Journal articles on the topic 'Gothic Altars'

The sacred architecture underwent transformations following the conversion of the Duchy of Pomerania to Protestantism in 1534. The scope and direction of changes in the forms of churches and Protestant chapels, as well as key elements of their furnishings, were the subjects of research and analysis. This encompassed structures constructed as Protestant places of worship, selected Gothic churches adapted for the new rite, and timber-framed churches built with post-and-beam construction techniques from 1534 until the end of the Griffin dynasty's rule. Due to sporadic alterations in the forms and structures of these objects, particular attention was paid to their design and details, including altars, pulpits, and baptismal fonts.

This article offers a stylistic analysis of the Marian altar from the church of the Redeemer and All Saints in Dobre Miasto in the voivodship of Warmia and Masuria. The altar was set up in 1426 as an altar for morning mass. It remains incomplete to this day: several Gothic figures were replaced by later pieces of sculpture, and the altar was provenance is also questionable of the centrally located sculpture of Mary and Child. The literature up to now has pointed out stylistic analogies with the altar in Pörschken (Nowo‑Moskowskoje), at present in the collection of the Castle Museum in Malbork, and with the altar from Sokolica (Falkenau), which is at present in the collection Museum of the Archdiocese of Warmia in Olsztyn. Stylistic analysis makes it possible to establish that the closest analogy to the Dobre Miasto altar is the altar from Pörschken, while the somewhat later retable from Sokolica has many features in common with the altar from Rauma (Finland), which was a Prussian export. It is, however, an open question as to the location of the Prussian provincial woodcarving workshop that probably produced the altars in Dobre Miasto and Pörschken, drawing on the at that time rather old‑fashioned tradition of figures of the Madonna on lions. The literaturę suggests Malbork or Gdańsk, but because of stylistic similarities to the Elbląg Apostolic College and the links of the Elbląg Rector Mikołaj Wulsack with Dobre Miasto, Elbląg, too, must be considered.

Summary Even though the Mithraic epiclesis SAECULARIS has been explained with a link to the Ludi SAECULARES of 248, we prefer to elucidate it with the relief that we can observe between the two altars consecrated to MYTRAE SAECULARI, in Housesteads, in the civil parish of Bardon Mill in Northumberland, England, south of Broomlee. Close to Hadrian's vallum, we can actually see a representation of Mithras, identified with Phanes, emerging from the cosmogonic egg with a zodiacal belt around him, lighting up the world. Concerning Jupiter (IOVI SEQULARI), moreover, on an Antoninianus of Claudius II “the Gothic”, this epiclesis expresses his responsibility for the kosmos in its cyclic eternity. Like Jupiter, Mithras is a sovereign of the universe.

Recent studies of churches of medieval origin in Estonia have shownthat these edifices have long histories of polychrome decorationboth before and after the Reformation. In this article, some aspectsof these colour schemes are discussed. Firstly, the question of thedecoration and redecoration of interiors during the Middle Ages isaddressed, secondly the authorship and technique of vernacularlookingmurals is discussed, and thirdly the geographical spreadof these decorations is analysed. In addition, post-medieval muralsare also examined.This article is based on fieldwork in Estonian medieval churchesconducted over a period of fifteen years by the staff and studentsof the Department of Conservation and Cultural Heritage at theEstonian Academy of Arts. Here mainly the results of work in thechurches at Koeru, Keila and Järva-Jaani is presented. Some otherchurches are also discussed for comparison.So far, medieval painted decoration has been found in around25 church interiors on the territory of present-day Estonia, i.e. inroughly a quarter of the medieval churches. Although the numberis not large, the finds allow us to draw some conclusions regardingthe spread of and networks behind these paintings.We can claim that as elsewhere in medieval (northern) Europe,medieval church interiors included at least some kind of painteddecoration. It seems likely that the first (and possibly in many casesthe only) colour scheme was provided by the builders. Especiallyin rural parishes, where no specialised guilds existed, it mighthave been difficult to employ professional painters, although notimpossible. Almost certainly the decoration was applied at the timeof plastering, when the mortar had not yet set and the scaffoldingwas still available.Historical records, surviving artworks and investigated interiorsdemonstrate that after the Reformation the Lutherans were less radical in transforming churches than were other Protestants: severalCatholic altar retables and statues were preserved, side altars werenot removed, etc. The churches were usually decorated with new,more modern murals and only whitewashed in many cases severalcenturies later.Gradually, church interiors became more monochrome, althoughnot necessarily white, something that has been associated with thespread of Pietistic ideas in the Lutheran church. However, the late 19thcentury brought a revival of colour to at least some churches. Thesecolourful, mainly Gothic revival interiors survived for only a shorttime and disappeared again when they were painted over everywhere.For example, in St Lawrence’s in Kuusalu, wall paintings dating fromthe period of the Gothic revival renovation of the medieval church(1899) were found and uncovered in 2021.

Three cinquecento polychrome wood-carved altars have been preserved on the island of Lopud near Dubrovnik, the most monumental of which is situated in the parish church of Our Lady of Šunj. Its retable was constructed to resemble a classical aedicule, with an intricately carved frame and a central figural depiction of the Assumption of the Virgin, complemented by a complex iconographic programme in the symmetrically arranged adjoining scenes. Filling the small cassettes of the predella are reliefs of the Annunciation and Christ as the Man of Sorrows, together with perspectively rendered narrative scenes of the Last Supper and the Washing of the Feet, while in the pediment is a frontal depiction of the Coronation of the Virgin by the Holy Trinity. In the narrow side wings between the columns and pilasters are four bas-reliefs of local patron saints depicted half-turned towards the central image, and thus achieving an overall plastic harmony for a demanding content. In terms of space, the main scene is well-developed through a pronounced sculptural modelling of the figures of the eleven apostles in the round, the most prominent of which is that of St Peter, placed in the foreground and turned to face the nave of the church, while the others are consumed by the miraculous assumption of the Virgin into heaven. She is followed high up by a pair of small angels and several tiny symbolical cherubim heads, all of which helps to achieve an extremely convincing religious scene. Its attractiveness is significantly heightened by the all’antica realism and pedantic Roman-inspired modelling which highlight the skill of a highly trained and talented master wood carver, which leaves no doubt that this is a special work of art, and indeed, the most beautiful carved wood retable in the east Adriatic which has survived to date. In this first complete study of the altar, the author traces historical records in which it is mentioned without the exact year of its creation, origin or carver being cited. He dispels the tradition that the altar was brought from England, supposedly from the Chapel of Henry VIII, and explains this tradition as having been based on the discovery of an alabaster altar, a typical product of late Gothic workshops at Nottingham, several examples of which exist in Dalmatia. From the seventeenth-century records, on the other hand, we learn that the altar in the church of the „Madonna del Sugni” (a vernacular Italo-Croatian transformation of the word Assunta) was dedicated in 1572. An examination of comparative material establishes that the altar’s compositional scheme draws upon altarpieces painted by Alvise Vivarini around 1480, while its morphological features find their closest parallel in the activities and mannerisms of the Venetian workshop of Paolo Campsa, who worked from the 1490s to the early 1550s, and who sold his works in the wide area under the government of La Serenissima. The Republic of Venice profited a great deal from this export, while its urban centre’s innumerable wooden altars disappeared following subsequent changes of fashion. A group of securely attributed works shows that Paolo Campsa frequently borrowed formulas and idioms from Venetian painters of the older generation; analogies with two of Vivarini’s altar paintings confirm that he repeated this technique on the Lopud altar, even though altars as complex as this are not found in the surviving oeuvre of this artist. An overview of the extremely numerous works attributed to this fecund wood carver has not led to a secure attribution of this scenically developed altar to his hand. However, an analytical observation points to significant similarities with individual figures considered by scholars of Renaissance wooden sculpture to be products of his workshop - more a factory, in fact - or of his circle which, without a doubt, Paolo stamped with his mark. Apart from the assumption that there are master wood carvers who have not been identified, or formally and clearly differentiated, who followed his teachings and mannerisms, this paper opens the possibility of locating more exactly the place of the altar’s creation. Since Campsa’s workshop was active even after his death, it can be assumed that the altar was made in the 1560s or 1570s, and that it was transported and assembled on the island of Lopud for its dedication of 1572. Furthermore, the author observes the meaning of the subsequent addition of the background, which was painted once the altar reached its destination; it shows a summarized depiction of the scenery of Lopud and a tiny settlement with a precisely and proportionately drawn sailing ship docked at the island’s bay. The background reveals that the nature of the work was votive and, by identifying the layers of local historical circumstance and by combining them with the relevant written sources, it can be connected to the activities of the distinguished ship owner Miho Pracat, the richest citizen of the Republic of Dubrovnik during the cinquecento. Two more wooden sculptures can be added to Miho Pracat’s donation to his home island: the figures of St Catherine and St Roch which were also made in Venice and which had originally belonged to a small altar of his family in the local church of St Francis, known from archival records. This altar was composed of an older polychrome triptych, now unfortunately lost, and which, together with a pair of side statues, formed a piece resembling a number of altarpieces from Paolo Campsa’s workshop. Thus, the analysis of these works of art reveals key components of visual culture, and a peculiar mosaic of sixteenth-century artistic production in a peripheral community of the small island of Lopud under the government of the Republic of Dubrovnik.

In the article, the author examines one of the most outstanding andproblematic periods in the art history of Tallinn as a Hanseatic city,which originated, on the one hand, in the Hanseatic tradition andthe medieval approach to Gothic transcendental realism, and onthe other, in the approach typical of the new art cities of Flanders,i.e. to see a reflection of the new illusory reality in the pictures. Acloser examination is made of two works of art imported to Tallinnin the late 15th century, i.e. the high altar in the Church of the HolySpirit by Bernt Notke and the altarpiece of Holy Mary, whichwas originally commissioned by the Brotherhood of Blackheadsfor the Dominican Monastery and is now in St Nicholas’ Church.Despite the differences in the iconography and style of the twoworks, their links to tradition and artistic geography, which in thisarticle are conditionally defined as the Hanse canon, are apparentin both of them.The methods and rules for classifying the transition from theMiddle Ages to the Modern Era were not critical nor exclusive.Rather they included a wide range of phenomena on the outskirtsof the major art centres starting from the clients and ending with the semantic significance of the picture, and the attributes that wereemployed to the individual experiences of the different masters,who were working together in the large workshops of Lübeck, andsomewhat later, in Bruges and Brussels.When ‘reading’ the Blackheads’ altar, a question arises of threedifferent styles, all of them were united by tradition and the waythat altars were produced in the large workshops for the extensiveart market that stretched from one end of the continent to the other,and even further from Lima to Narva. Under the supervision ofthe leading master and entrepreneur (Hans Memling?) two othermasters were working side by side in Bruges – Michel Sittow, whowas born in Tallinn, and the Master of the Legend of Saint Lucywere responsible for executing the task.In this article, the author has highlighted new points of reference,which on the one hand explain the complex issues of attributionof the Tallinn Blackheads’ altar, and on the other hand, placethe greatest opus in the Baltics in a broader context, where, inaddition to aesthetic ambitions, both the client and the workshopthat completed the order, played an extensive role. In this way,identifying a specific artist from among the others would usuallyremain a matter of discussion. Tallinn was a port and a wealthycommercial city at the foregates of the East where it took decadesfor the spirit of the Renaissance to penetrate and be assimilated.Instead of an unobstructed view we are offered uncertain andoften mixed values based on what we perceive through the veil ofsemantic research.

The article defines the role played by the architecture of a Gothic temple in the aspect of the synthesis of the cultural and liturgical image when it concerns the form of the cathedral’s facade, its floor plan culminated with the eastern choir and metaphysics where the light processed by stained glass in contact with the frame (stone skeleton) structure brings a symbiotic, symbolic image. The above-mentioned synthesis was interpreted specifically after the Council of Trent (1545-1563) by the demolition of the rood screens closing the Gothic choir in front of the nave of the lay faithful. The liturgical renewal with a visually open choir introduced the main altar at its culmination, obligatorily connected to the tabernacle, and additionally elevated by a retable. The article describes the interior of the Gothic choir after the Council of Trent, liturgically up to date with the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Then, it describes the renewed image of the Gothic choir after another, modern, liturgical renewal. By specifying a new presence of the altar and tabernacle after the Second Vatican Council in the church (currently defined as the domus ecclesiae), the article elucidates the validity of the architecture of the Gothic interior when it exists in accordance with the post-conciliar regulations and serves the purpose of building the community of faith.

Posthuman Gothic is one of the recent emerging areas of research in the twenty-first century. It explores the different ways in which Posthuman thoughts and ideologies conflate with Gothicism in all its contemporary variations. Primarily, the posthuman gothic concerns itself with the human beings’ technological, biomedical, and supernatural experiments with the human body and consciousness that alters the human identity into the posthuman. The possibility and capability of humans to alter the human identity into something other than human or into the ‘posthuman other’ create anxiety among humans. The humans’ fear of becoming the posthuman other or encounters with the posthuman other over the course of evolution is the nucleus or the driving mechanics of the posthuman gothic genre. The Posthuman Gothic fiction deals with the scientific, technological, as well as supernatural developments on cyborgs, android robots, bio-engineered transhumans, vampires, zombies, and Frankenstein monsters in a gothic setting that opens up a dystopian posthuman future or condition. Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad deals with the Frankenstein monster kind of posthuman that kills humans and poses a threat to human lives in a post-modern gothic setting. In this paper, the researchers try to highlight the dovetailing of the posthuman thoughts with the post-modern gothic setting and the posthuman monstrosity of the posthuman other, i.e a Frankenstein monster with multiple consciousness that threatens the human identity, lives, survival, and the very existence in Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad through the posthuman gothic lens.

Abstract With the revival of Gothic ecclesiastical architecture in nineteenth-century Britain, a cultural interest in church furnishings reignited alongside intellectual attention to their symbolic and emotive power. Rood screens, in particular, became both a symbolic and literal locus for the production of awe, mystery and revelation. The primitive interpretation of rood screens both exalted the object symbolically and allowed it to activate the spiritual senses by limiting physical sight to the altar, thus preserving the mysteries of the Eucharist. This essay considers how rood screen controversies during the mid-Victorian period unveil complex relationships between emotion, revelation and sight within Gothic Revival church interiors.

