Fourteenth-century Europe was ravaged by famine, war, and, most devastatingly, the Black Plague. These widespread crises inspired a mystical religiosity, which emphasized both ecstatic joy and extreme suffering, producing emotionally charged and often graphic depictions of the Crucifixion and the martyrdoms of the saints.
While the great boom of cathedral building that had marked the previous century waned, cathedrals continued to serve as the centers of religious life and artistic creation. Wealthy patrons sponsored the production of elaborate altarpieces, as well as smaller panel paintings and religious statues for private devotional use. A growing literate elite created a demand for both richly decorated prayer books and volumes on secular topics. In Italy, the foremost Sienese painter, Duccio, sought to synthesize northern, Gothic influences with eastern, Byzantine ones, while the groundbreaking Florentine Giotto moved toward the depiction of three-dimensional figures in his wall paintings.
This third volume in the Art through the Centuries series highlights the most noteworthy concepts, geographic centers, and artists of this turbulent century. Important facts about the subjects under discussion are summarized in the margins of each entry, and salient features of the illustrated artworks are identified and discussed.

Striking hand-painted illustrations and enlightening commentary bring this bestselling classic to life. Penned from Bunyan's jail cell, The Pilgrim's Progress evocatively depicts a story of struggle, faith, and perseverance. This new illustrated edition of the classic allegory uniquely features annotations throughout the text, offering clarity and a nuanced interpretation of this beloved masterpiece.

Visually engaging and intellectually stimulating, this illustrated edition of this Christian classic is the perfect gift for the curious reader. Originally published in 1678 England, The Pilgrim's Progress has never been out of print, inspiring millions of people to persevere in their Christian walk and hold fast to truth. Beautiful illustrations mark the start of every chapter, and reader-friendly commentary illuminates the richness of the allegory and biblical allusions like never before. The Pilgrim's Progress is a staple for any home library, and these fresh, innovative elements breathe new life into this classic text.

A repackaged edition of the revered author’s collection of personal letters—a curated selection of the best of his correspondence with family, friends, and fans—and a short biography by his brother Warren Lewis.

Letters of C. S. Lewis reveals the most intimate beliefs of the great British writer, scholar, lay theologian, broadcaster, Christian apologist, and bestselling author of Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Chronicles of Narnia, and many other beloved classics. Written to friends, family, and fans at various stages in his life, from his youth to the weeks before his death, these letters illuminate Lewis’s thoughts on God, humanity, nature, and creativity.

In this captivating collection, devotees will discover details about Lewis’s conversion from atheism to Christianity as well as his philosophical thoughts on spirituality and personal faith.

In 726 the Byzantine emperor, Leo III, issued an edict that all religious images in the empire were to be destroyed, a directive that was later endorsed by a synod of the Church in 753 under his son, Constantine V. If the policy of Iconoclasm had succeeded, the entire history of Christian art--and of the Christian church, at least in the East--would have been altered.

Iconoclasm was defeated--by Byzantine politics, by popular revolts, by monastic piety, and, most fundamentally of all, by theology, just as it had been theology that the opponents of images had used to justify their actions. Analyzing an intriguing chapter in the history of ideas, the renowned scholar Jaroslav Pelikan shows how a faith that began by attacking the worship of images ended first in permitting and then in commanding it.

Pelikan charts the theological defense of icons during the Iconoclastic controversies of the eighth and ninth centuries, whose high point came in A.D. 787, when the Second Council of Nicaea restored the cult of images in the church. He demonstrates how the dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation eventually provided the basic rationale for images: because the invisible God had become human and therefore personally visible in Jesus Christ, it became permissible to make images of that Image. And because not only the human nature of Christ, but that of his Mother had been transformed by the Incarnation, she, too, could be "iconized," together with all the other saints and angels.

The iconographic "text" of the book is provided by one of the very few surviving icons from the period before Iconoclasm, the Egyptian tapestry Icon of the Virgin now in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Other icons serve to illustrate the theological argument, just as the theological argument serves to explain the icons.

In a new foreword, Judith Herrin discusses the enduring importance of the book, provides a brief biography of Pelikan, and discusses how later scholars have built on his work.

Originally published in 1983, Leo Steinberg's classic work has changed the viewing habits of a generation. After centuries of repression and censorship, the sexual component in thousands of revered icons of Christ is restored to visibility. Steinberg's evidence resides in the imagery of the overtly sexed Christ, in Infancy and again after death. Steinberg argues that the artists regarded the deliberate exposure of Christ's genitalia as an affirmation of kinship with the human condition. Christ's lifelong virginity, understood as potency under check, and the first offer of blood in the circumcision, both required acknowledgment of the genital organ. More than exercises in realism, these unabashed images underscore the crucial theological import of the Incarnation.
This revised and greatly expanded edition not only adduces new visual evidence, but deepens the theological argument and engages the controversy aroused by the book's first publication.

Images can be studied in many ways-as symbols, displays of artistic genius, adjuncts to texts, or naturally occurring phenomena like reflections and dreams. Each of these approaches is justified by the nature of the image in question as well as the way viewers engage with it. But images are often something more when they perform in ways that exhibit a capacity to act independent of human will. Images come alive-they move us to action, calm us, reveal the power of the divine, change the world around us. In these instances, we need an alternative model for exploring what is at work, one that recognizes the presence of images as objects that act on us. Building on his previous innovative work in visual and religious studies, David Morgan creates a new framework for understanding how the human mind can be enchanted by images in Images at Work. In carefully crafted arguments, Morgan proposes that images are special kinds of objects, fashioned and recognized by human beings for their capacity to engage us. From there, he demonstrates that enchantment, as described, is not a violation of cosmic order, but a very natural way that the mind animates the world around it. His groundbreaking study outlines the deeply embodied process by which humans create culture by endowing places, things, and images with power and agency. These various agents-human and non-human, material, geographic, and spiritual-become nodes in the web of relationships, thus giving meaning to images and to human life. Marrying network theory with cutting-edge work in visual studies, and connecting the visual and bodily technologies employed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to secular icons like Che Guevara, Abraham Lincoln, and Mao, Images at Work will be transformative for those curious about why images seem to have a power of us in ways we can't always describe.

Ce livre presente une etude historique et culturel sur l'art figuration humaine et le portrait dans un contexte islamique medieval base sur des sources litteraires et iconographiques. Avec: Sheila Blair; Eloise Brac de la Perriere; Oleg Grabar; Kata Keresztely; Mika Natif; Yves Porter; Houari Touati This book presents an art historical and cultural study of human figuration and portraiture in a medieval islamic context, based on literary and iconographic sources. With contributions by: Sheila Blair; Eloise Brac de la Perriere; Oleg Grabar; Kata Keresztely; Mika Natif; Yves Porter; Houari Touati

This is the first critical examination of Pablo Picasso's use of religious imagery and the religious import of many of his works with secular subject matter. Though Picasso was an avowed atheist, his work employs spiritual themes--and, often, traditional religious iconography. In five engagingly written, accessible chapters, Jane Daggett Dillenberger and John Handley address Picasso's cryptic 1930 painting of the Crucifixion; the artist's early life in the Catholic church; elements of transcendence in Guernica; Picasso's later, fraught relationship with the church, which commissioned him in the 1950s to paint murals for the Temple of Peace chapel in France; and the centrality of religious themes and imagery in bullfighting, the subject of countless Picasso drawings and paintings.

After almost 50 years, Jainism is set to return to the Rietberg Museum in an exhibition that offers a new take on the religion. The catalogue will show works from the museum's own collection and loans from India including lavishly illuminated manuscripts and imposing sculptures that reveal Jain ideas and ideals that evolved over many centuries. The catalogue also examines contemporary practices among this small, but economically influential religious community that is found around the world, yet is hardly known outside India. Furthermore, the catalogue will explore the contribution that the living tradition of Jainism with its long and varied history can make to resolve the fundamental challenges the world faces today: climate change, rampant consumerism, ethnic and religious intolerance, and social inequality. Combining masterpieces of Jain art and short films on Jain practices as well as discussions with Jains from all spheres of life - religious leaders and laypersons active in business, culture, and politics - this catalogue promises insights into the particular lifestyle fostered by Jainism. Visitors are encouraged to engage with new ideas, reflections, and discussions about what good, healthy, and sustainable living can look like.

Sie stand anderen zur Seite und wusste sie zu inspirieren. It is clear that Ernst H. Gombrich saw Gertrud Bing (1892-1964) as the muse in the circle of scholars around Aby M. Warburg (1866-1929). Others have compared her to the figure of the nymph, which was essential to Warburg's thought. Indeed, with Warburg's fascination for the ninfa fiorentina, a picturing of 'the feminine' enters into the centre of his thinking. However, Warburg almost never voiced opinions about the role of gender in the structure of society. Nor does it seem that he actually admitted women to his intellectual universe. Gertrud Bing, it turns out, was the rare exception. Who was Gertrud Bing and what was her personal contribution to Warburg's scientific project? This essay intends to map the agency of Gertrud Bing, in a way that she herself would have probably preferred. According to her, the ideal biography ought to merge the personal with the intellectual, since, what one experiences as a human being will also find its way into the academic oeuvre one leaves behind.

Christian saints have been the objects of reverence and fascination throughout the past two millennia. Their likenesses, heroic acts, prayerful lives, and stories of martyrdom have been portrayed frequently in art of diverse media. Unfamiliar with the saints and their images and symbols, viewers of art may find it challenging to identify, for example, which saint is represented as a monk with an axe through his head, or a beautiful girl holding a wheel, or a woman carrying her eyes on a plate.
From Agatha to Zeno, Francis of Assisi to Mary Magdalene, Saints in Arti presents the characteristic features of more than one hundred saints often encountered in sacred Western art. Each saint is introduced by a practical list of his or her unique attributes. Entries also include notes on the saints' lives and a series of visual references to help the reader recognize these exemplary figures, their histories, and their special devotions. This useful resource is illustrated with a stunning collection of masterpieces.

Disponible por primera vez en una edicion de lujo en rustica, los Clasicos selectos de C. S. Lewis incluyen ocho obras espirituales emblematicas de una de las figuras literarias mas celebres de nuestro tiempo. Reunido en un volumen en rustica, este magnifico compendio incluye: Mero cristianismo Cartas del diablo a su sobrino El gran divorcio El problema del dolor Los milagros Una pena en observacion La abolicion del hombre Los cuatro amores Los Clasicos selectos de C. S. Lewis es perfecto para: Los fans de C. S. Lewis Obsequios: es un gran regalo para amigos, familiares, pastores, estudiantes de teologia, aficionados a la filosofia y mas. Coleccionistas de libros clasicos The C. S. Lewis Signature Classics Available for the first time in one deluxe paperback edition, The C. S. Lewis Signature Classics includes eight signature spiritual works of one of the most celebrated literary figures of our time. Brought together in one paperback volume, this magnificent compendium includes: Mere Christianity The Screwtape Letters The Great Divorce The Problem of Pain Miracles A Grief Observed Abolition of Man The Four Loves The C. S. Lewis Signature Classics is perfect for: Fans of C.S. Lewis Gift giving - makes a great gift for friends, family, pastors, theology students, philosophy fans and more. Classic book collectors

Even the briefest glance at an art museum's holdings or an introductory history textbook demonstrates the profound influence of Christian images and art. From Idols to Icons tells the fascinating history of the dramatic shift in Christian attitudes toward sacred images from the third through the early seventh century. From attacks on the cult images of polytheism to the emergence of Christian narrative iconography to the appearance of portrait-type representations of holy figures, this book examines the primary theological critiques and defenses of holy images in light of the surviving material evidence for early Christian visual art. Against the previous assumption that fourth- and fifth-century Christians simply forgot or ignored their predecessors' censure and reverted to more alluring pagan practices, Robin M. Jensen contends that each stage of this profound change was uniquely Christian. Through a careful consideration of the cults of saints' remains, devotional portraits, and pilgrimages to sacred sites, Jensen shows how the Christian devotion to holy images came to be rooted in their evolving conviction that the divine was accessible in and through visible objects.

This is the definitive account of the ground-breaking conservation project to conserve the cave paintings of the Mogao Grottoes in China. The Mogao Grottoes, a World Heritage Site in northwestern China, are located along the ancient caravan routes, collectively known as the Silk Road, that once linked China with the West. Founded by a Buddhist monk in the late fourth century, Mogao flourished over the following millennium, as monks, local rulers, and travellers commissioned hundreds of cave temples cut into a mile-long rock cliff and adorned them with vibrant murals. More than 490 decorated grottoes remain, containing thousands of sculptures and some 45,000 square metres of wall paintings, making Mogao one of the world's most significant sites of Buddhist art. In 1997 the Getty Conservation Institute, which had been working with the Dunhuang Academy since 1989, began a case study using the Late-Tang dynasty Cave 85 to develop a methodology that would stabilize the deteriorating wall paintings. This abundantly illustrated volume is the definitive report on the project, which was completed in 2010.

Transfiguration explores the work of John Ruskin, Robert Browning, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Walter Pater, treating in particular the ways in which they engaged with the Christian content of their subject, and, in Pater's case, how the art of Christianity was contrasted with classical sculpture. Stephen Cheeke examines two related phenomena: idolatry (a false substitution, a sexual betrayal), and the poetics of transfiguration (to elevate or glorify subject matter not thought of as conventionally poetic, to praise). Central to the book is the question of the 'translation' of religion into art and aesthetics, a process which supposedly undergirds the advent of the museum age and makes possible the idea of a 'religion of art' as a phenomenon of late century Aestheticism. Such a phenomenon is prepared for, however, through the engagement with Christian painting and classical sculpture in the work of these four writers. All four thought carefully about the ways in which a particular mimetic impulse of 'making-live' in artworks could be connected to religious experience. This meant exploring the nature of the link between seeing and believing-visualising in order to conceive, to verify, but also in the sense of being acted upon by the visible. All four wrote about the great power of artworks to transfigure the objects of their attention. In each case, there emerges the possibility of a secret sexual knowledge hiding within, or lying on the other side of the sensuous knowledge of aesthesis. All four wondered whether this was inherently hostile to Christianity, or whether it may, finally, be an accommodation within it.

This sumptuously illustrated volume analyzes artists' representations of angels and demons and heaven and hell from the Judeo-Christian tradition and describes how these artistic portrayals evolved over time. As with other books in the Guide to Imagery series, the goal of this volume is to help contemporary art enthusiasts decode the symbolic meanings in the great masterworks of Western Art.
The first chapter traces the development of images of the Creation and the Afterworld from descriptions of them in the Scriptures through their evolution in later literary and philosophical works. The following two chapters examine artists' depictions of the two paths that humans may take, the path of evil or the path of salvation, and the punishments or rewards found on each. A chapter on the Judgment Day and the end of the world explores portrayals of the mysterious worlds between life and death and in the afterlife. Finally, the author looks at images of angelic and demonic beings themselves and how they came to be portrayed with the physical attributes--wings, halos, horns, and cloven hooves--with which we are now so familiar.
Thoroughly researched by and expert in the field of iconography, Angels and Demons in Art will delight readers with an interest in art or religious symbolism.

The Byzantines surrounded themselves with their saints, invisible but constant companions, who were made visible by dreams, visions, and art. The composition and presentation of this imagined gallery followed a logical structure, a construct that was itself a collective work of art created by Byzantine society. The purpose of this book is to analyze the logic of the saint's image in Byzantium, both in portraits and in narrative scenes. Here Henry Maguire argues that the Byzantines gave to their images differing formal characteristics of movement, modeling, depth, and differentiation, according to the tasks that the icons were called upon to perform in the all-important business of communication between the visible and the invisible worlds.

