Journal articles on the topic 'Early Christian Art objects'

Abstract In this wide-ranging conversation, David Serlin (University of California, San Diego) and Roland Betancourt (University of California, Irvine) discuss questions of sexual consent and sexual violence in the visual culture of early Christian art as inspired by Betancourt’s recent book, Byzantine Intersectionality: Sexuality, Gender, and Race in the Middle Ages (2020). Drawing on rare manuscripts and other objects of worship from institutional archives, Betancourt analyzes and contextualizes numerous Byzantine visual texts featuring often confounding representations of sexual acts or gendered behavior that later Christian interpreters would treat as conventional or settled. For Betancourt, early Christian authors and artists were far more open to troubling and experimenting with depictions of sexual and gendered narratives than many medievalists (and, importantly, non-medievalists) have been trained to see.

Although the sarcophagus No. 1957, 1011.1 is investigated in detail, to this day there are many questions in its study. In addition to the main problems facing the researcher in the study of early monuments the item has a unique iconographic solution: unlike other objects of this kind (3rd c.), the prophet Jonah, reproduced on the front wall, is represented awake. The authors put forward a number of hypotheses explaining this feature, but none of them is comprehensive. These aspects justify the choice of the monument as an object of study.A review of texts (2nd-4th cc.) and objects (3rd-5th cc.) showed that, probably, the Old Testament prophet is not literally represented in the relief, but rather an allegorical transmission of the theology of bodily Resurrection is presented. Although the early texts were only trying to comprehend the relationship between the image (εἰκών) and the Prototype (ἀρχέτυπον), nevertheless, perhaps understanding the images at that time could be more complicated and led to the formation of the theology of the image.

To elucidate some of the origins of what Martin Marty has called “America’s Iconic Book,” this article analyzes early Christian rituals in which the Bible functions as an icon, that is, as a material object that invokes the presence of the divine. After an introductory discussion of icons, it shows that early Christian communal rituals of Gospel procession and display as well as popular and private ritual uses of scripture as a miracle-working object parallel the uses and functions of Orthodox portrait icons while circumventing issues of idolatry. Examples come from a survey of early Christian liturgies, conciliar and legal records, the physical appearance of Bibles and Gospel books, the representations of books in art, and written arguments from the iconoclastic controversies of the eighth and ninth centuries.

Abstract Dan Flavin’s fluorescent light installations have long served art historians by marking the turn from the late modernist illusionist space of painting to the new immanence of specific objects. In the narration of this genealogy, the crux of minimalism, as Hal Foster calls it, rests on a nominal approach that proclaims metaphysical relations as an obstacle and calls out to evade any notion of meaning. By contrast, this essay asserts the primacy of metaphysics in Flavin’s [en]lighted work. By tracing the artist’s scholastic education, his contemporary theo-political stance, and his rejection of objecthood, I argue that Flavin was continuously preoccupied with Catholic theology and that his work is imbued with Christian iconography. Thinking alongside the fourteenth-century philosopher William of Ockham and the twentieth-century post-Husserlian phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion, the evolution of Flavin’s light constructions proves relevant to the quandary of metaphysics and the role of theology in radical immanence. To bracket his metaphysics is to ignore the full implications of his art.

A collection of objects with images of characters, whose arms are folded crosswise on their chest, has been collected over many years of research into the medieval urban culture of Semirechye and South Kazakhstan. These objects are made of terracotta, clay, bronze. Considering the total number of finds dated to the 6th—10th centuries, the popularity of these images can be noted. Their appearance is associated with the influence exerted by the Sogdians. The images correlate with the cult of ancestors, ideas about the afterlife, the posthumous existence and the subsequent resurrection of the dead. An early find is a fragment of a terracotta Christian icon of the 5th—6th centuries with a Syrian inscription, which probably got to the city of Taraz along the Great Silk Road. The article presents the version that the scene “Resurrection” is reproduced on the icon. The ossuaries, decorative clay columns, bronze amulets supposedly depict Avestan fravashi. The origins of the gesture can be traced in the art of Ancient Egypt, Etruscans, Iran, Byzantium, Sogd. The prayer gesture with folded hands has been preserved in ritual practice and religious art to this day.

ABSTRACT From their king’s decision to embrace Catholicism at the turn of the sixteenth century to the advent of imperial colonialism in the late eighteen hundreds, the men and women of the central African kingdom of Kongo creatively mixed, merged, and redefined local and foreign visual forms, religious thought, and political concepts into the novel, coherent, but also constantly evolving worldview of Kongo Christianity. Sartorial practices and regalia in particular showcased the artful conversion of the realm under the impetus of its monarchs and aristocrats. In their clothing and insignia, the kingdom’s elite combined and recast foreign and local, old and new, material and emblems into heralds of Kongo Christian power, wealth, and, eventually history. I propose to use the concept of the space of correlation as a key to analyze these elaborate, and constantly evolving religious, political, and material transformations through an attentive focus on cultural objects such as clothing, hats, swords, and saint figures.