The article is a result of the research on continental European paintings in York Art Gallery, completed as a part of the project National Inventory of Continental European Paintings. Two late gothic panels, painted on both sides, contain the depictions of three saints in half-length on each side. Nowadays only one of these panels is still in York Art Gallery, as the other one was stolen and its current location remains unknown. It seems that the panels from York used to be the wings of predellas; however, presented research questions traditional assumption that they may be considered as the parts of predella of the Nuremberg St Catherine of Siena retable, as it seems impossible to fit them into the reconstruction that would be iconographically reasonable and suiting the eighteenth century descriptions. The altar of St Catherine of Siena was completed in 1464 by the workshop of Hans Pleydenwurff, to the St Catherine's Church of the Dominican Nuns' Convent in Nuremberg. The whole structure did not survive; only its wings (panels of the mid-opening and closed retable) are now in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg (GM137 and GM138 painted on both sides and GM139 and GM140 painted on one side) and in the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh NC, USA (one inner panel of the inner pair of this altar's wings, decorated with the full length depiction of St Leonard). York panels were for sure created around the same time (1460s) and by the same workshop. At least one of them used to be part of the altar dedicated to the Dominican church. However, the panels from York seem to have been prepared as the left wings of two different predellas; it even seems that they may not have originally been of the same size.

The Cathedral of St. Étienne at Bourges, which Ribault justly styles “un chef d'oeuvre gothique” (a Gothic masterpiece), did not escape the Huguenot depredations of 1562. Especially vulnerable to the pikes and pry-bars of the Reformers were the choir screen in front of the main altar, the north and south doorways commemorating respectively Mary in Majesty and Christ in Majesty, and several areas of the West facade: the jamb statues (whose subjects are currently unknown), the spandrel sculptures under the dado that celebrated events of the Christian scriptures and of the book of Genesis, and the five extensively carved tympana dedicated from right to left as one faces them:

The town of Kraśnik is one of the oldest of its kind in the Lublin region – archaeological researches confirmed that that in the XIII century in the same place existed a settlement with castle and a church. Municipal rights were granted to Krasnik in 1377, when town was ruled by Gorajski family. A brick church was founded by Teczynski family around 1448. Today this is reflected by the chancel build around the altar from Gothic bricks, to which in the next phases vestry and treasury has been constructed. In 1461 a n Canons Regular of the Lateran Order has been brought to Krasnik from Cracow. The Order extended the original structure and built a monastery. From stone blocks they erected main nave and church aisles and Gothic church was incorporated in the new form. Consecutive rebuilding continued in 1st half of XVI century (raising of church walls, new arches, Renaissance decorations, polychrome wall paintings, memorial chapels). After damages to the church caused by the wars with Sweden, it became a property of Zamoyski family, who rebuilt it in the Baroque style (new elevation copings, building of new chapel in which the foundation date remained – 1657). In the year of 1864 after the cessation of the Order, church has been taken under the control of Russian government. Damaged by fires it required renovations (front elevations, roof). In 1911 the last phase of modifications was recorded – extension to the clock tower. Church in Krasnik with its 600 years of history always attracted attention from architectural researchers and scientists. In 2007 renovation of front elevation commenced. Initial works on removing plaster revealed perfectly preserved stone blocks and details from the earliest phases of the construction (fragments of a Gothic arch, stone window framings, front walls). Conservatory and archaeological researches inside the church on the foundation, roof and elevation levels uncovered new architectural elements and therefore allowed to understand in more complete way the construction phases of the church. As the results of the research, a decision has been made to restore the Gothic form of the church (rarely found in Lublin region) and to expose the oldest brick front, stone contour with beautiful stepped facade, portal, high windows and architectural details from the II phase of construction. Research to reveal more about the history of church, monastery and the town itself continues along with reconstruction works.

Affirming himself during the postmodern period, it is as if sculptor Kuzma Kovačić never cared about the appearance of the new artistic trend. His oeuvre does not display any inclination, not even a rudimentary interest in postmodern compiling and referencing of historical sources. The age of fragmentary visual models creaed by the idea about the loss of cultural unity which attempted to construct itself on the shards of the broken ‘art-historical vase’ did not seem to touch him at all. On the other hand, Kovačić is not a follower of the preceding modernist period which emphasized the experimental nature of art, formal and analytical models where subject matter was identified with material and technique. It seems that in his case, the call of heritage and stories from the native region had outshone any interest in being part of the chronological succession of trends and generations. Grgo Gamulin once wrote that this sculptor ‘observes and forms the seasons, sea, stations of the Cross, sermons, epistles, evangelists and saints’. It seems that he is not so much looking towards what is new on the artistic horizon as towards what the home region of Hvar, the Mediterranean and Christianity have left imprinted on the millennial physiognomy of landscape and people. Kovačić wants to direct our attention to the context of culture and tradition, but also to the structure of surface, and in this, between the private and collective, the significant and insignificant, the intimate and public, he does not see any obstacle. Equally so, he does not make a difference between the traditional representational materials in sculpture and he extensively uses trivial everyday material: cotton, glass, sponge, resin, paper, cellophane, cardboard, plexi-glass, polyester, silver and gold leaves, sand, soil, polystyrene, nails, quicklime and light. The philosophy of Kovačić’s oeuvre convinces us that nothing in the world is so insignificant so as not to have a particular role in the grand scheme of things. Thus, behind proud structures of human vanity, behind large buildings, imperial residences, triumphal arches, but also in nondescript stones of human modesty one can find the hidden wisdom of eternity. For this reason, even when producing monumental works such as the doors of Hvar Cathedral, Kovačić does not indulge in the ceremonial pomp of the glorious past. Besides, he does not belong to those who reconstruct large building complexes, he is not attracted to the monuments of earthly powers and wonders of the world which aim at the sky which remains always equally distant. On the contrary, he is fond of the scratches on the wall, a clumsy record in stone, which resist the progress of time as if by a miracle, outliving many famous palaces and dilapidated temples by its perpetuity. It can even be said that these frail impressions which defy transience impress him more than the structures envisaged and created to last unchanged forever. The doors he made for Hvar Cathedral are a good example of this. They have nothing in common with the classic Gothic-Renaissance forms. Here, Kovačić seems to address deeper layers of traditional forms, and in compact and robust forms we recognize the early Christian manner, but also that of the folks people’s touching sentimentality (and piety) which did not care for the refined rules of elite culture.Neither did Kovačić lose his head by pleasing the snobbish politicians and the newly converted believers when he worked on the so-called tasks of national sovereignty, following the late 1990s change of government in Croatia. However, it can be noticed that he moved away from the works such as “Velegorki”, “Lo, the Sea is Sweating with Blood” (“Evo se more znoji krvavim znojem”) and “The Description Of the Origins of Croatian Sculpture” (“Opis početaka hrvatskog kiparstva”) to the lyrical realism evident in his depicting of popes, saints, the “Altar of the Homeland”, Christ, The Last Supper, Franjo Tuđman and Gojko Šušak. Of course, this does not mean that he has lost vitality and potency, nor that these works are bad, but simply that he took a turn towards a certain type of realism and depiction of figures, instead of representing them as signs and symbols, as he had done before the “renascence of national sovereignty”.One of the large public projects by Kuzma Kovačić was the “Altar of Croatian Homeland” on Medvedgrad. This project, executed during the presidency of Franjo Tuđman (1994), caused much public dispute, whether concerning the restoration of the feudal burg or the idea that altars without a liturgical purpose should be erected to the Homeland. However, it was generally accepted that Kuzma Kovačić’s sculptural complex was the best that happened to this lay sanctification of the place. In spite of the drawing on the geometry of Croatian chequers, with Medvedgrad Kovačić also showed that he is neither a minimalist nor a reductionist who distils forms into geometric purism. His geometry is narrative, his cubes and glass shapes contain the trace of human hand, stamps of the ages and symbolical signs. However, his projects, connected to state commissions, were criticised by parts of the general public, not because of their insufficient artistic merit and obsequiousness to political establishment and their doubtful taste (in particular that which likes to see itself as generating projects of national sovereignty and veers towards kitsch), but because of the political context which was causing hatred. The same happened to the monumental public statues of Franjo Tuđman and Gojko Šušak which were evaluated mostly in the overheated political sphere of opinions for or against the persons portrayed. Not many, not even the apologeticists of HDZ nomenclature, considered Kovačić’s sculptures and their form. Perhaps the best example is the statue of Dražen Petrović which, unlike those mentioned, had no political context and thus did not cause any controversy. In any case, it is certain that even when working on large public statues or in churches, Kovačić is equally successful in mastering the monumental form, and in the intimistic rendition of the miniature form which represents the majority of his oeuvre (and also the best). In doing so, the dimensions themselves (i.e. large scale) do not mean that Kovačić has given up on sculpture which is inherently intimistic, compact, non-representational and which directs its power towards the core, rather than expanding into external rhetoric.

By examining the historical narratives of Saint Catherine of Siena's death and burial this paper sheds new light on the liturgical layout of the Dominican church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome c. 1380. Since then Saint Catherine's remains have been translated five times, and at each translation, the form and decoration of her sepulchre has changed, showing how different aspects of her life were commemorated at each renewal of her tomb. These transformations are examined in the light of what survives today and of other literary documentation. Particular attention is given to the way Catherine was represented before and after her canonization in 1461. This explains why a relief attributed to Donatello that has been associated with her tomb may date c. 1430, while a figure of the saint by an artist close to Isaia of Pisa was made c. 1466. The paper also examines the consequences of placing the tomb under the altar of the Capranica chapel in 1579, and of moving the monument under the high altar of the church in 1855, when Santa Maria sopra Minerva was restored according to neo-Gothic principles. Each phase of her tomb shows how Catherine has been venerated from 1380 until the present.

On two occasions (around 1932–1933 and after the war, between 1946 and 1950), Stanisław Kolowca (1904–1968) undertook the task of creating the photographic documentation of the reredos of the altar of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Kraków (Poland). The stature of Wit Stwosz’s work – widely recognized as one of the key late Gothic masterpieces in Europe – could be the only factor legitimizing the status of Kolowca’s photographs. Nevertheless, the photographs seem to deserve a thorough analysis for other reasons as well. It should be underlined that in his project Kolowca did not focus only on the most obvious shots illustrating the altarpiece. In addition to long shots and full shots showing the characteristic iconographic motifs and portrait-type close-ups, reflecting the mastery of key figures (such as Virgin Mary or John the Baptist), the photographer also created completely unexpected compositions that go beyond the codified frames of documentary photography. Consequently, his works fundamentally problematize the concept of photographic reproduction of an art piece.

The article analyses armament presented in gothic art from the last quarter of 14th cen‑ tury and the beginning of 15th century in Teutonic Prussia, introducing late medieval visored bascinets. Among examined pieces of art are: no longer existing altar panels from the All Saints Chapel in St. Mary’s Basilica in Gdańsk; Poliptych of Grudziądz from the National Museum in Warsaw, lost Retabulum painting from Frombork and also lost Reliquary from Kwidzyn. Furthermore author of the article analyses a piece of gothic silversmithing from Gdańsk area, called ciborium. This particular piece originated from the John the Baptist Church in Chojnice and is currently stored in the treasury of Diocesan Museum in Pelplin. It has not been discussed by the armour experts so far. Examined images of pig faced bascinets and klappvisiers have quite a few analogies in the iconography of other countries in Central and Western Europe. Comparison with existing artefacts reveals much similarity when it comes to shapes with the helmets from the museum collections. During research author also analysed bascinets on two statues of St. George: first is located in St. Mary’s Basilica in Gdańsk (dated around 1400) and the other one is located in Stara Kościelnica in Malbork County. Main conclusion of the presented study on helmets is the realism of analysed images (despite some schematism, it also applies to the images from the All Saints Chapel in St. Mary’s Basilica in Gdańsk). Reviewed bascinets should be included to modern type and were commonly worn by the knights in the last quarter of the 14th century. There might be some doubts when it comes to the helmets depicted on the Reliquary from Kwidzyn, however after further research author includes bascinets with aventails to the early type of great bascinets (this also applies to the helmet shown on the statue of St. George in St. Mary’s Basilica in Gdańsk).

The paper shows the intermediate results of a research activity aimed at populating a library of reusable Historical Building Object Models (H-BOMs) by testing a full digital workflow that takes advantages from using Structure from Motion (SfM) models and is centered on the geometrical/stylistic/materic analysis of the architectural element (portal, window, altar). The aim is to find common (invariant) and uncommon (variant) features in terms of identification of architectural parts and their relationships, geometrical rules, dimensions and proportions, construction materials and measure units, in order to model archetypal shapes from which it is possible to derive all the style variations. At this regard, a set of 14^th - 16^th century gothic portals of the catalan-aragonese architecture in Etnean area of Eastern Sicily has been studied and used to assess the feasibility of the identified workflow.<br><br> This approach tries to answer the increasingly demand for guidelines and standards in the field of Cultural Heritage Conservation to create and manage semantic-aware 3D models able to include all the information (both geometrical and alphanumerical ones) concerning historical buildings and able to be reused in several projects.

A unique Gothic crucifix has been worshiped in the Wawel Royal Cathedral throughout centuries. The sculpture created in Bohemia or Hungary around 1380 was brought by Jadwiga of Poland (13741399) from Hungary to Poland, most likely in 1384. At the feet of Christ Crucified the monarch prayed for the gift of wisdom to rule the kingdom. The crucifix was placed in an altar in the Wawel Royal Cathedral and it has inspired a great devotion to the Crucified. After premature death of Jadwiga in 1399 the altar became a place of veneration of the monarch, which ever since has been lasting unceasingly. Due to the fact that prayers of the faithful through intercession of the queen at the crucifix were blessed by wonders it acquired great significance and started being called ‘miraculous’. Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, carrying out the function of the Metropolitan of Kraków, evoked the memory of Jadwiga in a particular way, encouraged her veneration and intensifi d efforts towards her canonization. He regarded the Crucifix of Jadwiga as ‘a place of the powerful testimony’. As pope John Paul II he canonized the queen during the Eucharist celebrated in Błonia Park in Krakow on the 8th of June 1997. The crucifix became a symbol of Polish history, spiritual heritage and deep faith of the Polish nation, what has been proved by the strong presence of this motif in fi arts. In the time of partitions of Poland Leon Wyczółkowski (1852-1936), an outstanding Polish artist and a teacher depicted it many times using a range of artistic techniques. A lively interest in a pastel ‘Crucifi of Jadwiga of Poland’ by Wyczółkowski auctioned in Kraków in 2019, which price went from 35 000 PLN (starting price) to 54 000 PLN (hammer price) after emotional bidding reveals how profound is its signifi to the Polish nation nowadays.

