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The fourteen essays in this collection demonstrate a wide variety of approaches to the study of Byzantine architecture, a reflection of both newer trends and traditional scholarship in the field. Three papers examine Early Christian monuments, two of which expand the inquiry into their architectural afterlives. Others discuss later monuments in Byzantine territory and monuments in territories related to Byzantium such as Serbia, Armenia, and Norman Italy. No Orthodox Church being complete without interior decoration, two papers discuss issues connected to frescoes in late medieval Balkan churches. Finally, one study investigates the continued influence of Byzantine palace architecture long after the fall of Constantinople.
Illustrated with over nine hundred photographs and drawings, most of them specially commissioned, the book presents a generally unknown body of material in a distinctive and unprecedented manner. --Book Jacket.
"Byzantine art abandoned classical ideals in favor of formulas that conveyed spiritual concepts through stylized physical forms. Previous scholarship dealing with Byzantine icons has been largely focused on depictions of holy figures, dismissing representations of architecture as irrelevant space-filling background. Architecture as Icon demonstrates that background representations of architecture are meaningful, active components of compositions, often as significant as the holy figures. The book provides a critical view for understanding the Byzantine conception of architectural forms and space and the corresponding intellectual underpinnings of their representation." "Architecture as Icon features four thought-provoking essays. The catalogue groups the material into four categories: generic, specific, and symbolic representations, culminating in a final grouping entitled "Jerusalem." Handsomely designed and illustrated, this volume addresses various approaches to depicting architecture in Byzantine art that contrast sharply with those of the Renaissance and Western artistic tradition." --Book Jacket.
"The book is a lively warts-and-all rendering of Princeton's rise, addressing such themes as discriminatory admission policies, the academic underperformance of many varsity athletes, and the controversial "bicker" system through which students have been selected for the University's private eating clubs."--BOOK JACKET.
The fourteen essays in this collection demonstrate a wide variety of approaches to the study of Byzantine architecture and its decoration, a reflection of both newer trends and traditional scholarship in the field. The variety is also a reflection of Professor Curcic’s wide interests, which he shares with his students. These include the analysis of recent archaeological discoveries; recovery of lost monuments through archival research and onsite examination of material remains; reconsidering traditional typological approaches often ignored in current scholarship; fresh interpretations of architectural features and designs; contextualization of monuments within the landscape; tracing histor...
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.
The first major study of an outstanding monument of Late Byzantine architecture in Yugoslavia, this book is also the first extensive examination of Serbian medieval architecture to appear in English. The author moves beyond previous arguments concerning the distinctive or provincial character of architectural developments in Serbia and shows that the monastery church of Gračanica is a product of an expanded Serbian cultural framework and represents one of the summits of Late Byzantine architecture. The comprehensive analysis of the planning, form, spatial composition, structure, and architectural decoration of the building clearly reveals the creative synthesis achieved by the Late Byzantine architect. In addition, this study provides a new understanding of the history of Late Byzantine architecture in general and interprets Gračanica in light of the changed political climate in Serbia during the first two decades of the fourteenth century.
The centuries-long economic and military decline of the Byznatine Empire, which culminated in its political disappearance as a state in 1459, was, paradoxically, accompanied by high levels of cultural achievement. Aimed at broadening our understanding of the final phase of the empire, this collection explores how Byzantine ideological, spiritual, and artistic traditions transcending the economic and political realities of the time. The papers, delivered at an interdisciplinary colloquium held in May 1989 at Princeton University, deal with hagiographic, monastic, literary, architectural, and artistic questions, as well as the general cultural and social issues, of this fascinating period. Alo...
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...
Imagining the Self, Constructing the Past celebrates the various ways in which the Middle Ages and the Renaissance are adapted, recollected, and represented in our own day and age. Most of the chapters fit broadly into one of three categories: namely, the representation of the self in medieval and early modern history and literature; the recollection and utilization of the past in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; and the role of the medieval and the early modern in our own society. Overall, the contributions to this volume bear witness to the importance of representation to our understanding of ourselves, each other, and our shared past.