The article describes the goals, principles and different forms of the presentation of the cult of saints in the exhibitions of anti-religious and local history museums in the context of the ideological and cultural tasks of museum construction in the early 1930s. The issue of the presentation of icons and objects of church worship for anti-religious purposes was extremely acute: on the one hand, it was impossible to create an exposition about religion without exhibiting artifacts related to it, on the other, these artifacts were supposed to expose religion. After the campaign to uncover the “relics”, they were often exhibited in museums for anti-religious purposes, but this demonstration most often had the opposite effect. The article analyzes the materials of the discussion on the possibility of using icons and religious objects in anti-religious exhibitions. The author shows that during the period under study, the contradictions between the “anti-religious”, who considered interest in religious art as “grave aestheticism” that strengthened religion, and representatives of the so-called “culturalism” who tried to preserve and exhibit items of religious culture in museums. Particular attention is paid to studying the search for a “third way” in resolving the existing conflict between the classical principles of exhibiting religious art and the new so-called an “anti-religious” approach, which was based on the comparative study of religions and field anthropological research on popular religiosity. The main principles of this “third way”, focused on the preservation and display of items of religious culture, were the rejection of their pietistic interpretation, attention to formal art analysis, as well as Marxist historical, cultural and sociological analysis.

Abstract This essay presents a case study from Erfurt (Germany) concerning the production of shofarot (i.e., animal horns blown for ritual purposes, primarily on the Jewish New Year). By the early 1420s, Jews from all over the Holy Roman Empire had been purchasing shofarot from one Christian workshop in Erfurt that produced these ritual Jewish objects in cooperation with an unnamed Jewish craftsman. At the same time, two Jews from Erfurt were training in this craft, and started to produce shofarot of their own making. One of these Jewish craftsmen claimed that the Christian workshop had been deceiving the Jews for decades by providing improper shofarot made with materials unsuitable for Jewish ritual use. The local rabbi, Yomtov Lipman, exposed this as a scandal, writing letters to the German Jewish communities about the Christian workshop’s fraud and urging them all to buy new shofarot from the new Jewish craftsmen in Erfurt instead. This article will first examine the fraud attributed to the Christian workshop. Then, after analyzing the historical context of Yomtov Lipman’s letter, it will explore the underlying motivations of this rabbi to expose the Christian workshop’s fraud throughout German Jewish communities at this time. I will argue that, while Yomtov Lipman uses halakhic explanations in his letter, his chief motivation in exposing this fraud was to discredit the Christian workshop, create an artificial demand for shofarot, and promote the new Jewish workshop in Erfurt, whose craftsmen the rabbi himself had likely trained in the art of shofar making.

We are privileged to offer a summary of the massive campaign of excavation and survey conducted by the author and his team from Japan in northern Egypt and the neighbouring coast of Sinai. Over the last few years they have excavated a large sector of al-Fustat (the early Islamic settlement on the outskirts of modern Cairo), mapped the early Christian monastery at Wadi al-Tur (sixth–twelfth century AD), recorded early Islamic rock inscriptions on Mt Naqus eighth–twentieth century AD), mapped the port and mosque at Raya (originating in the sixth–twelfth or thirteenth century AD) and investigated on a large scale the fourteenth–twentieth-century sequence at al-Kilani (al-Tur). Among the objects unearthed at al-Kilani were 4000 fragments of manuscripts. The work is throwing new light on early Islam, its development of social and commercial networks, and its relation with Christian, Coptic and Byzantine cultures.

This note focuses on recent discussions on gemstone amulets from Late Antiquity through insights offered in two contributions to the volume Textual Amulets from Antiquity to Early Modern Times: The Shape of Words (Theis and Vitellozzi 2022). After a general presentation of the volume, I turn to the first two chapters, penned each by one of the volume’s editors. Paolo Vitellozzi’s paper examines the evolution of the textuality of magical gems in light of speech act theories and taxonomies elaborated in earlier secondary literature. Vitellozzi also analyses the complex interaction of medium (the gemstone), text and image in the course of this evolutionary process, showing how writing progressively assumed magical efficacy. In the following paper, Christoffer Theis analyses a specific category of magical gems, namely those which represent divinities with multiple heads. Theis’ observations implicitly complement Vitellozzi’s conclusions on the textuality of gemstone amulets. In the final paragraphs of this note, I briefly comment on Christian amulets and isopsephisms.

A unique gold finger ring, dated stylistically to c.ad 580–650, was discovered by metal-detecting in Essex in 2011. The ‘northwest Essex Anglo-Saxon ring’ is highly decorated with Style II art and shows a distinctive juxtaposition of ‘pagan’ and ‘Christian’ imagery including birds of prey and an anthropomorphic figure holding a long cross in the right hand, a raptor in the left. In this article, I consider the possibility that the object provides further evidence that falconry was practised in early Anglo-Saxon England. I begin by examining the finger ring itself and the imagery upon it, situating this within an Anglo-Saxon and broader Continental context. I then explore the possible social context of the ring, focusing on the ‘ideology of predation’ within which falconry, as a high-status hunting pursuit, may have been performed. Evaluating the hybrid ‘pagan’ and ‘Christian’ elements of the imagery, I suggest that falconry, and the ring itself as a high-status and possibly royal object, may have played important roles in the dynamics of pagan–Christian ‘discursive space’.

Statement of the problem. Christian Sinding is considered “the first after Grieg” at the Norwegian music olympus. He created more than 130 opuses of different genres of music. However, nowadays his works are rarely performed, particularly in Ukraine. Thus, the relevance of the topic of the article is due to the lack of domestic musicology systematic study of Sinding’s piano work as a component of European art. The study of the heritage of the “second star” of Norwegian culture is the overtask of modern musicology – to fill the “white spot” in the study of national piano schools in Western Europe, including Norway, and make the music of this composer recognized and demanded by young performers of the XXI century. The purpose of the article is to represent the individual compositional style of С. Sinding on the basis of his own authorial performance of the analyzed piano pieces. The material for this is the iconic piano works (op. 24, op. 25) of the early and mature periods of creativity, which highlight the style of thinking of the artist. The object of research isthepianostyle of the Norwegian composer Christian Sindingin the prism of European musical culture, the subject – pianominiatures of Sinding. The research methods are based on material that is little known for most of Ukrainian musicians, but belongs to the classical European heritage. Thus, the historical method reveals the dialectic of tradition and innovation in the process of formation of national and individual style in music; genre method – determines the hierarchy of general and specific in the organization of a musical work; stylistic – in addition to the principles of the artist’s thinking indicates the nationally defined features of creativity; performing-interpretive method – reflects the personal feeling of the “sound image” of the piano by the author of the article as the first interpreter of C. Sinding’s music in Ukraine. The results obtained. Generalization of the principles of stylistic thinking of Christian Sinding in the field of his piano work has not received a systematic presentation in existing scientific sources. Therefore, to reveal the relevance of the proposed research topic, we highlight the typical stylistic features and principles of piano work of C. Sinding in terms of its national and stylistic identity. The criterion was the elements of the “national musical language” (according to O. Kozarenko). As for the elements of musical language that affect the sound image of the piano, the work of C. Sinding is characterized by a late romantic paradigm: folklore basis of melody, orchestral richness of piano texture, richness of timbre palette with effects of instrumental sound imitation, complex harmony rhythmic organization, which combines folk dance and instrumental formulas and metric schemes of emphasis (regularity and irregularity). The principles of monotheism and leitmotif are also one of the means of expression of late romanticism as C. Sinding’s worldview paradigm, which certain genre-language tendencies of his piano thinking are concentrated in. Most of the plays have sound effects – imitation of the timbres of folk instruments popular in Norway, including hardingphele, harpsichord, violin. As a result, the levels of stylistic significance of individual elements of the musical language of the artist’s piano works constitute a model of individual compositional style as a reflection of the national mentality of the musical worldview. Prospects for further development of the topic. In the development of the develop edmethodology of analysis of national and musical language C. Sinding will study majorgenres of mature and lateperiods of piano work to sub stantiate the style of thinking of the artist in the paradigms of European culture of Romanticism and modernism of the early twentieth century.

The object of research in this article is the terminological apparatus that is being formed in the foreign and russian historiographical tradition, describing concepts related to the principle of typological parallelism of Covenants in Christian iconography. This principle is based on the doctrine of "Reconciliation of Testaments" (considering Old Testament events as prototypes of New Testament history) and underlies the organization of plots already in a number of monuments of early Christian art. In the era of the High Middle Ages, this principle became one of the fundamental in the iconography of monuments of painting, sculpture and decorative and applied art. The subject of the study was the process of adding up the generally accepted terminology in studies devoted to the iconographic technique in question. The article also raises the problem of correlation between terms used in foreign and domestic historiography. Based on the analysis of the addition of the terminological apparatus in research on Christian iconography, the article concludes that there is no unified system of terms in modern science, especially in the domestic one, to describe the extremely important and widespread phenomenon of Christian iconography – the reflection in the pictorial cycles of the principle of "Reconciliation of Covenants". Tracing the etymology of the concepts used, the author of the article clearly demonstrates the existing contradictions in the terms "type", "antithype" and "antithype", and also analyzes the difficulties that arise when translating these concepts into Russian. Based on this research, it becomes possible to offer the most correct and unambiguously interpreted terms. The relevance of the study is explained by the absence in the Russian research literature of a system of terms for the iconographic principle under consideration, as well as individual Old Testament subjects-prototypes and their New Testament analogies.

This article offers a retrospective on the last thirty years of scholarship on medieval mystics. After surveying some recent resources, such as Bernard McGinn's multivolume history, the Companions to Christian Mysticism, and the journal Spiritus, it discusses the varied approaches of late-twentieth and early-twenty-first century work, notably the material turn and the linguistic turn. The former, embracing studies of the body and gender, emotions and eroticism, art and material objects, reacts against earlier conceptions of mysticism as concerned exclusively with the timeless, invisible, and transcendent dimension of human existence. Feminist scholarship, queer theory, history of the emotions, and the study of visual culture have all figured prominently, while the relationship between mysticism and political activism is identified as an area ripe for further study. Complementing the material turn, the linguistic turn has brought new interest in apophatic theology in the wake of Derridean deconstruction, but also entails fresh work on vernacular mystics and the role of vernacularity in disseminating spiritual wisdom. The essay closes with an account of imaginative theology and a call for more reading across linguistic and disciplinary boundaries, as well as the artificial boundary between sacred and secular writing.

After the expeditions of wealthy merchants and Franciscan missionaries during the 14th century, the Chinese empire under Ming rule did not engage profusely with the European world, and vice versa. This period of artistic and intellectual silence and detachment was broken in the late 16th century when the Jesuit missionaries reconnected two worlds –Europe and China– reactivating previous medieval commercial, artistic, and intellectual routes. Silk –the product par excellence commercialized along the routes connecting China and Europe– was then accompanied by other precious products, including Chinese ceramics reaching various European courts and European paintings that reached the Ming court in Beijing. This paper addresses the complex and challenging popularization of Roman Catholicism through objects and images during the early modern era. In particular, it focuses on the diffusion of devotional images and objects used by Roman Catholic missionaries and the religious practices related to them.

Abstract As a contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Caroline Walker Bynum across the Disciplines,” this essay traces the origins and development of Bynum's interest in the material artifacts of late medieval Christian spirituality. The author narrates these evolutions through analyses of a single object, the Louvain beguine cradle from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The essay begins by treating Bynum's research from the 1980s to the early 1990s as moving toward a “visual theology” and then charts her movement from an interest in matter to an interest in materiality over the second half of the 1990s and first decade of the twenty-first century. Finally, the author uses the Louvain cradle's appearance in Bynum's most recent book, Dissimilar Similitudes, to articulate and reflect upon her contribution to material culture studies.