Introduction. The article presents two unique items from the Southwestern Crimea – a bronze finger ring with an image of a lion-headed serpent Chnoubis, originating from a female burial of the first quarter of the 7 th century of the Gothic-Alanian burial ground near the village of Luchistoye, and a bronze medallion, which was found in the area of the village of Goncharnoye, with magic signs, formulas and an image of Chnoubis, which is tied to an altar, fighting a snake. Methods. According to some similar findings from the territory of the Eastern Roman Empire, the ring and the medallion are attributed to the group of Byzantine medical amulets. The amulets of the Early Byzantine time demonstrate continuity with pre-Christian magical practices, therefore, late ancient magical gems and texts were involved to decipher the plots and inscriptions engraved on those amulets. Analysis. The finger ring was intended to improve digestion and to treat diseases of a digestive tract. The woman who owned the item was wearing it in a chest necklace, at the level of her stomach – just as it was recommended in medical treatises to wear amulets for abdominal pain. The medallion was a complex amulet intended for women. Chnoubis in the scene of fighting the snake and the spell ÐÉÍÏ are depicted on both sides of the medallion. In one case, Chnoubis is a guardian of a stomach and a fighter against diseases of the digestive tract, whose actions are enhanced by the three times repeated spell ÐÉÍÏ, which contributes to better digestion. In the second case, Chnoubis is a defender of women’s health, and the disappearing word ÐÉÍÏ should help stop pathological uterine bleeding. The action of the amulet is enhanced by a formula against demons that cause disease, and its healing properties are confirmed by the inscription ÕÃÉÁ (health). Such an amulet should be worn suspended from the neck by a long cord, or fastened to the belt. Results. Both items belong to the group of medical magic amulets. They were brought from the Eastern Mediterranean provinces of the Empire, where in the 6th – 7th centuries there were magic amulets similar in form and repertoire of protective means. The appearance of such items among the Gothic-Alanian population of the Southwestern Crimea is not surprising. The influence of the Byzantine civilization on all aspects of the life of the local population in the Early Middle Ages can be traced both from written sources and from numerous archaeological findings.

Semantic and spatial changes in the options for using daylight compared to tradition are presented, based on the analysis of the architectural solutions applied in a number of modern Christian churches. According to popular belief, sunlight is used in most modern temples only as an architectural technique proving the skill of an architect, and as a means of interior decoration. The study showed that behind the abstract modern methods of illumination a temple, there is a deep connection with the earlier cultural tradition. Sunlight was one of the key means used for decorating interiors of Christian churches. The light pouring from windows of the dome drum or cutting through the twilight of the extended naves, highlighting an apse with the altar, or emphasizing the beauty of the sculpture, was the conductor of the Divine on earth. The quintessence of the presentation of “divine light” in architecture, which clearly shows the connection between God and man, are the Gothic monuments. From the end of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century, temple architecture was rapidly changing. Renowned innovator architects of the 20th century offered their own vision of a modern temple. The extreme degree of individualization of the new objects of cult was based on a common principle: the rejection of the symbolic language traditional for Christianity. The architects were not tied to metaphors and images of biblical subjects. They boldly changed both the external appearance of a temple and the construction of its internal space, hence, its system of daylighting. Traditionally, sunlight was the semantic filling of the temple space. As a result of the present study, it has been shown that in the newest Christian churches, daylighting techniques, in their essence, replace the pictorial filling of the temple space with religious content. At the same time, the same techniques function as a modern interpretation for a number of traditional architectural methods used for lighting design of the temple space. By the examples of the works by Studio Zermani e Associati, Mark Cavagnero Associates, Vicens + Ramos, Königs architekten, modern interpretation versions for the themes of retablo, glowing cross, highlighting the altar space, and illumination of gilded surfaces are shown, and the upper and side illumination features of the newest temples are revealed.

The Museum of Applied Arts (Iparművészeti Múzeum) at Budapest houses an embroidered Gothic antependium which belonged to the church of St Chrysogonus, which was the seat of the Benedictine Abbey at Zadar. At an unspecified time, the antependium became part of the collection of Zsigmund Bubics, an art historian, collector and the bishop of Košice in present-day Slovakia from 1887 to 1906, and was donated to the Museum of Applied Arts in 1909. It measures 94 by 190 cm. The majority of the antependium’s surface is filled with the figures of saints set beneath three pointed, Gothic arches. The central field is occupied by the enthroned Virgin with the Christ Child, in the left field is St Chrysogonus and in the right St Benedict. In the upper section of the antependium one can see the busts of two saints who might be identified as St Gregory the Pope and St Donatus. Along the lateral edges of this triptych-like antependium are vertical borders, at the centres of which are niches with two small standing female saints who wear crowns (St Scholastica and St Anastasia). To the left of the Virgin’s throne is the figure of a donor depicted kneeling with his hands clasped in prayer, which has unfortunately not been provided with an inscription. It is clear, however, that he is wearing the Benedictine habit with a somewhat over-emphasized hood falling down his back. The Benedictine donor might be identified as one of the abbots of the monastery of St Chrysogonus. It is suggested in the article that this may have been John de Ontiaco (Joannes de Onciache) from the bishopric of Lyon, who was the abbot of the monastery of St Chrysogonus from 1345 to 1377. The author argues that the antependium was produced in a weaving workshop in Venice during the late 1360s or early 1370s, on the basis of comparisons with similar contemporary painted and embroidered artworks. Based on the iconographic programme which was depicted on the antependium, but also on the information found in archival records, the author proposes that the antependium was made for the altar of St Chrysogonus which stood in the north apse of the abbey church. Although it has not been established when the antependium left Zadar, based on the similarities between the crimson satin fabric, which replaced the original surface on which the embroidery was applied, on the antependium from the Church of St Mary at Zadar, and the antependium from the Church of St Chrysogonus, it is stated that both interventions were made in the Benedictine Convent of St Mary at Zadar during a short period of time in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. This is also understood as evidence that at that time the antependium from the Church of St Chrysogonus was still being carefully kept at Zadar.

Lewis Gilbertson (1815–1896) was one of the most prominent Anglo-Catholic clergy of St David's' diocese. He became the first incumbent of the new church at Llangorwen just outside Aberystwyth, built by Matthew Davies Williams, eldest brother of the Tractarian poet Isaac Williams (1802–65). Gilbertson adopted ritualist practices and Tractarian theology, which later influenced the church he was to build in Elerch (also known as Bont Goch) where his father, William Cobb Gilbertson (1768–1854), had built his house in 1818. After a brief survey of the development of Tractarianism in Wales, the paper discusses the building of the church at Llangorwen, which had the first stone altar since the Reformation in the Diocese of St David's, before discussing Gibertson's ministry in the parish. From Llangorwen Gilbertson moved to Jesus College, Oxford where he served as vice-principal and where he became increasingly convinced of the need for a new church and parish for his home village. He had earlier built a National School in 1856 commissioning the well-known Gothic revival architect G. E. Street. For St Peter's church, completed in 1868, he turned to William Butterfield, who had built the Tractarian model church of All Saints', Margaret Street in London. Gilbertson, who appointed himself as first incumbent for a brief period, set the ritualist tone of the parish while at the same time ensuring regular Welsh-language services to attract villagers from what he called the 'broken shadow of practices of the primitive Church' of the Welsh Methodists. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of Gilbertson's later career before assessing the impact of Tractarianism in west Wales, especially the confident and idealistic vision of a return to the apostolic faith for all the people of Wales on which it was established.

The article analyses Akatyst ku czci Bogurodzicy [Akathist to the Mother of God], which, together with the accompanying icon, was one of the important components of the Marian Orthodox cult, whose influence went beyond the Orthodox Church, affecting among others also Polish lands. The aim of the article is not to develop a monograph on this phenomenon, but, focusing on the recognition of its complex media characteristics, to study various forms of its performance and to pay special attention to the performativity aspect. The purpose of this characterization is to bring out the complex functions that the Akathist performed, serving the purposes of memory – having also a heterogeneous character, realised in various ways and playing different roles. The analysis encompasses selected research fields – history of literature, religion and culture from the perspective of changes in the media of words, as well as art history.The second part of the article shows analogous phenomena in the Polish Marian song and traces its relations to the Akhatist to the Mother of God. In particular, the analysis focuses on the song O przenasławniejsza panno czysta... The structure of the akhatist icon was reflected in the Gothic altar stands in Lesser Poland, in which the image of the Virgin Mary of the type of Madonna Piekarska was centrally placed, surrounded by other representations.The key concept for the article is the litany tradition, which is understood here broadly, i.e. including specific language formulas, the communication strategy, issues of presence, mnemonic formulas, the ideas of spatial relations, movement and performance. In conclusion, the article attempts to define the multi-aspectual character of this phenomenon, with particular focus on the dynamics of this tradition, the need to act and recall using memory.

Показано решение проблемы традиционности и исключительности образно-символического строя православного храмового зодчества на примере церкви во имя свт. Николая Чудотворца Свято-Троицкого монастыря Иркутской епархии, построенной городе Киренске в XVIII веке. Использован методологический прием Ж. Баше поиска закономерного и единичного, который он применил к анализу средневекового изобразительного искусства. Впервые предложен реляционный подход по отношению к архитектуре, подразумевающий выявление типологического класса здания, поиск аналогов или истоков образа сооружения, согласующихся с его типом. Обращено внимание на локализацию, распространенность, конкретизацию воплощения особенностей здания. Установлено, что изучаемую церковь можно охарактеризовать как деревянную ярусную трехчастную надвратную монастырскую, но прямого аналога церкви нет. Архитектура Киренской церкви имеет черты, присущие деревянным трехчастным, трехчастным ярусным и надвратным монастырским церквям, отличаясь своеобразием объемно-планировочного решения. Семантика Киренской церкви связана с ее принадлежностью к надвратным монастырским храмам, которые являются границей между освященным пространством монастыря и профанной округи. В ее ярусных формах усматривается уподобление образу Небесного Иерусалима, а посвящение престола свт. Николаю имеет защитную символику в широком смысле. Облик изучаемой церкви приближен к оборонным сооружениям, таким как башни сибирских острогов и европейские замки. Ряд признаков позволяет допустить сходство форм церкви с барочной украинской архитектурой, петровским барокко, готической архитектурой России и Карпатского региона. К традиционным особенностям церкви можно отнести выполнение литургических требований: трехчастность; семантику, включающую символику посвящения престола, защитную функцию, воплощение образа Небесного Иерусалима, обращение к историческому прошлому; использование известных материалов, конструкций и форм. Традиционность в архитектуре церкви связана с сакральными и базовыми строительными приемами, а исключительность – с визуальной составляющей архитектуры (пропорциями, метрологией, трактовкой форм и конструкций). Сделан вывод, что критерием традиционности церковной архитектуры является распространенность форм, символов, образов храмов на какой-либо территории в определенную эпоху благодаря предпочтениям выбора сочетаний конструкций и семантики. Исключительность дает вариабельность форм, что позволяет создавать оригинальный образный строй. Традиционность русской православной архитектуры заключена в возможности вариаций, что укладывается в рамки установлений, отмеченных в священных книгах, где границы канона жестко не очерчены. В архитектуре изучаемой церкви сочетаются черты традиционности и исключительности, она является редким образцом православного храмового зодчества, ее образный строй не был поддержан в дальнейшем развитии сибирской архитектуры. The essay reports how the solution to the problem of the traditionality and exclusivity of the image and symbol structure of the Orthodox church architecture is shown using the example of a church in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker of the Holy Trinity Monastery of Irkutsk Eparchy, built in Kirensk in the 18th century. Jérôme Baschet’s methodological technique of searching for the traditional and the exceptional, which he applied to the analysis of medieval art, was used. For the first time, a relational approach is proposed in the study of architecture, implying the identification of the typological class of a building, the search for analogs or sources of the image of its structure. Attention is focused on issues of localization, prevalence, concretization of the embodiment of the building’s features. It has been established that the church can be characterized as a wooden tiered three-part gate monastery church, but there is no direct analogue of the church. The architecture of the Kirensk church has some features inherent in wooden three-part, three-part tiered, and gate monastery churches; it has an original volumetric planning solution. The semantics of the church is associated with its belonging to gate monastery temples, which are the border between the consecrated space of the monastery and the profane neighborhood. In its tiered forms, one sees an analogy to Heavenly Jerusalem, and the altar dedicated to St. Nicholas has a protective symbolism in a broad sense. The appearance of the church is similar to defensive structures, such as the towers of the Siberian fortresses and European castles. Several signs allow admitting the similarity of the forms of the church with Ukrainian baroque architecture, Petrine baroque, Gothic architecture of Russia and the Carpathian region. The traditional features of the church include the fulfillment of liturgical requirements – three parts; semantics, including the symbolism of the consecration of the altar, the protective function, the embodiment of the image of Heavenly Jerusalem, an appeal to the historical past; use of well-known materials, designs, and shapes. Traditionality in church architecture is associated with the sacred sphere and basic building techniques, and exclusivity with the visual component of architecture (proportions, metrology, interpretation of forms and structures). It is concluded that the criterion for the traditionality of church architecture is the prevalence of forms, symbols, images of temples in any territory in a certain era due to the preference for choosing combinations of structures and semantics. Exclusivity is provided by the variability of forms, which allows creating an original image system. The very possibility of variations, the use of new and individual techniques, the author’s reading of the building’s features, which fits into the framework of the regulations noted in the sacred books where the boundaries of the canon were not strictly delineated, can be attributed to the important features of the traditionality of Russian Orthodox architecture. The architecture of the Kirensk church combines the features of traditionality and exclusivity; it is a rare example of Orthodox church architecture, its figurative structure was not supported in the further development of Siberian architecture.

