Who Stole My Heart offers an expansive and complete immersion in a community still accessible to us through its exquisite sacred art. Published in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC