Download or read book Architecture of the Sacred written by Bonna D. Wescoat and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-13 with total page 467 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, a distinguished team of authors explores the way space, place, architecture, and ritual interact to construct sacred experience in the historical cultures of the eastern Mediterranean. Essays address fundamental issues and features that enable buildings to perform as spiritually transformative spaces in ancient Greek, Roman, Jewish, early Christian, and Byzantine civilizations. Collectively they demonstrate the multiple ways in which works of architecture and their settings were active agents in the ritual process. Architecture did not merely host events; rather, it magnified and elevated them, interacting with rituals facilitating the construction of ceremony. This book examines comparatively the ways in which ideas and situations generated by the interaction of place, built environment, ritual action, and memory contributed to the cultural formulation of the sacred experience in different religious faiths.
Download or read book Art and Ritual of the Byzantine Church written by Christopher Walter and published by Variorum Publishing. This book was released on 1982 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Architecture and Ritual in the Churches of Constantinople written by Vasileios Marinis and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-13 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the interchange of architecture and ritual in the Middle and Late Byzantine churches of Constantinople (ninth to fifteenth centuries). It employs archaeological and archival data, hagiographic and historical sources, liturgical texts and commentaries, and monastic typika and testaments to integrate the architecture of the medieval churches of Constantinople with liturgical and extra-liturgical practices and their continuously evolving social and cultural context. The book argues against the approach that has dominated Byzantine studies: that of functional determinism, the view that architectural form always follows liturgical function. Instead, proceeding chapter by chapter through the spaces of the Byzantine church, it investigates how architecture responded to the exigencies of the rituals, and how church spaces eventually acquired new uses. The church building is described in the context of the culture and people whose needs it was continually adapted to serve. Rather than viewing churches as frozen in time (usually the time when the last brick was laid), this study argues that they were social constructs and so were never finished, but continually evolving.
Download or read book The World s Oldest Church written by Michael Peppard and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Peppard provides a historical and theological reassessment of the oldest Christian building ever discovered, the third-century house-church at Dura-Europos. Contrary to commonly held assumptions about Christian initiation, Peppard contends that rituals here did not primarily embody notions of death and resurrection. Rather, he portrays the motifs of the church’s wall paintings as those of empowerment, healing, marriage, and incarnation, while boldly reidentifying the figure of a woman formerly believed to be a repentant sinner as the Virgin Mary. This richly illustrated volume is a breakthrough work that enhances our understanding of early Christianity at the nexus of Bible, art, and ritual.
Download or read book The sensual icon written by Bissera V and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Explores the Byzantine aesthetic of fugitive appearances by placing and filming art objects in spaces of changing light, and by uncovering the shifting appearances expressed in poetry, descriptions of art, and liturgical performance"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Aural Architecture in Byzantium Music Acoustics and Ritual written by Bissera Pentcheva and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-07-14 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aural architecture identifies those features of a building that can be perceived by the act of listening in them. Emerging from the challenge to reconstruct sonic and spatial experiences of the deep past, this book invites readers into the complex world of the Byzantine liturgy, experienced in its chanted form in interiors covered with monumental mosaics and frescoes. The multidisciplinary collection of ten essays explores the intersection of Byzantine liturgy, music, acoustics, and architecture in the Late Antique churches of Constantinople, Jerusalem and Rome, and reflects on the role digital technology can play in re-creating aspects of the sensually rich performance of the divine word.