The Church of St. Stephan, in this paper, belonged to a medieval residential complex above the confluence of the River Piva and the River Tara, in the extreme northeast of the present-day Republic of Montenegro. The central part of the complex consisted of Soko-grad, a castle with the court of the prominent, aristocratic, Kosaca family, which, at the end of the 14th century, right until the Turkish conquests in the sixties and seventies of the 15th century, ruled the regions later known as Hercegovina. At the foot of the castle, on Scepan polje, is the suburb with the Church of St. Stephan the endowment of the grand duke, Sandalj Hranic (+1345). At the foot of the northern slope, beneath the castle, in the area of Zagradja, is another church erected by the grand duke's successor, Herzeg Stefan Vukcic Kosaca (+1465). After the Turkish conquest, the complex of the Soko castle with its suburb was destroyed and the churches became deserted and were never renewed. The ruins of St. Stephan were discovered, investigated and then conserved from 1971-973, however, the results of this research have not been published until now. In reviewing the results obtained in the course of the archaeological excavations, it is possible, in a considerable measure, to comprehend the position and former appearance of the Church of St. Stephan and establish roughly, the time when it came into being. This was the largest church erected in the regions governed by the powerful, Kosaca noble family, during the 15th century. The total length of the church exceeded 25 metres and its width was approximately ten metres. In the preserved body of the construction, of which the remaining walls rise to a height of four metres one may see three basic stages of building. A narthex was later erected beside the church, and subsequently a small parakklesion was added, on the northern side. The original church had a single nave, a cruciform base and a gently, horseshoe-shaped apsis, facing east, flanked by rectangular choirs. The interior of the church, with two pairs of small pilasters, was articulated in three bays of almost equal dimensions. The altar, encompassing the apsis and the eastern bay, was separated from the naos by a constructed altar partition-wall, the essential appearance of which can be assumed on the basis of whatever was found. The entire surface of the constructed iconostasis was covered with frescoes. The floor of the naos was a step lower than the floor of the altar. Flooring made of mortar, like in the altar area also existed in the choirs. As opposed to these spaces, in the central and western bays, the floor was made of large, hewn stone slabs. The finds discovered in the debris, offered an abundance of data about the upper, now collapsed, structures of the church, and about the stonemasonry that decorated this building. The church did not have a dome but all three bays were topped by a single vault of carved calcareous stone, reinforced by two arches, resting on the pilasters. We may assume that the roof structure was of the Gothic type, and ribbed at the base. Above the choirs were lower semi-spherical vaults, perpendicular in relation to the longitudinal axis of the church. They were covered by gabled roofs that ended in triangular frontons on the northern and southern fa?ade, like the main vault on the eastern side above the altar apsis. The roof of the church was made of lead. A belfry, of unique construction, existed on the western side of the original church. It stood about one meter in front of the western wall and was linked by a vaulted passage to the main body of the building. All these parts were structurally inter-connected, indicating that they were built at the same time. The position and appearance of the original church windows can almost certainly be determined according to the preserved traces on the remaining sections of the walls, and the finds of the relevant stonemasonry. In the interior of the naos, along the southern wall of the western bay was the grave of the donor of the church of St. Stephan, Grand Duke Sandalj Hranic. This was the traditional position where the donor was buried, according to the custom or rather, the rule that had been practiced for centuries in the countries of the Byzantine Orthodox Christian world, and particularly in the Serbian lands. The duke's grave, marked by a stele in the form of a massive low coffin on a pedestal, was prepared while the church was being built given that it would have been impossible to install this large monolith that weighed approximately 2.5 tons in the church, later. Generally speaking, the donor's grave in the church of St. Stephan, is eloquent testimony of the donor's aspirations and beliefs. Besides the undoubtedly local feature of a funerary monument in the form of a stele, all its other characteristics emulate earlier models from the region of the Serbian lands. In front of the original church, at a later stage, which apparently followed soon after, a spacious narthex with a rectangular base was added on. Pylons of the belfry substructure were fitted into its eastern wall, which seems to have made that wall much thicker than the other walls of the narthex. This later erected narthex was not vaulted, which we concluded after analysing the preserved walls and the finds in the debris. Apparently, it had a flat ceiling construction, supported by massive beams that rested on consoles along the length of the northern and southern walls. The side entrances when the narthex was built were of the same dimensions as its western portal. However later, before installing the stone doorposts, both these entrances were narrowed down on their western, lateral sides, while the southern portal, in a later phase, was completely walled up. In the course of exploration, no reliable data was discovered regarding the position of the windows in the narthex. One can only assume that monophoric windows existed on the lateral walls, one or two on each side, similar to the monophores in the western bay. Apart from the narthex, another, later construction was observed next to the original church. On its northern side, along the western bay and the lateral side of the choir, a parakklesion, that is, a small funerary chapel was added on, in the middle of which a large stele once stood, of which now only fragments exist. The entire interior of the church of St. Stephan was deco-rated with frescoes. Rather small fragments of the wall painting were discovered in the debris, not only of the original church but also of the narthex, as well as of the northern funerary chapel. It was observed that they were all of the same quality, painted on mortar of a uniform texture which suggests that all the painting was done as soon as the additional buildings were finished. On the discovered fragments, one can recognise the dark blue back-ground of the former compositions, and the borders painted in cynober. On several fragments, there were preserved sections of or whole letters from Serbian Cyrillic texts. On several fragments that may have originated from the aureoles or parts of robes, traces of gold leaf were visible, which would indicate the splendour and representativeness of the frescoes that decorated the endowment of the grand duke, Sandalj Hranic. With the shape of the foundation of a single-nave church, divided into three bays and with rectangular choir spaces, the church of St. Stephan continued the tradition of the early Rascia school of Serbian architecture (13th beginning of 14th century), which represented a significant novelty at the time when it appeared. In Serbia, in the last decades of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century, the predominant plan of the churches, the triconche, was based on the Holy Mount models. The decision by the donor, the grand duke Sandalj, to give his endowment the features of the earlier, Rascia heritage, in the times when the Serbian territories had been broken up and were exposed to pressure from external enemies, undoubtedly had a deeper significance. By relying on the earlier tradition, which is also reflected in the dedication of the church to St. Stephan, the patron saint of the state and of the Nemanjic dynasty, the donor expressed the aspiration to consolidate his authority more firmly in the regions that had previously formed part of the Serbian state. By erecting an endowment, and a funerary church that he wished to be his eternal resting-place, Sandalj was also demonstrating that he ranked among his predecessors, the Serbian rulers and nobility. One can see this from the choice of the traditional burial position, along the southern wall of the western bay, as well as from the tomb he had prepared for himself during his lifetime. Apart from the basic idea and plan of the church based on the Rascia tradition, the features of its architecture also exhibit other influences. Of crucial importance here was the choice of builders, who undoubtedly came from the coastal area, which is reflected both in the structural solutions, as well as in the decorative stonework. However, local master-craftsman undoubtedly took part in this achievement. One can see this particularly when observing the stonework which, besides some admittedly rather rare, better-carved pieces, consists of a great deal of carving by less experienced artisans. The assumptions about the origin of the architecture and the builders are substantiated by observing the preserved traces of the frescoes, which show that the decoration of St. Stephan's and the adjacent narthex was also entrusted to one of the coastal painters. Perhaps it was the well-known Dubrovnik painter Dzivan Ugrinovic, who is known to have been commissioned by the grand duke Sandalj in 1429. There is no direct or reliable record of the date when the endowment of the grand duke Sandalj Hranic or its later annexes were built. The stylistic analysis of the stonework makes it possible only roughly to attribute it to the first half of the 15th century. The year 1435 provides a slightly narrower span of time, which is the time of Sandalj's funeral, when it would appear that the church of St. Stephan was already finished. The data mentioned earlier regarding the engagement of builders from Dubrovnik and the possible later decoration, enables us to date it more exactly. Therefore, we may assume that the church itself was erected before the end of the second decade of the 15Lj century. The additional construction of the narthex may have followed soon after the completion of the church itself, as indicated by the stylistically uniform stonework. If we accept the possibility that the church was decorated at the end of the third decade of the 15S century, and that this was finished both in the church and the narthex at the same time the year 1429 would be the terminus ante quem for the completion of the additional construction. The Kosaca endowment, erected beside the Soko castle, offers new evidence about this prominent, noble or ruling family, and particularly about their religious affiliation. Historians, almost as a rule consider the Kosaca family to have been Bogumils, or people whose religious convictions were not particularly firm. Such views were based on the fact that Sandalj Hranic, the grand duke of Rusaga Bosanskog (of the Bosnian kingdom) and his successor, the duke and subsequently the herzeg, Stefan Vukcic, were tolerant towards the Bogumils and were often surrounded by people who upheld such religious beliefs, which was the political reality of the times in which they lived and functioned. On the other hand, the enemies of the Kosaca family made use of this to depict them to the Western and Eastern Christians as heretics, which was not without consequences. The distorted view of their religious conviction not only accompanied them during their lifetime but persists even today, not only in historiography but in present-day politics, as well, particularly after the recent wars in ex-Yugoslavia. The origin of the Kosaca family is connected with the region of the Upper Drina, that is to say, the region that had always been a part of the Nemanjic state, where there were no Bogumils, nor could there be. As owners of part of what had always been the Serbian lands, which went to Bosnia after the tragic division between Ban Tvrtko and Prince Lazar, the consequences of which are still felt today, the Kosaca very soon became independent rulers of this territory, forming a specific territory that later came to be known as Herzegovina. Another element that also bears weight in this respect is the fact that, in contrast to central Bosnia where the Bogumil heresy was influential, the population in the Kosaca lands was Orthodox Christian, with a certain number of Catholics in the western parts. The fact that the regions they ruled were nominally within the Bosnian kingdom, where the ruling class were predominantly Bogumils for a long time did not have any fundamental bearing on their religious affiliation. Significant records have been preserved of their unconcealed Orthodox Christian orientation. Without going into the details of this complex circle of problems, which requires a separate study, especially after the more recent discoveries and facts that have come to light, we shall dwell only on some facts. During the rule of Grand Duke Sandalj and his successor, Herzeg Stefan, which lasted almost seventy years, a whole series of Orthodox Christian churches were erected. During the first half of the 15th century, a kind of renaissance of the Rascia school of architecture came about in this area. In the words of V.J. Djuric, the endowments of the Kosaca family 'are different from the average buildings of their time by virtue of their size sometimes the unusual solutions, and the great beauty of form and proportions'. The wealth of the family and the continual relations with aitists from the southern Adriatic coastal cities imbued their architecture with buoyancy and significance. The western stylistic features of the churches of the Kosaca, and the Gothic language of the stonemasons, reveal the centres where these master craftsmen had learned their trade. With the erection of the endowment in the 'ruling seat' beneath Mt. Soko and the churches intended as their final resting-places, the Kosaca distinguished themselves as the last continuers of the Nemanjic tradition of earlier centuries, in the time that preceded the final Turkish conquest of the Serbian lands. The memory of their work is preserved in the church of St. Stephan and the nearby church at Zagradja, as well as in the rains of the Soko castle, which still lies waiting to be researched.

The site with the remains of the Saxon church, that is, the former Catholic church of St Mary, lies on a mild slope that descends from the fort to the southeast, or the village of Bostane. Located at a distance of about 1,200 m from Novo Brdo?s Lower Town, it was outside this former urban area. It was intermittently investigated in the 1950s and ?60s, but the complete results of these works have not been published. With this in mind, after almost six decades, an attempt was made, based on the remaining fieldwork documentation, to examine in more detail the complex of this important Novo Brdo edifice. The investigated remains of the church itself reveal three stages, or more precisely, construction phases, which reflect the emergence, renovation and extension of this temple over an extended period of time, from the first decades of the 14th to the end of the 17th century. The first and most important stage comprises the construction of the church itself, as well as the successive adding of masonry tombs and graves in the interior of the original temple. The following stage includes an extensive renovation and expansion of the church, while the third and final stage is distinguished by the construction of a porch in front of the western fa?ade (Fig. 2). The Saxon church is a single-nave temple of a spacious rectangular base. On the eastern side, two massive pilasters separated the nave from a much narrower alter area that terminated in a semicircular apse. This space, that is, the presbytery, was divided by a pair of similar massive pilasters into two unequal parts - a shorter western one, which could be labelled as the choir, and a much larger eastern one, in the centre of which was a masonry altar mensa in the form of a massive column and two simultaneously built steps. In front of them, on the same western side, this construction also included the first, monolithic step, which on the sides had step-like profiled cubes, the upper surface of which contained regularly carved circular indentations for the placement of massive candles. Alongside all four corners of the masonry construction of the alter mensa, steplike profiled bases carved from breccia were discovered in situ, which most likely carried the construction of a wooden ciborium. On the southern side, in the corner between the altar area and the wider nave, a sacristy was located, which was connected by a door to the presbytery, that is, the choir. The interior of the Saxon church, which was completely explored, revealed the existence of several burial horizons, which can, chronologically and in terms of their general characteristics, be determined. The oldest burials, which were performed within the original church, somewhat differ from the later ones, from the time after the renovation of the temple, as well as the construction of the porch. Characteristic of the older period are masonry tombs, intended for a number of burials (Fig. 3). Generally observed, despite the noticeable construction technique typical of the local area, the Saxon church stylistically resembled a Gothic edifice. What particularly contributed to this are stylistically clearly recognisable tall and narrow windows with a broken arch. Such a stylistic preference, in all likelihood, was also influenced by a possible solution for the under- roof construction above the unvaulted nave. The Saxon church in Novo Brdo represents a peculiar phenomenon in the territory of Serbia. It is immediately apparent that the church?s spatial solution corresponded to the needs of Roman Catholic worship. However, by the form of its base it is distinguished from the usual types of Catholic temples in the coastal areas of medieval Serbia, from where the western cultural influences flowed. It was clearly noted that the base of the Novo Brdo church has no close parallels among churches of the Adriatic, which imposed the need for a more detailed consideration of its spatial solution. It?s base, with a rectangular nave, a narrower vaulted presbytery and a laterally positioned sacristy, is characteristic of sacral architecture in a wider area, from the Netherlands, Southern Germany and Saxony, all the way to Transylvania - Ardeal. The spread of this type of base from the areas of its origin, during the 12th and 13th centuries, can be associated with the Saxon diaspora, specifically the Sassi miners, progressing towards the east. This was particularly indicated by a considerable number of these temples in the mining areas of Ardeal, from where the Sassi migrations advanced further down to the south, namely, to the central regions of the Balkans. The thus perceived base of the Novo Brdo church, which, on the whole, follows the spatial solution of Saxon temples, represents the southernmost example of a sacral edifice of this type in Southeast Europe. The time of the construction of the Saxon church in Novo Brdo can be quite reliably determined despite the fragmentarily preserved documentation. The rapid development of the city was undoubtedly accompanied by religious organising, first of the Sassi miners, followed by numerous merchants from Adriatic towns, primarily those from the ?King?s City? of Kotor, and subsequently also from Dubrovnik. Based on all these findings it can be quite safely concluded that the first newly erected church in Novo Brdo was precisely the Saxon church, that is, Santa Maria in Novomonte. It was built, without any doubt, due to the efforts of the newly settled Sassi mining community. Such a conclusion can reliably be drawn on the basis of the spatial solution of the new temple rooted in traditions from the homeland, which were disseminated by this mining population in all areas of their diaspora. The very method of building and some construction solutions, which did not affect the basic concept, were left to local builders. This dating is further supported by coin finds, the oldest specimens of which originate from the last decade of the reign of King Stefan Uros II (1282-1321). The Saxon church, outside the fortified Lower Town, shared the fate of Novo Brdo. Since it was located on the access route to the city, which was not especially defended, it could have been exposed to occasional Turkish attacks during the last decades of the 14th century. With significant destruction, as evidenced by the results of archaeological excavations, the earlier period of life of the Saxon church came to an end. It can be assumed that this took place at the time of the almost two-year long Turkish siege of Novo Brdo between 1439 and 1441. After the Turkish occupation of Novo Brdo in 1455, and upon restoring stability in the conquered city, conditions were created for the renovation of the Saxon church ? Santa Maria in Novomonte. One letter from Rome, sent to the archbishop of the city of Bar in 1458, indicates that this was also advocated by Pope Pius II personally. Major works on that occasion, as shown by archaeological investigations, were conducted within the area of the nave, which was almost entirely in ruins. The undertaken renovation provided the opportunity to increase the size of the church, specifically to extend it westward by 2.70 m. New walls were built from the ground up on the northern and western side of the nave, while within the altar area, which was certainly much better preserved, no traces of any subsequent alterations were noted. Somewhat later, in front of the renovated church, a wooden porch was added. The Saxon church was also used for worship during the 16th and the first half of the 17th century. The archbishop of Bar, Marino Bizzi, during a canonical visitation in 1610, noted that the church at that time fulfilled all the requirements for worship. Three decades later, his successor, Archbishop Giorgio Bianchi, visited the Novo Brdo ?canonical church dedicated to St Mary?, which he says was in the hands of Christians and that inside ?are graves in which Catholics are buried??. This is also the last known data regarding this prominent Novo Brdo temple, which was, without a doubt, finally destroyed during the Austro-Turkish war at the end of the 17th century.

Recent conservation and restoration work on the icon of the Virgin and Child which stood on the altar in the Church of St. Nicholas at Prijeko in Dubrovnik has enabled a new interpretation of this paining. The icon, painted on a panel made of poplar wood, features a centrally-placed Virgin holding the Child in her arms painted on a gold background between the two smaller figures of St. Peter and St. John the Baptist. The figures are painted in the manner of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Dubrovnik style, and represent a later intervention which significantly changed the original appearance and composition of the older icon by adding the two saints and touching up the Virgin’s clothes with Renaissance ornaments, all of which was performed by the well-known Dubrovnik painter Nikola Božidarević. It can be assumed that the icon originally featured a standing or seated Virgin and Child. The Virgin is depicted with her head slightly lowered and pointing to the Christ Child whom she is holding on her right side. The chubby boy is not seated on his mother’s lap but is reclining on his right side and leaningforward while his face is turned towards the spectator. He is dressed in a red sleeveless tunic with a simple neck-line which is embroidered with gold thread. The Child is leaning himself on the Virgin’s right hand which is holding him. He is firmly grasping her thumb with one hand and her index finger with the other in a very intimate nursing gesture while she, true to the Hodegitria scheme, is pointing at him with her left hand, which is raised to the level of her breasts. Such an almost-realistic depiction of Christ as a small child with tiny eyes, mouth and nose, drastically departs from the model which portrays him with the mature face of an adult, as was customary in icon painting. The Virgin is wearing a luxurious gold cloak which was repainted with large Renaissance-style flowers. Her head is covered with a traditional maphorion which forms a wide ring around it and is encircled by a nimbus which was bored into thegold background. Her skin tone is pink and lit diffusely, and was painted with almost no green shadows, which is typical of Byzantine painting. The Virgin’s face is striking and markedly oval. It is characterized by a silhouetted, long, thin nose which is connected to the eyebrows. The ridge of the nose is emphasized with a double edge and gently lit whilethe almond-shaped eyes with dark circles are set below the inky arches of the eyebrows. The Virgin’s cheeks are smooth and rosy while her lips are red. The plasticity of her round chin is emphasized by a crease below the lower lip and its shadow. The Virgin’s eyes, nose and mouth are outlined with a thick red line. Her hands are light pink in colour and haveelongated fingers and pronounced, round muscles on the wrists. The fingers are separated and the nails are outlined with precision. The deep, resounding hues of the colour red and the gilding, together with the pale pink skin tone of her face, create an impression of monumentality. The type of the reclining Christ Child has been identified in Byzantine iconography as the Anapeson. Its theological background lies in the emphasis of Christ’s dual nature: although the Christ Child is asleep, the Christ as God is always keeping watch over humans. The image was inspired by a phrase from Genesis 49: 9 about a sleeping lion to whom Christ is compared: the lion sleeps with his eyes open. The Anapeson is drowsy and awake at the same time, and therefore his eyes are not completely shut. Such a paradox is a theological anticipation of his “sleep” in the tomb and represents an allegory of his death and Resurrection. The position, gesture and clothes of the Anapeson in Byzantine art are not always the same. Most frequently, the ChristChild is not depicted lying in his mother’s arms but on an oval bed or pillow, resting his head on his hand, while the Virgin is kneeling by his side. Therefore, the Anapeson from Dubrovnik is unique thanks to the conspicuously humanized relationship between the figures which is particularly evident in Christ’s explicitly intimate gesture of grasping the fingers of his mother’s hand: his right hand is literally “inserting” itself in the space between the Virgin’s thumb and index finger. At the same time, the baring of his arms provided the painter with an opportunity to depict the pale tones of a child’s tender skin. The problem of the iconography of the Anapeson in the medieval painting at Dubrovnik is further complicated by a painting which was greatly venerated in Župa Dubrovačka as Santa Maria del Breno. It has not been preserved but an illustration of it was published in Gumppenberg’sfamous Atlas Marianus which shows the Virgin seated on a high-backed throne and holding the sleeping and reclining Child. The position of this Anapeson Christ does not correspond fully to the icon from the Church of St. Nicholas because the Child is lying on its back and his naked body is covered with the swaddling fabric. The icon of the Virgin and Child from Prijeko claims a special place in the corpus of Romanesque icons on the Adriatic through its monumentality and intimate character. The details of the striking and lively Virgin’s face, dominated by the pronounced and gently curved Cimabuesque nose joined to the shallow arches of her eyebrows, link her with the Benedictine Virgin at Zadar. Furthermore, based on the manner of painting characterized by the use of intense red for the shadows in the nose and eye area, together with the characteristic shape of the elongated, narrow eyes, this Virgin and Child should be brought into connection with the painter who is known as the Master of the Benedictine Virgin. The so-called Benedictine Virgin is an icon, now at the Benedictine Convent at Zadar, which depicts the Virgin seated on a throne with a red, ceremonial, imperial cushion, in a solemn scheme of the Kyriotissa, the heavenly queen holding the Christ Child on her lap. The throne is wooden and has a round back topped with wooden finials which can also be seen in the Byzantine Kahn Virgin and the Mellon Madonna, as well as in later Veneto-Cretan painting. The throne is set under a shallow ciborium arch which is rendered in relief and supportedby twisted colonettes and so the painting itself is sunk into the surface of the panel. A very similar scheme with a triumphal arch can be seen on Byzantine ivory diptychs with shallow ciborium arches and twisted colonettes. In its composition, the icon from Prijeko is a combination ofthe Kyr i ot i ss a and the Hodegitria, because the Virgin as the heavenly queen does not hold the Christ Child frontally before her but on her right-hand side while pointing at him as the road to salvation. He is seated on his mother’s arm and is supporting himself by pressing his crossed legsagainst her thigh which symbolizes his future Passion. He is wearing a formal classical costume with a red cloak over his shoulder. He is depicted in half profile which opens up the frontal view of the red clavus on his navy blue chiton.He is blessing with the two fingers of his right hand and at the same time reaching for the unusual flower rendered in pastiglia which the Virgin is raising in her left hand and offering to him. At the same time, she is holding the lower part of Christ’s body tightly with her right hand.Various scholars have dated the icon of the Benedictine Virgin to the early fourteenth century. While Gothic features are particularly evident in the costumes of the donors, the elements such as the modelling of the throne and the presence of the ceremonial cushion belong to the Byzantine style of the thirteenth century. The back of the icon of the Benedictine Virgin features the figure of St. Peter set within a border consisting of a lively and colourful vegetal scroll which could be understood as either Romanesque or Byzantine. However, St. Peter’s identifying titulus is written in Latin while that of the Virgin is in Greek. The figure of St. Peter was painted according to the Byzantine tradition: his striking and severe face is rendered linearly in a rigid composition, which is complemented by his classical contrapposto against a green-gray parapet wall, while the background is of dark green-blue colour. Equally Byzantine is themanner of depicting the drapery with flat, shallow folds filled with white lines at the bottom of the garment while, at the same time, the curved undulating hem of the cloak which falls down St. Peter’s right side is Gothic. The overall appearance of St. Peter is perhaps even more Byzantine than that of the Virgin. Such elements, together with the typically Byzantine costumes, speak clearly of a skilful artist who uses hybrid visual language consisting of Byzantine painting and elements of the Romanesque and Gothic. Of particular interest are the wide nimbuses surrounding the heads of the Virgin and Child (St. Peter has a flat one) which are rendered in relief and filled with a neat sequence of shallow blind archesexecuted in the pastiglia technique which, according to M. Frinta, originated in Cyprus. The Venetian and Byzantine elements of the Benedictine Virgin have already been pointed out in the scholarship. Apart from importing art works and artists such as painters and mosaic makers directly from Byzantium into Venice, what was the extent and nature of the Byzantineinfluence on Venetian artistic achievements in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries? We know that the art of Venice and the West alike were affected by the Fourth Crusade and the sack of Constantinople in 1204, and by the newly founded Latin Empire which lasted until 1261.The Venetians played a particularly significant political and administrative role in this Empire and the contemporary hybrid artistic style of the eastern Mediterranean, called Crusader Art and marked by the strong involvement of the Knights Templar, must have been disseminated through the established routes. In addition to Cyprus, Apulia and Sicily which served as stops for the artists and art works en route to Venice and Tuscany, another station must have been Dalmatia where eastern and western influences intermingled and complemented each other.However, it is interesting that the icon of the Benedictine Virgin, apart from negligible variations, imitates almost completely the iconographic scheme of the Madonna di Ripalta at Cerignola on the Italian side of the Adriatic, which has been dated to the early thirteenth century and whose provenance has been sought in the area between southern Italy (Campania) and Cyprus. Far more Byzantine is another Apulian icon, that of a fourteenth-century enthroned Virgin from the basilica of St. Nicholas at Bari with which the Benedictine Virgin from Zadar shares certain features such as the composition and posture of the figures, the depictionof donors and Christ’s costume. A similar scheme, which indicates a common source, can be seen on a series of icons of the enthroned Virgin from Tuscany. The icon of the Virgin and Child from Prijeko is very important for local Romanesque painting of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century because it expands the oeuvre of the Master of the Benedictine Virgin. Anicon which is now at Toronto, in the University of Toronto Art Centre Malcove Collection, has also been attributed to this master. This small two-sided icon which might have been a diptych panel, as can be judged from its typology, depicts the Virgin with the Anapeson in the upper register while below is the scene from the martyrdom of St. Lawrence. The Virgin is flanked by the figures of saints: to the left is the figure of St. Francis while the saint on the right-hand side has been lost due to damage sustained to the icon. The busts of SS Peter and Paul are at the top.The physiognomies of the Virgin and Child correspond to those of the Benedictine Virgin and the Prijeko icon. The Anapeson, unlike the one at Dubrovnik, is wrapped in a rich, red cloak decorated with lumeggiature, which covers his entire body except the left fist and shin. On the basis of the upper register of this icon, it can be concluded that the Master of the Benedictine Virgin is equally adept at applying the repertoire and style of Byzantine and Western painting alike; the lower register of the icon with its descriptive depiction of the martyrdom of St.Lawrence is completely Byzantine in that it portrays the Roman emperor attending the saint’s torture as a crowned Byzantine ruler. Such unquestionable stylistic ambivalence – the presence of the elements from both Byzantine and Italian painting – can also be seen on the icons of theBenedictine and Prijeko Virgin and they point to a painter who works in a “combined style.” Perhaps he should be sought among the artists who are mentioned as pictores greci in Dubrovnik, Kotor and Zadar. The links between Dalmatian icons and Apulia and Tuscany have already been noted, but the analysis of these paintings should also contain the hitherto ignored segment of Sicilian and eastern Mediterranean Byzantinism, including Cyprus as the centre of Crusader Art. The question of the provenance of the Master of the Benedictine Virgin remains open although the icon of the Virgin and Child from Prijeko points to the possibility that he may have been active in Dalmatia.However, stylistic expressions of the two icons from Zadar and Dubrovnik, together with the one which is today at Toronto, clearly demonstrate the coalescing of cults and forms which arrived to the Adriatic shores fromfurther afield, well beyond the Adriatic, and which were influenced by the significant, hitherto unrecognized, role of the eastern Mediterranean.

Medieval Dubrovnik was rich in Romanesque figural and decorative sculpture but only a small group of fragmentary carvings has been preserved to date due to the fact that the town suffered a devastating earthquake in 1667. The earthquake completely destroyed the monumental Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin which had been considered “la piu bella in Illyrico” on the basis of its sculptural abundance. Archaeological excavations undertaken beneath the present-day Baroque Cathedral, consecrated in 1713, unearthed several thousand fragments of high-quality sculptures. Their analysis has confirmed the close connections between Dubrovnik and artistic centres in Apulia, which are well known from archival records. This article re-assesses the results of the excavations and the information from the primary sources in a new light and deepens our knowledge about the date, authorship and reconstruction of the thireenth-century pieces under consideration.The article opens with a discussion about the archival record informing us that Eustasius of Trani came to Dubrovnik in 1199 to work as a protomagister of Dubrovnik Cathedral. The document in question was the reason why art historians attributed to him a number of rather damaged, narrative reliefs which replicate the models and forms that can be seen on the portal of Trani Cathedral. Since the sculptor responsible for that portal was not known and given that the contract preserved in Dubrovnik referred to Eustasius as a son of “Belnardi, protomagistri civitati Trani”, the two artists came to be considered as the builders of the Cathedral of S. Nicola Pellegrino at Trani and of several other churches in the Terra di Bari. The sculptures produced by Eustasius and his father were convincingly deemed to display the artistic influence of southern and central France and the same can be observed in Dubrovnik. The article assigns the figure of Christ the Judge from a portal lunette depicting the Last Judgement, which has no parallels in Apulia, to the same group of sculptures and interprets the subject matter as being inspired by the iconography of numerous pilgrimage churches to which Dubrovnik Cathedral also belonged. The assessment of the formal qualities evident in all the carvings demonstrates that they are less refined than those on the portal of Trani Cathedral. Furthermore, the article separates the works of the father from those of the son and suggests that Bolnardus introduced the aforementioned French-style carving method, which had already taken root in Palestine, and that Eustasius followed it. The starting point in the proposed chronology was the Fall of Jerusalem in 1187 and the associated withdrawal of western master carvers alongside the Crusaders. During their stopover at Trani, around 1190, Boltranius was in charge of the carving of the portal of Trani Cathedral where he was helped by his son who left for Dubrovnik in 1199. Based on the visual characteristics of the fragments of architectural decoration, Eustasius is identified as being responsible for the building of Dubrovnik Cathedral according to Apulian taste which appealed to the local patrons as a consequence of their constant exposure to it through numerous trade links and the overall cultural milieu. In fact, Apulian taste was a symbiosis of Byzantine traditions and Romanesque novelties introduced by the Normans, and its allure was grounded in the fact that both the Terra di Bari and Dubrovnik acknowledged the supreme power of these two political forces albeit not at the same time and in unequal measure.The vernacular current in the Romanesque sculpture of Dubrovnik during the second quarter of the thirteenth century can be noted in a small number of works which influenced the decoration of Gothic and Renaissance public buildings. The source of this diffusion can be identified in the decoration of the Cathedral which epitomized the strong artistic connections with southern Italy from where typological and morphological models were borrowed. The redecoration of the Cathedral’s interior, especially the pulpit – recorded for the first time in 1262 – the archaeological remains of which reveal a polygonal structure resting on twelve columns, drew on those very models. Together with the ciborium above the altar in the main apse, the pulpit was praised by local chroniclers and foreign travel writers during the fifteenth century but also by the earliest church visitation records of the mid-seventeenth century. These two monuments belonged to a group of standard Apulian-Dalmatian ciboria and pulpits which also included those that can today be seen in the cathedrals of Trogir and Split but also in many south Italian churches. Some scholars have argued that the source model for this group can be found in Jerusalem but this article suggests that the ciborium from the church of S. Lorenzo fuori le mura in Rome, dated to 1148, presents a more likely option. Particular attention is given to the naturalistic workmanship of a polygonal capital from Dubrovnik Cathedral, which is assigned to the aforementioned pulpit. It is argued that the style of the capital inspired a series of capitals carved à jour on both sides of the Adriatic and that they display characteristics consistent with the manner of carving of Pietro di Facitolo seen at Bisceglie. The exceptional workmanship of the eagle from the same pulpit is attributed to Pasquo di Pietro who was recorded as a protomagister of the Cathedral from 1255 to 1282 and who well regarded as a master carver. His good reputation earned him the citizenship and an estate; he and his son were mentioned in the local documents as “de Ragusio”. The author of the article hypothesizes that Pasquo may have been Pietro di Facitolo’s son, with which he concludes the outline of the sculptural development of the Apulian Romanesque in Dubrovnik and Dalmatia in general.The final part of the article focuses on the only known work of Simeonus Ragusinus who signed himself as “incola tranensis” on the portal of the church of S. Andrea, that is, S. Salvatore at Barletta. The hybrid artistic expression of this eclectic sculptor with a limited gift, who gathered his knowledge from a variety of sources, reveals that he may have borrowed some iconographic motifs from Eustasius’ portal of Dubrovnik Cathedral or from the other two portals. Overall, the article corroborates several hypotheses that were previously expressed in the scholarship while dismissing and rerouting others. At the same time, it emphasizes the scarcity of solid evidence because of the fragmentary nature of the material. The main goal of the article is to present new research findings and widen our perspective on the issue. The article is a revised version of a brief paper presented at the international conference “Master Buvina and his Time” which was held at Split in 2014 and which will be published in a foreign language. I hope that with the addition of new comments and the scholarly apparatus the article will be a useful point of reference to Croatian researchers of similar topics and that it will contribute towards the creation of syntheses about the medieval art in the Adriatic.

The architect and carver Ivan Hreljić of Šibenik is one of the lesser known master builders from the circle of Giorgio Dalmata, whose activity can be followed during the third quarter of the fifteenth century. Although he is mentioned relatively frequently in the known documents, even in relation to specific projects, he has remained, like some other master builders from Šibenik, on the margin of scholarly interest, while different transcriptions of his surname resulted in a situation where even the pieces of information the scholars have had at their disposal have remained scattered and unconnected, meaning that there have been no attempts to examine his activity in more detail.Ivan Hreljić was a member of an active family of architects and stone-cutters who were originally from Žirje. Apart from his individual undertakings, he frequently took on specific commissions together withhis younger brother Luka, while their sons and nephews continued the family tradition in the stone-cutting business which was subsequently carried on into the third generation.The earliest mention of the stone-cutter Ivan Hreljić is that of 19 December 1448 when he acted as a witness at the signing of a document by which the carpenter Matej Naradinić took Matej Ratković as an apprentice. In this, he is mentioned as a builder from Žirje but a resident of Šibenik. The following year is that of his marriage and freedom from his father’s authority, and after that, he appears in a number of documents from the archives at Šibenik that portray his life and activity relatively well, as well as his connections with numerous other stonecutting masters of Šibenik.The first record of substantial work associated with him is that of 19 December 1449 when Giorgio Dalmata contracted him and Vukašin Marković to work on the town walls of Pag, and designated Ivo Stjepanov Franulović as their collaborator. It seems that he spent the next few years at Pag; he is again mentioned at Šibenik only on 25 February 1455 when, together with his brother Luka and the stone-cutter Disman Banjvarić, they committed themselves to supply the equivalent of thirty fathoms of wall in dressed stones to the representatives of the monastery of Holy Saviour. On 10 June 1458, the brothers Ivan and Luka Hreljić were contracted by Martin Ostojić, the parish priest of Uzdolje, to make six three-feet wide pilasters along the exterior wall of the Church of St. John at Uzdolje, up to the height of the wall itself, but also to plaster the exterior and interior of the church, cover the roof with slates and wall up an old door. The two brothers obviously collaborated well and on 13 January 1459, they werecontracted by the representatives of the village of Široke to build them a church dedicated to St. Jerome which would be as large as the one of St. Michael at Mitlo. They also committed to vault the church, make an altar with a base carved from white stone, cover the roof with slates, erect a bell-tower similar to the one at Mitlo, and plaster the entire church on the inside and the outside.On 3 March 1462, Ivan took on the commission of the Guardian of the Franciscan monastery of St. Mary at Vranduk to accompany him to Bosnia and work for him there for three months for the monthly payment of three ducats. It seems that he remained in Bosnia for much longer than the anticipated three months; after his return to Šibenik, he is frequently mentioned in the archival records from the autumn of 1464 onwards, more as an entrepreneur and intermediary, or an interested party in disputes, and as the owner of a ship, than with regard to specific stone-cutting jobs. Only on 23 October 1469 is Ivan mentioned as committing himself to supply a fixed amount of white stone for the building of theChurch of St. Mary at Fermo, an obligation confirmed in a document which features Radmil Ratković, another master who was active in the circle of Giorgio Dalmata, as his guarantor. The last document that mentions Ivan as being alive is that of 21 January 1474, but it is only on 8 December 1477 that he 4was referred to as dead, and so it is not possible to establish the exact year of his death.Not a lot remains from Ivan Hreljić’s documented works and it is difficult to identify his contribution to the extant works with certainty, let alone any specific morphological elements which might point to the idiosyncrasies of his architectural or stone-cutting expression. Although the remains of the town walls at Pag are best preserved exactly in the portions for which Hreljić may have been responsible together with otherbuilders, their character is such that it prevents any assessment of specific artistic abilities and skills. Apart from the extremely simple wall surface, the north-west section of the fortifications at Pag is marked by a striking semicircular tower which has been identified as one of Giorgio Dalmata’s projects. The job on the Church of St. John at Uzdolje consisted of the strengthening and stabilization of the building through the addition of six strong exterior supports. The remains of all six pilasters built by the Hreljić brothers have been preserved only in their foundations, and these demonstrate that this specific architectural task was carried out professionally and solidly.The Church of St. Jerome in the village of Široke is the only relatively well-preserved work on which it is possible to note at least some details which reveal the achievements of Ivan Hreljić’s craftsmanship as a carver. Unfortunately, this church was significantly remodelled and then transformed into the sanctuary of the new, much larger church, and its original façade was completely demolished. In addition, the originalframes of the doors and windows, which might have demonstrated Ivan’s carving skills to a certain degree, have also been lost. The only original carved element which still survives is a tabernacle niche in the shapeof a small Gothic window, which was carved into a block of stone next to the triumphal arch of the church. This modest and somewhat clumsily executed carving reveals that Ivan Hreljić was not a particularlysuccessful carver, and far from a sculptor. It is likely that his stone-cutting skills sufficed only for a solid dressing of stone blocks which were to be used by builders and, up to a certain degree, for the carving ofsimple mouldings. His involvement with the Franciscan monastery of St. Mary at Vranduk is more important as a testimony about the reputation of the builders who belonged to Giorgio Dalmata’s circle at Šibenik, than as a concrete building task, especially since the monastery at Vranduk has only been preserved in its archaeological remains, which makes it impossible to establish Ivan’s possible contribution to its building.Equally so, the supply of stone for the building of the Cathedral of St. Mary at Fermo still cannot be connected to specific parts of this structure.Apart from information about Ivan’s life and business, archival records bear evidence of his frequent and numerous contacts with other stone-cutting masters of Šibenik. Regardless of whether these documents referto some sort of collaboration, assessment of the quality of someone else’s work, usage of a ship, or merely feature stone-cutters as witnesses for each other’s job contracts, such documented contacts reveal strong mutual links in the developed community of stonecutting masters at Šibenik. The list of names which appear in the documents mentioning Ivan Hreljić (Giorgio Dalmata, Lorenzo Pincino, Vukašin Marković,Ivo Stjepanov Franulović, Disman Banjvarić, Ivan Obertić, Juraj Radeljić, Matej Radeljić, Andrija Butčić, Ivan Pribislavljić, Matko Stoislavljić, Martin Krešulov from Korčula, Blaž Dianišević, Antun Oštričić, Radmil Ratković, Pavao, Grgur and Petar Pripković, Radoslav Dragčić, Pavao Spauleta, Martin Pavlinović, Petar Berčić) provides a representative cross-section ofarchitectural and stone-cutting circles in Šibenik from the time when Giorgio Dalmata played the leading role in them. And, it was Ivan Hreljić and men like him who enabled Giorgio Dalmata to execute individualcommissions efficiently and realize specific ideas, but also to operate in that entrepreneurial approach so characteristic of him, through which he used the services of the masters who entered his circle according to how well they fitted into his designs and projects.

On the night of 31 August, 1888, Mary Ann ‘Polly’ Nichols was found murdered in Buck’s Row, her throat slashed and her body mutilated. She was followed by Annie Chapman on 8 September in the year of 29 Hanbury Street, Elizabeth Stride in Dutfield’s Yard and Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square on 30 September, and finally Mary Jane Kelly in Miller’s Court, on 9 November. These five women, all prostitutes, were victims of an unknown assailant commonly referred to by the epithet ‘Jack the Ripper’, forming an official canon which excludes at least thirteen other cases around the same time. As the Ripper was never identified or caught, he has attained an almost supernatural status in London’s history and literature, immortalised alongside other iconic figures such as Sherlock Holmes. And his killing ground, the East End suburb of Whitechapel, has become notorious in its own right. In this article, I will discuss how Whitechapel developed as a Gothic location through the body of literature devoted to the Whitechapel murders of 1888, known as 'Ripperature'. I will begin by speaking to the turn of Gothic literature towards the idea of the city as a Gothic space, before arguing that Whitechapel's development into a Gothic location may be attributed to the threat of the Ripper and the literature which emerged during and after his crimes. As a working class slum with high rates of crime and poverty, Whitechapel already enjoyed an evil reputation in the London press. However, it was the presence of Jack that would make the suburb infamous into contemporary times. The Gothic Space of the City In the nineteenth century, there was a shift in the representation of space in Gothic literature. From the depiction of the wilderness and ancient buildings such as castles as essentially Gothic, there was a turn towards the idea of the city as a Gothic space. David Punter attributes this turn to Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The wild landscape is no longer considered as dangerous as the savage city of London, and evil no longer confined only to those of working-class status (Punter 191). However, it has been argued by Lawrence Phillips and Anne Witchard that Charles Dickens may have been the first author to present London as a Gothic city, in particular his description of Seven Dials in Bell’s Life in London, 1837, where the anxiety and unease of the narrator is associated with place (11). Furthermore, Thomas de Quincey uses Gothic imagery in his descriptions of London in his 1821 book Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, calling the city a “vast centre of mystery” (217). This was followed in 1840 with Edgar Allen Poe’s story The Man of the Crowd, in which the narrator follows a stranger through the labyrinthine streets of London, experiencing its poorest and most dangerous areas. At the end of the story, Poe calls the stranger “the type and the genius of deep crime (...) He is the man of the crowd” (n. p). This association of crowds with crime is also used by Jack London in his book The People of the Abyss, published in 1905, where the author spent time living in the slums of the East End. Even William Blake could be considered to have used Gothic imagery in his description of the city in his poem London, written in 1794. The Gothic city became a recognisable and popular trope in the fin-de-siècle, or end-of-century Gothic literature, in the last few decades of the nineteenth century. This fin-de-siècle literature reflected the anxieties inherent in increasing urbanisation, wherein individuals lose their identity through their relationship with the city. Examples of fin-de-siècle Gothic literature include The Beetle by Richard Marsh, published in 1897, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, published in the same year. Evil is no longer restricted to foreign countries in these stories, but infects familiar city streets with terror, in a technique that is described as ‘everyday Gothic’ (Paulden 245). The Gothic city “is constructed by man, and yet its labyrinthine alleys remain unknowable (...) evil is not externalized elsewhere, but rather literally exists within” (Woodford n.p). The London Press and Whitechapel Prior to the Ripper murders of 1888, Whitechapel had already been given an evil reputation in the London press, heavily influenced by W.T. Stead’s reports for The Pall Mall Gazette, entitled The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon, in 1885. In these reports, Stead revealed how women and children were being sold into prostitution in suburbs such as Whitechapel. Stead used extensive Gothic imagery in his writing, one of the most enduring being the image of London as a labyrinth with a monstrous Minotaur at its centre, swallowing up his helpless victims. Counter-narratives about Whitechapel do exist, an example being Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor, who attempted to demystify the East End by walking the streets of Whitechapel and interviewing its inhabitants in the 1860’s. Another is Arthur G. Morrison, who in 1889 dismissed the graphic descriptions of Whitechapel by other reporters as amusing to those who actually knew the area as a commercially respectable place. However, the Ripper murders in the autumn of 1888 ensured that the Gothic image of the East End would become the dominant image in journalism and literature for centuries to come. Whitechapel was a working-class slum, associated with poverty and crime, and had a large Jewish and migrant population. Indeed the claim was made that “had Whitechapel not existed, according to the rationalist, then Jack the Ripper would not have marched against civilization” (Phillips 157). Whitechapel was known as London’s “heart of darkness (…) the ultimate threat and the ultimate mystery” (Ackroyd 679). Therefore, the reporters of the London press who visited Whitechapel during and immediately following the murders understandably imbued the suburb with a Gothic atmosphere in their articles. One such newspaper article, An Autumn Evening in Whitechapel, released in November of 1888, demonstrates these characteristics in its description of Whitechapel. The anonymous reporter, writing during the Ripper murders, describes the suburb as a terrible dark ocean in which there are human monsters, where a man might get a sense of what humanity can sink to in areas of poverty. This view was shared by many, including author Margaret Harkness, whose 1889 book In Darkest London described Whitechapel as a monstrous living entity, and as a place of vice and depravity. Gothic literary tropes were also already widely used in print media to describe murders and other crimes that happened in London, such as in the sensationalist newspaper The Illustrated Police News. An example of this is an illustration published in this newspaper after the murder of Mary Kelly, showing the woman letting the Ripper into her lodgings, with the caption ‘Opening the door to admit death’. Jack is depicted as a manifestation of Death itself, with a grinning skull for a head and clutching a doctor’s bag filled with surgical instruments with which to perform his crimes (Johnston n.p.). In the magazine Punch, Jack was depicted as a phantom, the ‘Nemesis of Neglect’, representing the poverty of the East End, floating down an alleyway with his knife looking for more victims. The Ripper murders were explained by London newspapers as “the product of a diseased environment where ‘neglected human refuse’ bred crime” (Walkowitz 194). Whitechapel became a Gothic space upon which civilisation projected their inadequacies and fears, as if “it had become a microcosm of London’s own dark life” (Ackroyd 678). And in the wake of Jack the Ripper, this writing of Whitechapel as a Gothic space would only continue, with the birth of ‘Ripperature’, the body of fictional and non-fiction literature devoted to the murders. The Birth of Ripperature: The Curse upon Mitre Square and Leather Apron John Francis Brewer wrote the first known text about the Ripper murders in October of 1888, a sensational horror monograph entitled The Curse upon Mitre Square. Brewer made use of well-known Gothic tropes, such as the trans-generational curse, the inclusion of a ghost and the setting of an old church for the murder of an innocent woman. Brewer blended fact and fiction, making the Whitechapel murderer the inheritor, or even perhaps the victim of an ancient curse that hung over Mitre Square, where the second murdered prostitute, Catherine Eddowes, had been found the month before. According to Brewer, the curse originated from the murder of a woman in 1530 by her brother, a ‘mad monk’, on the steps of the high altar of the Holy Trinity Church in Aldgate. The monk, Martin, committed suicide, realising what he had done, and his ghost now appears pointing to the place where the murder occurred, promising that other killings will follow. Whitechapel is written as both a cursed and haunted Gothic space in The Curse upon Mitre Square. Brewer’s description of the area reflected the contemporary public opinion, describing the Whitechapel Road as a “portal to the filth and squalor of the East” (66). However, Mitre Square is the former location of a monastery torn down by a corrupt politician; this place, which should have been holy ground, is cursed. Mitre Square’s atmosphere ensures the continuation of violent acts in the vicinity; indeed, it seems to exude a self-aware and malevolent force that results in the death of Catherine Eddowes centuries later. This idea of Whitechapel as somehow complicit in or even directing the acts of the Ripper will later become a popular trope of Ripperature. Brewer’s work was advertised in London on posters splashed with red, a reminder of the blood spilled by the Ripper’s victims only weeks earlier. It was also widely promoted by the media and reissued in New York in 1889. It is likely that a ‘suggestion effect’ took place during the telegraph-hastened, press-driven coverage of the Jack the Ripper story, including Brewer’s monograph, spreading the image of Gothic Whitechapel as fact to the world (Dimolianis 63). Samuel E. Hudson’s account of the Ripper murders differs in style from Brewer’s because of his attempt to engage critically with issues such as the failure of the police force to find the murderer and the true identity of Jack. His book Leather Apron; or, the Horrors of Whitechapel, London, was published in December of 1888. Hudson described the five murders canonically attributed to Jack, wrote an analysis of the police investigation that followed, and speculated as to the Ripper’s motivations. Despite his intention to examine the case objectively, Hudson writes Jack as a Gothic monster, an atavistic and savage creature prowling Whitechapel to satisfy his bloodlust. Jack is associated with several Gothic tropes in Hudson’s work, and described as different types of monsters. He is called: a “fiend bearing a charmed and supernatural existence,” a “human vampire”, an “incarnate monster” and even, like Brewer, the perpetrator of “ghoulish butchery” (Hudson 40). Hudson describes Whitechapel as “the worst place in London (...) with innumerable foul and pest-ridden alleys” (9). Whitechapel becomes implicated in the Ripper murders because of its previously established reputation as a crime-ridden slum. Poverty forced women into prostitution, meaning they were often out alone late at night, and its many courts and alleyways allowed the Ripper an easy escape from his pursuers after each murder (Warwick 560). The aspect of Whitechapel that Hudson emphasises the most is its darkness; “off the boulevard, away from the streaming gas-jets (...) the knave ran but slight chance of interruption” (40). Whitechapel is a place of shadows, its darkest places negotiated only by ‘fallen women’ and their clients, and Jack himself. Hudson’s casting of Jack as a vampire makes his preference for the night, and his ability to skilfully disembowel prostitutes and disappear without a trace, intelligible to his readers as the attributes of a Gothic monster. Significantly, Hudson’s London is personified as female, the same sex as the Ripper victims, evoking a sense of passive vulnerability against the acts of the masculine and predatory Jack, Hudson writing that “it was not until four Whitechapel women had perished (...) that London awoke to the startling fact that a monster was at work upon her streets” (8). The Complicity of Gothic Whitechapel in the Ripper Murders This seeming complicity of Whitechapel as a Gothic space in the Ripper murders, which Brewer and Hudson suggest in their work, can be seen to have influenced subsequent representations of Whitechapel in Ripperature. Whitechapel is no longer simply the location in which these terrible events take place; they happen because of Whitechapel itself, the space exerting a self-conscious malevolence and kinship with Jack. Historically, the murders forced Queen Victoria to call for redevelopment in Spitalfields, the improvement of living conditions for the working class, and for a better police force to patrol the East End to prevent similar crimes (Sugden 2). The fact that Jack was never captured “seemed only to confirm the impression that the bloodshed was created by the foul streets themselves: that the East End was the true Ripper,” (Ackroyd 678) using the murderer as a way to emerge into the public consciousness. In Ripperature, this idea was further developed by the now popular image of Jack “stalking the black alleyways [in] thick swirling fog” (Jones 15). This otherworldly fog seems to imply a mystical relationship between Jack and Whitechapel, shielding him from view and disorientating his victims. Whitechapel shares the guilt of the murders as a malevolent and essentially pagan space. The notion of Whitechapel as being inscribed with paganism and magic has become an enduring and popular trope of Ripperature. It relates to an obscure theory that drawing lines between the locations of the first four Ripper murders created Satanic and profane religious symbols, suggesting that they were predetermined locations for a black magic ritual (Odell 217). This theory was expanded upon most extensively in Alan Moore’s graphic novel From Hell, published in 1999. In From Hell, Jack connects several important historical and religious sites around London by drawing a pentacle on a map of the city. He explains the murders as a reinforcement of the pentacle’s “lines of power and meaning (...) this pentacle of sun gods, obelisks and rational male fire, within unconsciousness, the moon and womanhood are chained” (Moore 4.37). London becomes a ‘textbook’, a “literature of stone, of place-names and associations,” stretching back to the Romans and their pagan gods (Moore 4.9). Buck’s Row, the real location of the murder of Mary Ann Nichols, is pagan in origin; named for the deer that were sacrificed on the goddess Diana’s altars. However, Moore’s Whitechapel is also Hell itself, the result of Jack slipping further into insanity as the murders continue. From Hell is illustrated in black and white, which emphasises the shadows and darkness of Whitechapel. The buildings are indistinct scrawls of shadow, Jack often nothing more than a silhouette, forcing the reader to occupy the same “murky moral and spiritual darkness” that the Ripper does (Ferguson 58). Artist Eddie Campbell’s use of shade and shadow in his illustrations also contribute to the image of Whitechapel-as-Hell as a subterranean place. Therefore, in tracing the representations of Whitechapel in the London press and in Ripperature from 1888 onwards, the development of Whitechapel as a Gothic location becomes clear. From the geographical setting of the Ripper murders, Whitechapel has become a Gothic space, complicit in Jack’s work if not actively inspiring the murders. Whitechapel, although known to the public before the Ripper as a crime-ridden slum, developed into a Gothic space because of the murders, and continues to be associated with the Gothic in contemporary Ripperature as an uncanny and malevolent space “which seems to compel recognition as not of this earth" (Ackroyd 581). References Anonymous. “An Autumn Evening in Whitechapel.” Littell’s Living Age, 3 Nov. 1888. Anonymous. “The Nemesis of Neglect.” Punch, or the London Charivari, 29 Sep. 1888. Ackroyd, Peter. London: The Biography. Great Britain: Vintage, 2001. Brewer, John Francis. The Curse upon Mitre Square. London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co, 1888. De Quincey, Thomas. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. Boston: Ticknor, Reed and Fields, 1850. Dimolianis, Spiro. Jack the Ripper and Black Magic: Victorian Conspiracy Theories, Secret Societies and the Supernatural Mystique of the Whitechapel Murders. North Carolina: McFarland and Co, 2011. Ferguson, Christine. “Victoria-Arcana and the Misogynistic Poetics of Resistance in Iain Sinclair’s White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings and Alan Moore’s From Hell.” Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory 20.1-2 (2009): 58. Harkness, Mary, In Darkest London. London: Hodder and Staughton, 1889. Hudson, Samuel E. Leather Apron; or, the Horrors of Whitechapel. London, Philadelphia, 1888. Johnstone, Lisa. “Rippercussions: Public Reactions to the Ripper Murders in the Victorian Press.” Casebook 15 July 2012. 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/rippercussions.html›. London, Jack. The People of the Abyss. New York: Lawrence Hill, 1905. Mayhew, Henry. London Labour and the London Poor, Volume 1. London: Griffin, Bohn and Co, 1861. Moore, Alan, Campbell, Eddie. From Hell: Being a Melodrama in Sixteen Parts. London: Knockabout Limited, 1999. Morrison, Arthur G. “Whitechapel.” The Palace Journal. 24 Apr. 1889. Odell, Robin. Ripperology: A Study of the World’s First Serial Killer and a Literary Phenomenon. Michigan: Sheridan Books, 2006. Paulden, Arthur. “Sensationalism and the City: An Explanation of the Ways in Which Locality Is Defined and Represented through Sensationalist Techniques in the Gothic Novels The Beetle and Dracula.” Innervate: Leading Undergraduate Work in English Studies 1 (2008-2009): 245. Phillips, Lawrence, and Anne Witchard. London Gothic: Place, Space and the Gothic Imagination. London: Continuum International, 2010. Poe, Edgar Allen. “The Man of the Crowd.” The Works of Edgar Allen Poe. Vol. 5. Raven ed. 15 July 2012. 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2151/2151-h/2151-h.htm›. Punter, David. A New Companion to the Gothic. Sussex: Blackwell Publishing, 2012. Stead, William Thomas. “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon.” The Pall Mall Gazette, 6 July 1885. Sugden, Peter. The Complete History of Jack the Ripper. London: Robinson Publishing, 2002. Walkowitz, Judith R. City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London, London: Virago, 1998. Woodford, Elizabeth. “Gothic City.” 15 July 2012. 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://courses.nus.edu.au/sg/ellgohbh/gothickeywords.html›.