The article deals with investigating the resemblance between the kashkul shape from the collection of the Istanbul Museum of Islamic and Turkish Art and the Slavic type of longship. The specified item is now being kept in the exposition of the specified collection as an item of the Sefevidian era period of the early 17th century under the inventory number 2960. The typological analysis of its shape, peculiarities of the use of similar items in the Orthodox tradition of the Old Rus, Byzantium, separate countries of the Christian world and Scandinavia prove the closeness of this item to the shapes that were common in the Orthodox society. Analysis of the item decoration, the method of its manufacture allows us to assume the contribution of Islamic craftsmen, possibly Persian, to casting of this artefact. The study results are reduced to the basic hypothesis that the object designated in the exposition of the Istanbul Museum of Islamic and Turkish Art called kashkul (a bowl for the poor or a container for alms) has a shape of a golden longship that was in common use between the 10th and 14th centuries in the Kyivan Rus-Byzantine tradition.

AbstractExchange in the early Middle Ages has traditionally been studied from a ‘technological’, ‘economic’ or ‘socio-political’ perspective, and has examined such issues as transport practices, supply and demand, or the ways in which exchange helps to maintain and reproduce the socio-political order. A particular focus of research has been the significance of the exchange of prestige goods for the power of the king and the aristocracy. There has been almost no analysis to date of the complexity of the exchange system as a whole, which – together with the exchange of commodities and gifts – includes the keeping of objects. Nor have archaeologists paid much attention to the relationship between forms of exchange (and the norms and values associated with them) and the imaginary world from which ‘value’ is derived in exchange. In the early medieval Frankish world there seems to have been a close relationship between exchange and the imaginary Christian world. In this contribution, I will attempt to examine the relationship between exchange and the imaginary world in the early Middle Ages, and to demonstrate how the results can modify the picture we have of central places like Maastricht (an old centre) and Dorestad (one of the new emporia).

The problems of synthesis of religious art and literature in medieval culture are considered in the article. The nature of interactions of the artistic material and its text basis is investigated. Historical lore and the descriptions of the eyewitnesses of the Jesus Christ, the Mother of God, Apostles have been of a great significance at the early stages of icon painting images development. The period of iconography formation on the base of the evidences, memories and sacred texts has lasted till the 8th century. Gradually the icon is transformed into a peculiar sacred matrix, independent cult object, where the problem of historical similarity is replaced by reality, determined by the consent of Christian community. The necessity of comprehension with the help of faith and mind of what is reproduced by the sacred images – their spiritual, true idea – appears in the foreground. Starting from the 17th century Ukrainian masters gain knowledge of iconographic canons, technique of icon painting, theological admonitions and precepts from Herminia – a special reference book-teaching aid for the painters. The image of a certain saint, especially the physiognomic features, is described in them by words. Several descriptions of the saints’ appearance in their lifetime are also known. These are in particular the images of Saint Nicholas, kept in ancient synaxaria. According to the dogma on veneration of icons (adopted by the Second Council of Nicaea in 787), the inscription of the saint name is an integral attribute of the icon painting. It determines sameness between the image and its prototype. Inscriptions, signatures and accompanying texts are introduced consistently into ancient easel works, wall paintings and miniatures. The images of saints are applied to the faithful, showing them the opened books, unfolded scrolls. In the Old Ruthenian art the classical thematic structure of the saints’ life cycles, basing on the Byzantine hagiography, has been supplemented with plots of the actions of Kyiv recording. Sometimes in Ukrainian monuments the inscriptions are placed near the image, on the icon’s background. These are the so-called supplementary texts. The plots of the living icons have been connected with the written sources. The synthesis of written sources and artistic material is the most evident in the book miniature. Observation of convergence of the visual material and literature shows, that the experience of various arts isn’t transferred mechanically on the surface foreign for them, but is changed, transformed, adopted by art, which has perceived it and at the same time crystallizes the peculiarity of each of them.

This text deals with circumstances of the finding as well as with the art and iconographic characteristics of an interesting relief accidentally dug out in 1947, north-east from Visoko, in Central Bosnia. Field examination that followed afterwards determined that the relief once was a part of itinerary and interior decoration of a smaller building. Supposedly, this was a medieval tomb construction based on the fact that in a nearby environment there were several other unornamented tombstones as well as after the Cyrillic inscription which was probably carved on the relief afterwards. The afore mentioned inscription was, more frequently than the relief itself, an object of interest for researchers because it mentions two historical personalities, Nespina kaznac the Great and his kaznac sister Bjeloka. Naïve nature of the carving is a highly stressed feature of the relief (210 cm long, 106 cm high and 7-10 cm thick) which is especially noticeable on the displayed human form. Its body, apart from the protectivebelt wrapped around right arm and sharp tipped shoes, has no other clothing items displayed. The body is placed in a semi-profile while the head is shown en face. Its hands are of uneven length with its fists displayed on external sides so one gets an impression of a hunter with two left hands. This form of naïve display of human figure is the characteristic of theearly medieval period. Similarly, on a miniature from 9th century showing the transport of relics, a front porter in the scene has an awkward display of ”two right hands” of uneven length. Generally, this primitive stone-carving method of the relief from Visoko can also be recognized on the relief displaying Palm Sunday from Venice, on the marble panel from San Saba church in Rome and on the relief from Žrnovnica in Dalmatia. All of these examples we used to compare with, originate from 8th century.Due to its looks and contents of the carved motif including hunting scene, the relief from Malo Čajno was frequently identified with similar motifs on stećci. However, it is different from stećci, not only in its details but also in its complete artistic creation. The human form and the animals, displayed next to it, are carved with numerous details that do not exist on similardisplays on stećci. Hairy animals have their big grinned teeth stressed, dogs have leather collars and the hunter has a head with a precise display of hair and beard, facial details and a hairy neck. The entire composition is not as rigid as it is the case on stećci but rather very dynamic. The hunter is standing aside with his spear high up in the air, expecting an attackfrom the boar surrounded by three dogs. The wild beast already overpowered and threw under its feet one of the dogs, the another dog is charging energetically,while the third one is running away looking back to prevent being grabbed by the boar from the back. There is also some perspective in the whole performance because the running dog, carved in the secondplain above the hunter’s hands, is a bit smaller than the others. J. Kovačević is the only one who discussed art, iconographyand chronology of this relief. According to his opinion, this relief is created under the influence of the early Romanesque art of the western Europe, particularly following the monuments from eastern Adriatic coast where stylistically very similar reliefs,in the way they display the human form, can be found. This implicitly suggests the dating of this relief into 11th century. He also stated that the medieval panel from Malo Čajno is a chronological link between Late Antique displays and those that will numerously show up afterwards on late medieval stećci. Through the interpretation of iconographic content of the relief,he assumed that this is a very frequent ancient mythological and narrative motif whose interpretatio christiana lies in the early Christian and afterwards in the early Romanesque art. Symbolically, the hunter killing a boar is actually killing the devil or evil spirit which, according to gospels of Luke and Matthew, Christ forced into a body of a pig, staying there untilits disappearance through submerging in water. After J. Kovačević there were no more texts addressing this relief with more attention. In the past literature, it was the most frequently mentioned topic in the papers dealing with the art of the Bosnian Medieval tombstones and stećci. Afterwards, M. Wenzel mentioned it first and later it was used several timesby Š. Bešlagić who found the standpoint for his opinion in the hunting scene and the shape of the spear that hunter holds in his hands. According to my opinion the stone panel with hunting scene relief from the vicinity of Visoko, dueto its complexity in art form and the specific carving processing, cannot be linked to a single similar ornament on medieval and Late Medieval Bosnian tombstones. Those who tried to make a connection warn us that among numerous hunting displays onstećci, deer hunting scenes are prevalent, while boar hunting scenes are displayed eleven times. In that process dual analogies are stated because in all those reliefs from the Late Medieval period, the animals were carved in a schematic way which makes a boar recognizable only with a lot of imagination. However, on a stećak from Donja Zgošća near Kakanj, which israther impressive by its dimensions and ornaments,one hunting scene can be interpreted precisely like that, making it, in my opinion, a single such display made on stećci. The second indicator that was used to equalize the scene from the relief nearby Visoko with displays on stećci is a large spear that the hunter is holding in his hands. It is presumably a hunting spear that was in use during 14th and 15th century in Bosnia. Several similar spears were displayed on tombstones as well, but those items were significantly different from the one carved on our relief. It truly resembles the Early Medieval, Frankish spear with wings that was used inthe second half of the 8th and throughout the 9th century. Several pieces of weapons like that were found in Dalmatian outback, in Hercegovina and in southwestern Bosnia. Its shape and function are clearly indicated by tiny images in Carolingian church book sand reliefs from Europe of the period. Of special importance for our issue is an analogy to the relief from Žrnovnica nearby Split showing a horseman attacking a bear with almost identical spear. Until recently this monument was considered as an early Romanesque stone-carving, but thanks to further detailed art andiconographic analysis it was shown that it belongs to pre-Romanesque period; most likely second half of the 8th century. The displayed heads of the animals, the head of the boar especially, being very robust with semi-open jaws with long sharp teeth, could be used for chronological dating of the relief from Malo Čajno. Thanks to such outlook, in comparison to their bodies, they mostly resemble the augmented animal heads carved on the specimen of the early medieval stone furniture found in churches in cities in Dalmatia, Istria and northern Italy. The very motif of boar hunting, as previously noted, is taken from the repertoire of the ancient art. The sarcophagus with mythological theme of Meleager hunting a Calydonian boar from Solin (today in Archeological museum in Split) is one of the best displays of such a motif from prestigious Attic workshops. Several items from the Late Antiquity exemplify the use of this motif also in the early Christian period as previously mentioned by J. Kovačević.A relief with a narrative display of boar hunting from the portico of a cathedral in Civita Castellana is a very good early medieval analogy to the scene on the relief from vicinity of Visoko. On the monument from Lazio, the hunt is taking place in the forest and horsemen and infantry are participating. The boar surrounded by dogs is being attacked by one horseman with a spear with a small wings, the other one with a spear in his hand and a horn in his mouth is pursuingit, while two more infantry men, equipped in a similar fashion, are also taking part in the hunt. Those infantrymen are very similar to the hunter from Visokoincluding the presence of the naïve carving. Their legs are presented in profile, while torso and the heads areen face. Apart from that, they are carved in a similar fashion to the hunter from the relief in Bosnia withtheir thick triangular beards and long hair which in broad highlights is combed towards scalp. Display of perspective in superposition is also an interesting artanalogy which is present on both of the monuments. The relief from Cività Castellana is considered to beLangobardian legacy and is usually dated back to 8th century.The relief with the added Nespina kaznac’s inscription is specific for its carving method which is dominated by the use of serrated tools. Their use is not common in the Medieval Period and especially not on tombstones from the Late Medieval period including stećci, where there are no traces of it as well, as far as I know. On the other hand, such final processing of the stone surface is common in Roman period so we can assume that its use on our monument should be understood as antique and late antique tradition. Such carving technique was also applied to some other monuments in the area of today’s Bosnia. It involves bear head protomes which used to be arrangedin a sequence ornamenting the outer wall of apse of a palace within curtis in Breza, but also ram’s or moufflon’s head probably as a part of a capital from the same site. Clear marks of the serrated chisel and hammer indicate that these monuments should assumedlybe placed into approximately the same period. The building in Breza is differently dated and functionally explained. In my opinion it is not an old Christian church but a palace within early medieval land property. Almost all fragments that used to decorate the interior and exterior of the building in Breza are not the characteristic of the Christian iconography.This is especially reflected in the displays of animals like bear, moufflon or ram which would be more acceptable for more secular buildings like a palace or hunting lodge as a part of nobility residence of the Early Middle Ages. Earlier in the text we have tried to show that according to its artistic qualities and carving procedures the relief from Malo Čajno is verysimilar to the sculptures from Breza. Therefore, if we add its contents (narrative boar hunting scene) to those indicators, an assumption that it used to be a part of the same ambience does not seem too daring. Such an opinion is more justified if we know that those two localities are only few kilometers apart. Hence, I consider the relief with boar hunting scene from MaloČajno to be carved in the Early Middle Ages, roughly in the second half of the 8th century. I assume that it was once a part of ambience decoration in the interior of the palace or hunting lodge in Breza. Afterwards, in the following centuries of the Medieval Period, it was taken from there to the new position in Malo Čajno. At that moment it also got its new, funeral functionwhich is shown through successively carved Cyrillic inscription originating from 12th or 13th century. Such re-use of some early medieval monument was not uncommon because in medieval Bosnia, similar thing happened to the famous Kulin ban’s panelwhich was found nearby, in Biskupići.

Determined by its biblical origins, the birth of specifically Christian visual culture had to be given through overcoming the inevitable resistance of early church towards images. In order to find its stable place on late antique cultural scene, early byzantine art, thus, had to rely on support of religious and cultural patterns remote of magisterial artistic trends. Among those, contemporary theory recognizes as especially important: 1) cult of relics and 2) sealing practices. Crossing the possibility of theoretical definition of unique semiotic model standing behind those two cultural- religious practices with the fact that after iconoclasm byzantine art will be systematically distanced from both of them, this research attempts to explore the relation between iconophile theory and byzantine artistic production from a yet unexplored interpretative position. Hypothesis that category of indexical sign, as it is proposed by contemporary semiotics (based on Peircean legacy), can be used for extraction of this unique semiotic model is used here as a specific methodological tool for re-approach to both - 1) the pre-iconoclastic need for accentuating the indexical aspects of iconic images and 2) the mystery of post-iconoclastic radical distancing towards such a semiotic need. On the basis of such an integrated approach it is possible not only to search for more precise explanation of co-relations between artistic practices and contemporaneous (iconophile) theory, but to explain curious historical delay in application of this theoretic knowledge in artistic and liturgical realms, together with a late outburst of iconoclastic behaviour provoked by this very delay. Namely, one of the most prominent incarnations of pre-iconoclastic need for ?indexicalisation? of iconic medium, the mysterious Mandylion from Edessa, had very curious role in historical development of post-iconoclastic plastic arts in Byzantium. This specific object was miraculously and undividedly uniting both key indexical aspects of pre-iconoclastic cognitive settings in one icon - causally connected with the archetypehimself. However, exactly this kind of synthetic, relic-seal-image status turned out to be the specific semiotic stumbling stone in the process of application of iconophile theory in liturgical arts. This is why in XI century byzantine church decided to refrain Mandylion from public life for good and lock it in court chapel, under the protection of the emperor himself. As one of the most curious theological decisions of medieval Christianity, this extraordinary semiotic conversion was, actually, the final step in application of the most advanced achievements of the late iconophile theory, which was, at the same time, the first step in development of artistic system relaxed from the pressure of need for legalistic, causal validation of pictorial language.

This study aims to reinterpret Marianne Moore’s “The Buffalo” and “Nine Nectarines” from a Biblical perspective, unveiling her obscure poetic vision by repositioning her in the tradition of English poetry as a poet of a ‘line of vision’ including Sidney, Spenser, Milton, and Blake. Moore, well-known as one of the representative modernist poets alongside Pound and Eliot in the early 20th century, has long been recognized as a poet of the ‘line of wit,’ encompassing Donne, Dryden, and Pope, a viewpoint that Eliot advocated particularly fervently. However, considering the critical influence exerted by Blake on her identification as a poet, it becomes necessary to reconsider Moore as one of the visionary poets and analyze her work through the lens of the Bible. Just as the work of visionary poets can be understood through the great code of their art, the Bible, so can the work of Moore. Therefore, this paper attempts Biblical interpretations of Moore’s two poems “The Buffalo” and “Nine Nectarines,” which have been criticized from various perspectives, even to the extent of confusion and abstruseness. Both of them, which depict a wild Indian buffalo and nine wild nectarines as their respective poetic objects, are based on the Christian creationism, asserting that all of nature as ‘the work of God,’ reflects the invisible qualities of the Creator and His son, Christ. Firstly, “The Buffalo” praises not only the great power and prudent charity of the Creator but also the self-sacrificial service of Christ through the wild extinct Indian buffalo. Secondly, “Nine Nectarines” deals with such main themes of Christianity as immortality, faith, and the virtue of the Savior, through the main poetic images, nine wild nectarines as well as the ‘kylin.’ It is expected that this study will raise the significance of Biblical study in Moore’s poetry, expand the boundary of its interpretation, and delve into her profound poetic vision, which has not yet been clearly explored.