Download or read book Art and Eloquence in Byzantium written by Henry Maguire and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this interdisciplinary study, Henry Maguire examines the influence of several literary genres and rhetorical techniques on the art of narration in Byzantium. He reveals the important and wide-reaching influence of literature on the visual arts. In particular, he shows that the literary embellishments of the sermons and hymns of the church nourished the imaginations of artists, and fundamentally affected the iconography, style, and arrangement of their work. Using provocative material previously unfamiliar to art historians, he concentrates on religious art from A.D. 843 to 1453. Professor Maguire first considers the Byzantine view of the link between oratory and painting, and then the nature of rhetoric and its relationship to Christian literature. He demonstrates how four rhetorical genres and devices—description, antithesis, hyperbole, and lament—had a special affinity with the visual arts and influenced several scenes in the Byzantine art, including the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Presentation, Christ's Passion, and the Dormition of the Virgin. Through the literature of the church, Professor Maguire concludes, the methods of rhetoric indirectly helped Byzantine artists add vividness to their narratives, structure their compositions, and enrich their work with languages. Once translated into visual language, the artifices of rhetoric could be appreciated by many. Henry Maguire is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Originally published in 1982. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book Art and Architecture in Byzantium and Armenia written by Thomas F. Mathews and published by Variorum Publishing. This book was released on 1995 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stressing the public dimension of worship (the ceremony and symbolism), rather than the texts used (which may not always have been understood by the laity), 14 studies study religious works for an interpretation of their use in cult and devotion. Mathews (fine arts, NYU) considers the processional movements in the early Roman ritual, the parallelism between palace church planning and court liturgy, domestication of the church building in company with a privatization of liturgy, manuscript illumination, fresco decoration, and the symbolism in the decorative program of the Byzantine church. Distributed by Ashgate. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book Byzantine Christianity written by Averil Cameron and published by SPCK. This book was released on 2017-10-19 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘. . . I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium.’ W. B. Yeats From the foundation of Constantinople in 330 to its fall in 1453, this brief history explores the key components of Byzantine Christianity, including the development of monasticism, icons and iconoclasm, the role of the emperor in relation to church councils and beliefs, the difficult relationship with the papacy and the impact of the Crusades. The book also considers Byzantine Christianity as a living force today: the variety and vitality of Orthodox churches, the role of the Church in Russia and the enduring relevance of a spirituality derived from the church fathers. ‘Averil Cameron’s work has transformed our understanding of Byzantium, and here she offers an authoritative survey of its history and legacy . . . This is a lucid, informative and impressively wide-ranging brief history.’ Gillian Clark FBA, Emeritus Professor of Classics and Ancient History, University of Bristol
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Art and Architecture written by Ellen C. Schwartz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-19 with total page 665 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Byzantine art has been an underappreciated field, often treated as an adjunct to the arts of the medieval West, if considered at all. In illustrating the richness and diversity of art in the Byzantine world, this handbook will help establish the subject as a distinct field worthy of serious inquiry. Essays consider Byzantine art as art made in the eastern Mediterranean world, including the Balkans, Russia, the Near East and north Africa, between the years 330 and 1453. Much of this art was made for religious purposes, created to enhance and beautify the Orthodox liturgy and worship space, as well as to serve in a royal or domestic context. Discussions in this volume will consider both aspects of this artistic creation, across a wide swath of geography and a long span of time. The volume marries older, object-based considerations of themes and monuments which form the backbone of art history, to considerations drawing on many different methodologies-sociology, semiotics, anthropology, archaeology, reception theory, deconstruction theory, and so on-in an up-to-date synthesis of scholarship on Byzantine art and architecture. The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Art and Architecture is a comprehensive overview of a particularly rich field of study, offering a window into the world of this fascinating and beautiful period of art.
Download or read book Byzantium written by John Haldon and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2005-09-01 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally the eastern half of the mighty Roman Empire, Byzantium grew to be one of the longest-surviving empires in world history, spanning nine centuries and three continents. It was a land of contrasts – from the glittering centre at Constantinople, to the rural majority, to the heartland of the Orthodox Church – and one surrounded by enemies: Persians, Arabs and Ottoman Turks to the east, Slavs and Bulgars to the north, Saracens and Normans to the west. Written by one of the world's leading experts on Byzantine history, Byzantium: A History tells the chequered story of a historical enigma, from its birth out of the ashes of Rome in the third century to its era-defining fall at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1453.
Download or read book Hagia Sophia written by Bissera V. Pentcheva and published by Penn State University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the aesthetic principles and spiritual operations at work in Hagia Sophia. Drawing on art and architectural history, liturgy, musicology, and acoustics, explores the Byzantine paradigm of animation.
Download or read book The Framing of Sacred Space written by Jelena Bogdanović and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As architectonic objects of basic structural and design integrity, canopies provide means for an innovative understanding of the materialization of the idea of the Byzantine-rite church. The Framing of Sacred Space considers both the material and conceptual framing of sacred space and explains how the canopy bridges the physical and transcendental realms.
Download or read book Medieval Self Coronations written by Jaume Aurell i Cardona and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-11 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first systematic study of the practice of royal self-coronations from late antiquity to the present.
