Medieval art history
More general subjects:
Les colonnes du ciborium de San Marco à Venise
La recherche s’articule autour de trois axes principaux : une lecture approfondie des aspects visibles et matériels qui composent l’œuvre d’art c’est-à-dire les parties sculptées et les inscriptions ; la relation de l’œuvre avec les sources littéraires ; enfin la relation de l’œuvre avec le contexte. L’application d’une méthode globale qui considère l’œuvre d’art comme un objet complexe fait de signes de lieux et d’intentions artistiques a permis une nouvelle interprétation de l’œuvre ouverte à des enjeux tout à fait actuels d’histoire de l’art et connectée à la notion d’histoire et d’anthropologie des objets en constante relation avec le temps et l’environnement.
Ce livre se compose de huit chapitres qui affirment et décomposent à la fois le « système » des colonnes ; ils sont précédés d’une mise en perspective historiographique. L’ouvrage présente également un catalogue exhaustif de fiches décrivant pour la première fois une à une les scènes et les inscriptions des colonnes.
In mente Dei, in gremio Annae. The Source and the Receptacle of Marian Immaculacy in Sixteenth-Century Piacenza
Starting from the notion of Maria ante saecula which implies the Virgin’s presence in God’s mind before the world and humanity the paper will firstly analyse the place of Mary’s soul before and during the Creation. This aspect will be studied through the Allegory of the Immaculate Conception painted by Malosso for the Church of San Francesco in Piacenza. Then it will examine the debate surrounding the controversial transmission of the original stain from Saint Anne to Mary to the point of considering the Virgin’s purification after her birth. These considerations will lead to tackling an ambiguous altarpiece by Pordenone where at first sight the spectator could confuse Saint Anne with the Virgin.
Arbor Anna fructuosa. Apropos of an Image of Saint Anne and the Fruits of Redemption
This essay examines a small anonymous wooden sculpture produced in the eighteenth century in north-eastern Brazil. Of rare iconography the sculpture depicts a Selbdritt in which Saint Anne offers a bowl of apples to the Child while the group is framed by a laden apple tree. The overt emphasis placed on the tree and the offering of fruits encouraged the search for its formal prototypes and their meaning. Thus I present the apples and the apple tree (and other trees and fruits) in Marian and Saint Anne iconography and compare this visual material with an extensive literary corpus that encompasses biblical text Christological-Mariological literature liturgical hymns paraenetics and folk songs highlighting its occurrences in the Lusophone world. Finally after briefly specifying the sociocultural context of eighteenth-century Brazilian artistic production I conclude that the sculpture can be understood as a late repository of the multiple debates that permeated the construction of Mary and Anne characters as a support for what constitutes the very essence of Christianity — and of which the apples and the apple tree are the figurative synthesis: the path of humanity from the fall from grace to redemption.
Images of Saint Anne in the Ionian Islands (Fifteenth–Eighteenth Centuries)
The article examines the preservation of the Byzantine iconographic tradition alongside the growing influence of Western style in images of Saint Anne on three Greek Ionian Islands after the establishment of Venetian rule: Corfu (1386) Zante (1482) and Kefalonia (1500). A new political religious and social context characterized the production of art on these three islands during their occupation by the Republic of Venice. After the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 when icon painters sought refuge in Venetian-held Crete and the later flight to the Ionian Islands (which were also Venetian possessions) after the sack of Crete in 1699 the Ionian Islands played a decisive role in the development of post-Byzantine art and later modern Greek painting.
The Pregnancies of Mary-Anne in Fifteenth- to Sixteenth-Century Franco-Flemish Manuscript Illuminations. Between Iconographic Appropriation and Iconographic Development
This chapter discusses the pregnancy representations of the Virgin Mary and Saint Anne. More precisely it focuses on the iconographic permeability and flexibility between the two hagiographic figures in what mostly concerns manuscript illuminations. In this sense manuscript illuminations showing a pregnant Saint Anne are related to Marian representations as in the Annunciation the Throne of Wisdom etc. The chapter tackles mostly Franco-Flemish source material however these sources suggest a much larger area of dissemination for such pregnancy representations dominated not only by the cult of Saint Anne but also by commercial networks (Flemish/Spanish). Furthermore pregnancy representations permeate other holy motherhoods from apocryphal stories — those of Mary Salome and Mary Cleophas.