From 2018 on, the Nizhny Arkhyz Archaeological Expedition of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the National Research University Higher School of Economics, and the U. D. Aliev Karachay-Cherkessia State University has been conducting comprehensive interdisciplinary research at the ancient Nizhny Arkhyz (Republic of Karachay-Cherkessia), located on the site of a mediaeval town which was the capital of Western Alania from the tenth to early thirteen century. One of the main objects of the research is the tenth-century Middle Zelenchuk Church and its cemetery from the tenth to thirteen centuries. The works of the expedition resulted in the unique archaeological and paleoanthropological materials, particularly from all the burial assemblages that survived in the inner space of the church; these undoubtedly belonged to the representatives of the nobility of this mediaeval Christian polity. First time in the history of studying the capital of mediaeval Alania, the analysis of these materials by methods of archaeology, anthropology, and natural sciences complex provided an opportunity for a closer examination of the daily life of its population, the social, demographic, professional composition of various urban strata, and the private life of the residents of Nizhny Arkhyz. This article reflects the most striking results of researches of the social portrait of the secular elite of Western Alania, which concern the ethno-cultural composition of this social stratum of the urban population, the quality of its life, funeral traditions, and the reconstruction of individual episodes of the life of a representative of the tenth-century professional military class, who was honoured with the burial in one of the most venerated churches of Alania.

In the paper, the author reviews the most recent important archaeological discoveries with Dong Son bronze drums (Heger I) found from Highlands (Kontum, Gia Lai, DakLak, Lam Dong provinces), Southern Part of Central Vietnam (Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, Khanh Hoa provinces) and Southern Vietnam (Binh Dương, Binh Phuoc, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Ben Tre, Kien Giang provinces). The author points out “key sites” in the South Vietnam – the typical sites and artifacts most lively showing “the convergance of Indigenous - Exogenous culture” in ancient villages, workshops for metallurgy, cemeteries, treasures, etc., which are related to the Dong Son and other inhabitants of the protohistorical epoch in Vietnam and Southeast Asia and beyond. There are Cemeteries or Tresors which contained Bronze Dong Son drums (Heger I type), bronze halberds (Ko), Western Han mirrors, Indian Nephrite or Glass and Golden Ornaments – artifacts not only representing the multi-linear relationship of the owners of Southern Vietnam with other Asian centres, but also were considered to be the symbol of power, authority, potential of military and polical function, social ranks and they reflected the unpeaceful situation of the contemporary society. The author emphasizes the very appearance of these Dongson drums as shown with 2 subtypes of Bronze Drum Collections: Original Dong Son (Heger I) Bronze Drum Collection and Imitative Bronze Drum Collection which was created according to "Dongsonian Style" thousands of years ago. The author emphasizes the very early appearance of the “exogenous” elements of culture-technique-art-religion in Southern Vietnam, which were adapted or completely modified to match the knowledge and psychology, aesthetic needs, and “Indigenous” beliefs – especially clear in traditional funeral concept thousands of years ago, as shown with distinction in “chiefdom cemetery”. Finallly, the author generalized data related to Bronze metallurgy at the Southern Vietnam area and came to some following remarks: 1/ Nam Bo - Vietnam was the early centre of Bronze Metallurgy at the Mainland Asia in the Proto-history, with the technology of casting in sandstone moulds. 2/ This Bronze casting industry together with its copper and alloy materials probably came from “Native land of Dong Son culture” – the “Bronze Triangle” or “Bronze Quadrilateral”: Dong Son – Yunnan – Guangxi – Guangdong – Khorat. Through various ways: directly via the East Sea to the South of Vietnam or indirectly through roads – via Sa Huynh cultural area and Tay Nguyen (Highlands) along the Mekong River to the South of Vietnam in the end. 3/ However, the southern metallurgy had their “own features” that were considered “non-Dong Son” by the author. The big and sophisticated bronze products such as Dong Son drums (Heger I type) or Chinese halberd (Ko or halberd), Art figurines such as statues of a pangolin (Manis javanica) or Amulets, statues depicting a dog chasing another animal, etc. only appeared in the Early Iron Age. Apart from some exotic intact goods such as Dong Son drums from Son Tinh, Daglao, Ben Tre, Bu Dang etc. and Western Han mirrors from Binh Yen, Go Dua, Phu Chanh, Kem Nac, most of the bronze products in the Early Iron Age in the South of Vietnam were cast on site, with their own characteristics that were “non-Dong Son” and “non-Chinese”. 4/ According to the author, the large bronze object like Dong Son – styled drums or “Ko” appeared a lot here to the regalia expressing power of the Bigmen (the leaders) in the early historical period in the South of Vietnam and they were just replaced in the early Christian Era under the influence of Indian civilization – process by which French scholars call “Hinduism” and “Buddhism”.

The paper is dedicated to the earliest formative stages of Annunciation imagery. Although it was widely spread in the Middle Ages, only a few examples of the scene survive from the early Christian period. Judging by the existing material evidence, it can be argued that the image of the Annunciation acquired recognizable and fully-fledged form only in the fifth century. Early examples reveal distinct formative stages of the iconography and the gradual introduction of additional features, enriching the content and visual rendering of this highly significant visual theme. This paper analyzes the influence of Apocrypha, as well as of the early theological tradition, on the development of the Annunciation scene and reveals the importance of this material to the study of the cult of the Mother of God.