Download or read book Byzantium written by Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 2004 with total page 682 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fall of the Byzantine capital of Constantinople to the Latin West in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade abruptly interrupted nearly nine hundred years of artistic and cultural traditions. In 1261, however, the Byzantine general Michael VIII Palaiologos triumphantly re-entered Constantinople and reclaimed the seat of the empire, initiating a resurgence of art and culture that would continue for nearly three hundred years, not only in the waning empire itself but also among rival Eastern Christian nations eager to assume its legacy. Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557), and the groundbreaking exhibition that it accompanies, explores the artistic and cultural flowering of the last centuries of the "Empire of the Romans" and its enduring heritage. Conceived as the third of a trio of exhibitions dedicated to a fuller understanding of the art of the Byzantine Empire, whose influence spanned more than a millennium, "Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557)" follows the 1997 landmark presentation of "The Glory of Byzantium," which focused on the art and culture of the Middle Byzantine era—the Second Golden Age of the Byzantine Empire (843–1261). In the late 1970s, "The Age of Spirituality" explored the early centuries of Byzantium's history. The present concluding segment explores the exceptional artistic accomplishments of an era too often considered in terms of political decline. Magnificent works—from splendid frescoes, textiles, gilded metalwork, and mosaics to elaborately decorated manuscripts and liturgical objects—testify to the artistic and intellectual vigor of the Late and Post-Byzantine era. In addition, forty magnificent icons from the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai, Egypt, join others from leading international institutions in a splendid gathering of these powerful religious images. While the political strength of the empire weakened, the creativity and learning of Byzantium spread father than ever before. The exceptional works of secular and religious art produced by Late Byzantine artists were emulated and transformed by other Eastern Christian centers of power, among them Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Cilician Armenia. The Islamic world adapted motifs drawn from Byzantium's imperial past, as Christian minorities in the Muslin East continued Byzantine customs. From Italy to the Lowlands, Byzantium's artistic and intellectual practices deeply influenced the development of the Renaissance, while, in turn, Byzantium's own traditions reflected the empire's connections with the Latin West. Fine examples of these interrelationships are illustrated by important panel paintings, ceramics, and illuminated manuscripts, among other objects. In 1557 the "Empire of the Romans," as its citizens knew it, which had fallen to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, was renamed Byzantium by the German scholar Hieronymus Wolf. The cultural and historical interaction and mutual influence of these major cultures—the Latin West and the Christian and Islamic East—during this fascinating period are investigated in this publication by a renowned group of international scholars in seventeen major essays and catalogue discussions of more than 350 exhibited objects.
Download or read book The Warrior Saints in Byzantine Art and Tradition written by Christopher Walter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christopher Walter's study of the cult and iconography of Byzantine warrior saints - George, Demetrius, the two Theodores, and dozens more - is at once encyclopaedic and interpretative, and the first comprehensive study of the subject. The author delineates their origins and development as a distinctive category of saint, showing that in its definitive form this coincides with the apogee of the Byzantine empire in the 10th-11th centuries. He establishes a repertory, particularly of their commemorations in synaxaries and their representations in art, and describes their iconographical types and the functions ascribed to them once enrolled in the celestial army: support for the terrestrial army in its offensive campaigns, and a new protective role when the Byzantine Empire passed to the defensive. The survey highlights the lack of historicity among the Byzantines in their approach to the lives of these saints and their terrestrial careers. An epilogue briefly treats the analogous traditions in the cultures of neighbouring peoples. Walter draws attention to the development of an echelon of military saints, notably in church decoration, which provides the surest basis for defining their specificity; also to the way in which they were depicted, generally young, handsome and robust, and frequently 'twinned' in pairs, so calling attention to the importance of camaraderie among soldiers. At the same time, this work opens a new perspective on the military history of the Byzantine Empire. Its ideology of war consistently followed that of the Israelites; protected and favoured by divine intervention, there was no occasion to discuss the morality of a 'just war'. Consequently, when considering Byzantine methods of warfare, due attention should be given to the important role which they attributed to celestial help in their military campaigns.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Byzantium written by John Hutchins Rosser and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 643 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Byzantine Empire dates back to Constantine the Great, the first Christian ruler of the Roman Empire, who, in 330 AD, moved the imperial capital from Rome to a port city in modern-day Turkey, which he then renamed Constantinople in his honor. From its founding, the Byzantine Empire was a major anchor of east-west trade, and culture, art, architecture, and the economy all prospered in the newly Christian empire. As Byzantium moved into the middle and late period, Greek became the official language of both church and state and the Empire's cultural and religious influence extended well beyond its boundaries. In the mid-15th century, the Ottoman Turks put an end to 1,100 years of Byzantine history by capturing Constantinople, but the Empire's legacy in art, culture, and religion endured long after its fall. In this revised and updated second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Byzantium, author John H. Rosser introduces both the general reader and the researcher to the history of the Byzantine Empire. This comprehensive dictionary includes detailed, alphabetical entries on key figures, ideas, places, and themes related to Byzantine art, history, and religion, and the second edition contains numerous additional entries on broad topics such as transportation and gender, which were less prominent in the previous edition. An expanded introduction introduces the reader to Byzantium and a guide to further sources and suggested readings can be found in the extensive bibliography that follows the entries. A basic chronology and various maps and illustrations are also included in the dictionary. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Byzantium.