Representations of Saint Anne and the Virgin Mary from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period
Exploring Iconographic Flexibility and Permeability
Between the thirteenth and the sixteenth centuries the cult of the Virgin Mary underwent significant changes a shift clearly revealed by an increase in artistic representations of Mary as well as a flourishing devotional literature in her honour written in both Latin and the vernacular. One aspect of this change was a broader attention to Mary’s genealogical line and in particular to her relationship with St Anne. The result was not only a renewed focus on the vita Annae but also a significant overlap in how these two women were represented juxtaposed and perceived.
This volume traces the often significant iconographic flexibility in terms of both how the Virgin Mary and Saint Anne were presented and perceived and what can be termed a permeability between visual representations of the two saints. Focusing on the multiple readings layers of meaning and the visual interplay between the vita Mariae and the vita Annae the chapters gathered here explore the overlap and influence between different iconographic motifs and how these were used to advance political religious and social ideologies at the time of their creation as well as exploring representations across a range of different media from sculptures and frescoes to panel paintings and manuscript illuminations.
The Anna Selbdritt and the Cult of the Three Maries. An Early Fourteenth-Century Wall Painting in the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary
This study concentrates upon a little-known late medieval wall painting depicting the Holy Kinship. The fresco is located in the parish church in Csaroda a village in north-eastern Hungary and was painted in the first decades of the fourteenth century. Scholarship dedicated to the iconography of Saint Anne and the Holy Kinship focuses on the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries because of the late medieval blossoming of devotion towards the Virgin’s mother and Christ’s extended family. Studies of earlier centuries mostly take into account manuscripts. The case of the Holy Kinship in Csaroda proves that the state of research regarding the iconography of Anne and the Holy Kinship has little relevance for explaining images that were produced beyond the confines of upper-class patronage. The ascending cult of Saint Anne and her three daughters in fourteenth-century France offers examples that bear the closest resemblance to the Csaroda fresco. Illustrated manuscripts of John of Venette’s L’Histoire des trois Maries albeit produced later than the mural in Hungary provide the closest visual parallels. However the use and dissemination of manuscripts is different from the function and reception context that can be assigned to a wall painting and my aim is to investigate possible circulation and reuse of this motif in the case of the wall painting in Csaroda.
‘Worthy Vestment for the Sovereign Priest’. Matriarchal Priesthood, Marian Allegory, and the Amiens Confraternity of Notre-Dame de Puy
This essay examines the oldest extant panel painting from Amiens cathedral’s Marian poetry confraternity of Puy Notre-Dame. Known as the Priesthood of the Virgin the panel depicts Mary dressed as an Old Testament high priest investing her son with the Levitical lineage that she in turn received from her mother. The painting uses typology allegory liturgy and the hagiography of Saint Anne to create a ‘visual poem’ that was meant to inspire one of the confraternity’s annual chant royal competitions. As such the panel elucidates the palinod verse written by the confraternity master and that featured as the refrain in the contestants’ compositions. This palinod appears on a banderole near the confraternity master who kneels in the lower right corner of the painting: ‘Worthy vestment for the sovereign priest.’
Moving with Saint Anne. Representations of Anna Selbdritt between Central Europe and the Tyrolean Region
The cult of Saint Anne was at its peak between the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries particularly in German-speaking countries including the historical Tyrol. This essay focuses on the influence of images from the German-speaking area on the arrival and the establishment of the cult of Saint Anne in the Tyrolean area and outlines through an iconographic analysis the fortune and decline of the cult of the Mother of Mary in the historical Tyrol.
The Panel of the Virgin and Saint Anne from the Church of the Archangels in Iprari. Iconographic and Ideological Aspects
The chapter deals with the eleventh-century iconic images of the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne depicted on the eastern part of a south wall in the Church of the Archangels in Iprari ad 1096 (Upper Svaneti north-west Georgia). The topography of the panel and its iconographic context underline its specific role in the decorative programme of this church. The murals of Iprari are the earliest work of ‘King’s Painter Tevdore’ who painted three churches in Svaneti between ad 1096 and ad 1130. The title of Tevdore mentioned in the dedicatory inscription reveals his links with the royal court. I argue that the inclusion of the panel of the Virgin and Saint Anne in a small church dedicated to the archangels with a limited number of images together with religious context has an important political meaning.
Breath and Fire. Incense and Sanctification in the Late Byzantine Liturgy
In the sensorium of the late Byzantine Divine Liturgy – the Orthodox Christian church service which featured a riot of sights and sounds – scent played a key role. By the thirteenth century lay involvement in the liturgy had diminished drastically from that of earlier centuries. With limited ways of accessing the divine worshippers might still participate through smell as they inhaled the perfumed smoke that wafted throughout the sacred space. Drawing on incense and incense burners’ metaphorical associations practical uses and physical properties this essay explores scent as an alternate means of sanctification for the laity at church in late Byzantium.
Scent of the Blue Nun. Utpalavarṇā in Medieval Indian Palm-Leaf Manuscripts
The blue skin of the prominent Buddhist nun Utpalavarņā in paintings from medieval India references more than a simple translation of her name “She Who is the Color (vara) of the Blue Lotus (utpala).” Sanskrit sources explain that her name refers to the color of the golden pollen-bearing anther not the utpala’s blue petals and that her skin miraculously exuded the fl ower’s fragrance. The blue of her skin in images therefore may have served as a visual suggestion of her fragrance rather than her skin color. The depictions however also project a pejorative interpretation of her character. Her blue body is the focus of one of the eight great events in the life of the Buddha in which he rebuked her for using magic so that she could be the fi rst to greet him upon his descent from heaven. Visually arresting images of the blue nun convey warnings about the seduction of fragrance magic and insubordinate nuns who must be tamed and controlled. Keywords / Buddhist art Buddhist monasticism Buddhist narrative Buddhist nuns medieval India Nālandā palm-leaf manuscript Pāla manuscripts Prajñāpāramitā Utpalavarṇā.
Columns of Scent. Perfumed Signs of the Prophet in Early Islamic Spaces
Examining ritual uses of scent in early Islamic sacred spaces this article highlights the olfactory aspects of a set of columns and stones in Mecca and Medina that commemorated places where the Prophet Muḥammad was said to have performed ritual prayer. Several such locations of the Prophet’s prayers became memorialized sites of visitation and ritualization over the course of the seventh to ninth centuries ce. At a number of these sites perfume was applied to parts of the buildings apparently to mark them as spaces associated with the memory of the Prophet’s presence and thereby to highlight them as worthy of veneration. At the same time contestation also emerged regarding the application of scent to these spaces perhaps resulting from the complex and contradictory valences of perfume in the early Islamic sensorium.
Sensation and Olfaction. Experiencing Image and Text in the Golden Haggadah
The illustrated Haggadah the liturgical manuscript used during the Seder on the fi rst nights of Passover emerged in thirteenth-century Europe and quickly became a conduit for expressing Jewish identity. This study focuses on the use of sensorial cues within the Golden Haggadah (London British Library MS 27210) to evoke responses related to personal and collective memory. These memories of Seders past of the persecution that Israelites endured under the pharaohs of ancient Egypt and under the Christians of medieval Europe show how the manuscript cognitively and sensorially engaged its beholders. This study introduces questions of materiality and perception to consider how the Haggadah prompted Seder participants to experience intimately the Exodus narrative and how the senses – especially smell – were invoked by the narrative the images and the lived experiences of the beholders interacting with the codex. From poems referencing the incense of the Temple to images like Jacob’s betrayal of Esau to the very smell of the manuscript itself olfaction became a consistent part of the Seder. Rabbinic writings contemporaneous to the Golden Haggadah’s creation further reveal the importance attributed to the sense of smell in the medieval period.