Abstract This essay examines the transformation of the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) into a global art histories museum. An analysis of the new Christian Art Gallery and its objects that date from the eighth through the twentieth century illuminates the ways in which the ACM engages with global art histories in a permanent gallery and not only through special exhibitions. This essay begins with a history of the ACM and its transition from a museum for the “ancestral cultures of Singapore” to one with a new mission focusing on multicultural Singapore and its connections to the wider world. Hence, taking a thematic approach, the ACM's new galleries question how museums generally display objects along national lines or regional boundaries. This essay also brings attention to the multiple mediums and functions of Christian art from both the geographical locations that usually are associated with Asian art and also from cultures that are rarely taught or exhibited, such as Timor-Leste, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. While showcasing the different moments that Christianity came to Asia, the museum also emphasizes the agencies of Asian artistic practitioners in those global encounters. Although appreciative of the ways in which the ACM's Christian Art Gallery reveal the various tensions within global art histories and break down hegemonic constructions of Christian art from Asia, this essay also offers a critique. Highlighting this unusual engagement with Christian art by an Asian art museum, the new gallery reveals that museums and exhibitions can add to the conversations on global art histories.

AbstractWhen surveying examples from Christian art of the third and fourth centuries, a viewer will invariably encounter the puzzling image of Jesus performing miracles holding a staff or wand. Theologians, art historians, and even the current pope have interpreted Christ’s miracle-working implement as a symbol denoting Jesus as a philosopher or a magician. However, the most reasonable explanation of the staff can be discovered by examining the only other two staff-bearers featured in the corpus of early Christian art: Moses and Peter. Miracles and the figures who wrought them were the primary currency of faith in late antiquity. Such an emphasis is readily apparent in early Christian texts. This article will demonstrate the emphasis on miracles in early Christian art by focusing on the peculiar iconographic feature of the staff. The staff in Christian art of the third and fourth centuries is not evocative of magic, philosophy, or any other non-Christian influence. Instead, the staff is meant to recall the miracle worker Moses and to characterize Jesus and Peter as the “New Moses” of the Christian faith.

The artist discusses with the author his early career and influences. Marclay explains his upbringing in Switzerland and his lack of familiarity with American mass culture, to which he credits his early experiments in art, music and performance using records. Marclay describes the evolution of his use of records and discusses other influences, such as art school and the New York club scene of the 1970s.

Early Christians understood that not every way to God is sound or elevating, that some forms of religion set our hearts on lesser goods, some teach us to honor and venerate improper objects, some abase rather than uplift.

The question of semantic connections between Early Christian funerary art and texts of Early Christian prayer for the dead – Ordo commendationis animae – remains controversial. Some scholars endorse the idea that iconographic programs of Roman catacombs and Early Christian sarcophagy can be traced back to the prayer. Others highlight the distinctions between them, emphasizing, that the oldest text of the Ordo commendationis animae cannot be dated earlier than the 4th century. Both the prayer and the funerary art embody the same themes of salvation and resurrection, often depicted through shared biblical heroes and narratives. Although there are inconsistencies between the biblical heroes mentioned in the prayer and the most popular characters and narratives in Early Christian art, the semantic parallels cannot be simply dismissed. This research seeks to uncover the origins of the prayer itself and propose liturgical sources that could have influenced regional traditions of Early Christian funerary iconography. Additionally, it hypothesizes explanations for the iconographic principles of several renowned Early Christian monuments.

The most ancient monuments of ancient Christian art were found in catacombs located outside the cities. The Christian catacombs were a complex plexus of underground narrow galleries with numerous niches where the coffins of martyrs and bishops were placed. These niches formed a kind of rectangular chambers, the walls and surfaces of which were decorated with images. Thus, early Christian art begins with catacomb paintings.

The usual conception of traditional Chinese art tends to forget the existence of a rich cultural legacy of Christian origin that has been reflected in the manufacture of ritual objects for the convert communities and European missionaries in China. Among the most used techniques, cloisonné stands out, with important liturgical or decorative pieces treasured by missionaries and collectors, many of them in Western museums today. This work tries to make an approximation to some of those ritual objects used by the Christian Chinese communities that reflect the great influence that the Western artistic models had in the conception of art as a result of the cultural hybridization between both worlds.

AbstractThe discovery of pawned objects in treasure troves attributed to Jews enables investigation of the use and understanding of these objects by Jews, especially regarding those of a more secular nature, i.e. objects that have little relationship to Jewish or Christian liturgy and that lack explicit Jewish or Christian religious iconography or inscriptions. One of these pawned objects is a girdle, which was found in a Jewish context in Erfurt. Through examining this girdle in the context of similar imagery in Jewish art, we see that Jews were not only exposed to such girdles but also were well aware of their symbolic meaning in noble love and romance.

In the recent years the East-Christian iconographical art works have been digitized providing a large volume of data. The need for effective classification, indexing and retrieval of iconography repositories was the motivation of the design and development of a systemized ontological structure for description of iconographical art objects. This paper presents the ontology of the East-Christian iconographical art, developed to provide content annotation in the Virtual encyclopedia of Bulgarian iconography multimedia digital library. The ontology’s main classes, relations, facts, rules, and problems appearing during the design and development are described. The paper also presents an application of the ontology for learning analysis on an iconography domain implemented during the SINUS project “Semantic Technologies for Web Services and Technology Enhanced Learning”.