The book draws extensively on sources that have been relatively little utilized by art historians. It considers both domestic and ecclesiastical artifacts, showing how the former raised the problem of access by lay men and women to the supernatural and fueled the debates concerning the role of images in the Christian cult. Special attention is paid to the poems inscribed by the Byzantines upon their icons, and to the written lives of their saints, texts that offer the most direct and vivid insight into the everyday experience of art in Byzantium. The overall purpose of the book is to provide a new view of Byzantine art, one that integrates formal analysis with both theology and social history.

Saint Marks invokes and pluralizes the figure of Mark in order to explore relations between painting and writing. Emphasizing that the saint is not a singular biographical individual in the various biblical and hagiographic texts that involve someone so named, the book takes as its ultimate concern the kinds of material life that outlive the human subject. From the incommensurate, anachronic instances in which Saint Mark can be located-among them, as Evangelist or as patron saint of Venice-the book traces Mark's afterlives within art, sacred texts, and literature in conversation with such art historians and philosophers as Aby Warburg, Giorgio Agamben, Georges Didi-Huberman, T. J. Clark, Adrian Stokes, and Jean-Luc Nancy. Goldberg begins in sixteenth-century Venice, with a series of paintings by Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, Tintoretto, and others, that have virtually nothing to do with biblical texts. He turns then to the legacy of John Ruskin's Stones of Venice and through it to questions about what painting does as painting. A final chapter turns to ancient texts, considering the Gospel of St. Mark together with its double, the so-called Secret Gospel that has occasioned controversy for its homoerotic implications. The posthumous persistence of a life is what the gospel named Mark calls the Kingdom of God. Saints have posthumous lives; but so too do paintings and texts. This major interdisciplinary study by one of our most astute cultural critics extends what might have been a purely theological subject to embrace questions central to cultural practice from the ancient world to the present.

One of the most important Italian manuscripts in the Getty Museum, the lavishly illustrated Gualenghi d'Este Hours was created around 1649 on the occasion of the marriage of diplomat Andrea Gualengo to Orsina d'Este, a member of Ferrara's ruling family. The devotional manuscript featured brilliant figured decoration of the suffrages--short prayers to saints--and was created by Taddeo Crivelli, one of the most important manuscript illuminators of the Renaissance.
This volume includes reproductions of all the illuminations in the original manuscript plus selected text pages, each with commentary. Kurt Barstow examines the book's vivid devotional imagery in relation to works of art of the period that help explain the Hours significance for the fifteenth-century patrons. This beautifully illustrated book is published to coincide with an exhibit featuring the manuscript that will take place at the Getty Museum from May 9 to July 30, 2000.

An icon (from the Greek word eikon, "image") is a wooden panel painting of a holy person or scene from Orthodox Christianity, the religion of the Byzantine Empire that is practiced today mainly in Greece and Russia. It was believed that these works acted as intermediaries between worshipers and the holy personages they depicted. Their pictorial language is stylized and primarily symbolic, rather than literal and narrative. Indeed, every attitude, pose, and colour depicted in an icon has a precise meaning, and their painters - usually monks - followed prescribed models from iconographic manuals. The goal of this book is to catalogue the vast heritage of images according to iconographic type and subject, from the most ancient at the Monastery of Saint Catherine in the Sinai to those from Greece, Constantinople, and Russia. Chapters focus on the role of icons in the Orthodox liturgy and on common iconic subjects, including the fathers and saints of the Eastern Church and the life of Jesus and his followers. As with other volumes in the "Guide to Imagery Series", this book includes a wealth of color illustrations in which details are called out for discussion. This is a new title in the popular Guide "To Imagery series", and includes 400 colour illustrations; and over 380 pages.