Gothic chapel of St Jacob (originally dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary) in Očura (Gorjani Sutinski near Radoboj in Hrvatsko Zagorje) underwent Baroque modifications in the mid-18th century (1752). Its degradation, initiated with damage during World War II, primarily impacted the wooden inventory, including altar sculptures that adorned its interior. Among the surviving remnants of the once luxurious Baroque furnishing, a group of seven statues with uniform design features, evidently associated with the extensive furnishing campaign shortly after the building’s renovation, deserves special attention. Only two years later (1754), an Apostolic visitator described the appearance of the remodelled and newly furnished chapel, crediting the local (Mihovljan) parish priest Ivan Kukuljević, later appointed a Zagreb canon (1755), for the entire project. In the last year of his ministry, the symbolic completion of Kukuljević’s efforts to adorn the Očura chapel was marked by the establishment of a branch of the prominent Confraternity of the Holy Rosary, as indicated by a report from the canonical visitation conducted three years later (1758). Unfortunately, records from the aforementioned canonical visitation (as well as later ones) do not provide a detailed description of the newly erected altars or the iconographic programme of their statues. These are known only from a series of historical photographs from the first half of the 20th century, related to the chapel’s devastation. Given the fragmentary preservation of the sculptural ensemble in Očura and its generally poor condition, previous publications could offer only brief stylistic and formal analyses. Nevertheless, the harmonized design of the sculptures’ bases, the roughly hewn and hollowed-out backgrounds, their proportions, and their basic typology suggest that they are part of the same programme. Additionally, the morphological features of the drapery, physiognomy, and anatomy lead to the assumption that they were all produced by the same sculpting workshop. Based on the described affinities with works from the oeuvre attributed to Joseph Straub, it seems possible to connect the Očura statues with his circle, which – in addition to the master’s assistant and successor Joseph Holzinger – included other, anonymous sculptors active in the area of Lower Styria and north-western Croatia.

The Walking Dead is an American post-apocalyptic horror drama television series based on the comic book series of the same name. In the opening episode, Sheriff’s Deputy Rick Grimes awakens after months in a coma in an abandoned hospital to find a post-apocalyptic world dominated by flesh eating zombies. The cause of the apocalypse is unknown, and Grimes does not know what has happened to his family. The start of the programme is situated around his quest to find his family, and the encounters he has with the many other survivors along the way. The plot of The Walking Dead centres on the survivors of the apocalypse as they search for safe haven away from the “walkers”, or “biters”; the first series focuses on how they cope with the immediate realities of life in the post-apocalyptic world. From the outset, the programme finds its way through the upheaval and destruction of everyday American life. Decay is persistent and inevitable in the threat of death from the “walkers”; this familiar Gothic trope is ever-present throughout the series.This paper uses a Gothic focus to examine The Walking Dead and considers the disintegration of society and family after the zombie Apocalypse. It focuses primarily on the first series of The Walking Dead, and examines Gothic tropes through a discussion of the decay of the walkers, the decay of the family, and the decay of society.Zombie Gothic It is important to examine the zombie narrative within a Gothic framework. Kyle Bishop argues that “zombies and the narratives that surround them function as part of the larger Gothic literary tradition, even as they change that tradition as well” (31). In contrast to other Gothic traditions that began in literature, the zombie is unique as it began in folklore, cinema and drama. Similarities to other Gothic traditions exist, such as ghosts and vampires, and the zombie narrative serves as a vehicle to examine cultural anxieties and prevailing attitudes. In fact, Bishop suggests that the zombie narrative has now proven itself to be as interesting and complex as more established Gothic traditions (31). Just as earlier Gothic traditions allowed people to explore themselves in the mirror that Frankenstein (1818) or Dracula (1897) provided, the zombie allows for a more modern examination: a world that is increasingly complex with its technological and cybernetic advances yet a world where humanity has still not resolved the great differences that exist. Bishop argues that “during the latter half of the twentieth century, for example, zombie movies repeatedly reacted to social and political unrest, graphically representing the inescapable realities of an untimely death…” (11). The zombie narrative’s ability to adapt to cultural anxieties make it part of the Gothic tradition. Bishop also argues that, in a post–9/11 climate, the zombie film works as an important example of:the contemporary Gothic, readdressing “the central concerns of the classical Gothic,” such as “the dynamics of family, the limits of rationality and passion, the definition of statehood and citizenship, the cultural effects of technology.” In addition to exposing such repressed cultural anxieties, Fred Botting emphasizes how Gothic narratives “retain a double function in simultaneously assuaging and intensifying the anxieties with which they engage.” (26) The Gothic situates itself from the 18th century as writing of excess and this tendency permeates much of the genre’s narratives, characters and settings. The mutability in Gothic texts provides a platform for many social issues and anxieties to be addressed; its ability to shift and adapt in order to reflect contemporaneous social trends is partly what has enabled it to remain popular (Botting Gothic). The zombie forces a confrontation with the fears of life and death, freedom and enslavement, and the destruction of modern society. These include “the exploitation of the masses in capitalist society, the soullessness of modern-day life, our fear of global apocalypse, our revulsion at the reality of war, and the inevitability of death” (Graves 9). The rise of the zombie narrative plays on humanity’s fear for the future: that modern civilisation has many fundamental weaknesses that may ultimately collapse through one form of global disaster or another. The Gothic situates itself from the 18th century as writing of excess and this tendency permeates much of the genre’s narratives, characters and settings. The mutability in Gothic texts provides a platform for many social issues and anxieties to be addressed; its ability to shift and adapt in order to reflect contemporaneous social trends is partly what has enabled it to remain popular (Botting Gothic). The zombie forces a confrontation with the fears of life and death, freedom and enslavement, and the destruction of modern society. These include “the exploitation of the masses in capitalist society, the soullessness of modern-day life, our fear of global apocalypse, our revulsion at the reality of war, and the inevitability of death” (Graves 9). The rise of the zombie narrative plays on humanity’s fear for the future: that modern civilisation has many fundamental weaknesses that may ultimately collapse through one form of global disaster or another. I argue that the zombie is part of a new kind of Gothic with a new monster for a new age. This new monster facilitates the Gothic’s ability to remain relevant in a post-industrial, cyberspace era. Unnatural death is now more horrific, pervasive, and far-reaching than Walpole ever could have imagined when he wrote the now canonical Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto (1764), and the zombie works as a dramatic manifestation of this ever-present anxiety. The Gothic narratives of the zombie now represent a more modern reaction to the threats posed in the 21st-century, post-9/11 world which is potentially more traumatic than the threats posed in earlier Gothic novels of the 19th and 20th century. Global pandemics may manifest as a zombie apocalypse or disease that threaten complete annihilation of civilisation. Teresa Goddu emphasises how “the Gothic is not a trans-historical, static category but a dynamic mode that undergoes historical changes when specific agents adopt and transform its conventions” (32). Zombie narratives have updated Gothic conventions to then reflect modern day anxieties and fears. As Botting argues, “Gothic figures” represent anxieties associated with turning points in cultural historical progress (2002). Zombie narratives, then, serve to allow a confrontation with more modern terrors and threats that exist; the zombie narrative, it can be argued, confronts Gothic tropes and places them in a contemporary context. Cultural anxieties have been nurtured about the rise in terrorist activity around the world, witnessed with the collapse of the World Trade Centre towers, and the threats of pandemics that might eviscerate the human race in the form of SARS. The zombie narrative then represents a logical growth in Gothic monsters that have been used to explore modern day cultural anxieties. Post-Apocalyptic America and Gothic Zombies Apocalypse and zombie narratives represent the worst case scenario for both the people of USA and the world. Zombies, vampires and other apocalyptic monsters are used as faceless creatures to present either an unknown threat or pose them as social critique (Bo). The first signs of the Gothic are present from the start of The Walking Dead, where the familiar American suburban scene has altered into a mutilated disintegrating version of society. In the series, threat comes not just from the “walkers” but also from the fellow survivors who no longer obey the pre-apocalypse laws and way of life. Pre-apocalypse, Rick Grimes was a sheriff, and an upholder of the law. The series starts with Grimes in a police car having lunch with his best friend Shane Walsh while they discuss the differences between men and women. In a police shoot-out, Grimes is shot and awakens to find society as he knew it destroyed. After waking from his coma, he returns to his family home and meets two other survivors, Morgan Jones and his son Duane, who explain the implications of the zombie apocalypse to him. Grimes searches for his family and returns to the police station. He puts on his uniform which appears as a symbol of the normality he thinks he can return to. However, as he goes to get petrol, Grimes looks under a car and sees a young girl’s pink slippers. He calls to her saying “don’t worry little girl”, as the girl drags a pink rabbit. She turns around to face Grimes and runs at him: it is revealed she is a zombie. She is a grotesque parody of a little girl with her distorted and mutilated face; as Grimes draws out his gun and shoots her in the face, she is an uncanny reminder that humanity has permanently altered. The narrative of adults and police officers protecting innocent children is quickly subverted from the start of the series. From this moment, Rick Grimes is permanently fighting his own loss of morality and humanity in a society that has become a distortion of what it once was. The term “liminality” is employed by critics and theorists of the Gothic to refer to spaces or bodies situated:either on or at the recognized borders or boundaries of subjective existence. In eighteenth-century Gothic writing, these thresholds were mainly encountered through liminal spaces. These were often mountain ranges, secret rooms, and hidden passages. From the nineteenth century onward, the human body has increasingly become a liminal site where normative boundaries are challenged; the monster, vampire, and werewolf, are all liminal beings. (Hughes, Punter and Smith)The zombies continues the Gothic tradition of liminality and is perhaps more frightening as they represent the dissolution of death, yet are still in some form “alive”. In The Walking Dead, the survivors are also neither completely alive nor dead, as they are on the edge of losing life as they know it and becoming consumed by the undead. The “walkers” operate as terrifying prompts that what was once considered an incontrovertible fact—the difference between life and death—is not as final in the post-apocalyptic world of the series. The “walkers”, therefore, are walking manifestations of decay and liminality, a reminder that the fear of death has been transmuted into the fear if an even more dangerous entity, neither living nor dead. Gothic, Misha Kavka argues, is often about fear, localised in the shape of something monstrous that electrifies the collective mind (Kavka). In this case, the zombies are tangible displays of how a pandemic or global outbreak could alter humanity forever. Gothic is also about the paranoia around body manipulation, defined as a projection of the self on to the outside world where the boundaries blur between self and other (Kavka). In the zombie narrative of The Walking Dead, the boundaries between the living and dead collapse when decay reanimates into the liminal form of the “walkers”. Decay of the Family The death of the family unit as a recurring trope is raised early on in the series, and the initial problem for Rick Grimes is locating his missing family. Grimes teams up with Morgan Jones and his son Duane. Morgan has his own dilemma when faced with the thought of killing his wife who has turned into a “walker”. She returns to their family house, and seems caught between life and death as if she has some memory of the life she had before. Rick Grimes’s family dilemma is further exacerbated when he finds his wife and son with other survivors who have formed a group. Thinking that her husband Rick was dead, Lori Grimes has started a relationship with Grimes’ best friend, fellow police officer Shane Walsh; a growing tension grows between the two men as the series continues. Ultimately this leads to a fight between the two men as the jealousy grows and each have different ideas on how to best keep the survivors safe. Where the men were once allies and friends, the apocalypse has turned them into enemies. Though the zombies are the most manifest threat to the survivors, there are other threats that come to the fore in The Walking Dead. These threats are in the form of the changes that occur between the characters (Bo). What were once everyday events turns into dangerous events: getting water, petrol and food, for example, become life-threatening activities, and the survivors must trust people who they meet up with on their travels. Rick Grimes’ pre-apocalypse ethics and humanity are tested by the new society. For example, he allows his son Carl Grimes to carry a handgun which Carl later uses to save Rick’s life. In contrast to the Grimes family that is at the centre of the narrative, another group of survivors live at a farm and are led by Hershel Greene, a farmer and religious leader. Their treatment of the “walkers” represents a different approach to the zombie apocalypse. Hershel keeps zombies in a barn and sees them as sick people, while Rick sees them as monsters. Many in the barn are Hershel’s family members; it is only later in the series that Hershel comes to see the zombie family as monsters intent on killing all human survivors. With the connections to family and love, the zombies act as a mirror to the human survivors of what they may potentially become. Societal Decay From the start The Walking Dead Rick Grimes needs to grapple with a world profoundly altered by the zombie apocalypse. The hospital is abandoned except for stray zombie corpses, and it is clear that the once secure place of the hospital is no longer a haven for the sick. One of the most obvious signs of decay is the streets littered with abandoned vehicles, and there are outward markers of chaos and apocalypse. There is much that is Gothic and uncanny in The Walking Dead, where cognitive dissonance is opened up when the familiar becomes strange. The world ostensibly looks the same but will never be normal again for Rick Grimes and the survivors. Here the “true horror lies in that which is most immediately at hand that the most proximal bears the capacity to contain the utterly unfamiliar” (Chopra). The decay of society is made both manifest and melancholic as it evokes the anxiety of being simultaneously normal and abnormal. The once known, or normal, world has become strange and unfamiliar. For example, in the first series of The Walking Dead there is a reference to the classic zombie horror film Dawn of the Dead (1978), where the survivors find themselves trapped in a department store, a famous scene commented upon by Bishop:This instinctual “drive to shop,” as it were, is repeatedly emphasized by Romero, who shows the mindless creatures pressed up against glass doors and windows, clamouring to get inside the shops, in a gross parody of early-morning-sale shoppers, to resume their earthly activities of gluttonous consumption—indeed, as Kim Paffenroth points out, their addiction for the place exists beyond death. (Bishop 41) As the maniacal governor in The Walking Dead later observes about the zombies: “The thing you have to realize is that they’re just us—they’re no different. They want what they want, they take what they want and after they get what they want—they’re only content for the briefest span of time. Then they want more” (Bishop 140). The zombies then serve as a mirror for the worst of humanity. Zombies further mirror other aspects of humanity that are hidden and ignored. Barbara Creed suggests that the popular horror film brings about a confrontation with the abject (the corpse, bodily wastes, and the monstrous-feminine), and by doing so re-draws the boundaries between the human and non-human (Creed). She argues:Firstly, the horror film abounds in images of abjection, foremost of which is the corpse, whole and mutilated, followed by an array of bodily wastes such as blood, vomit, saliva, tears and putrefying flesh. (Creed 253)The zombies/”walkers” in The Walking Dead are abject, mutilated walking corpses. Creed argues that the blurred boundaries between life and death, and the antinomies that humans like to ignore or pretend do not exist, are seen in creatures like zombies. Abjection is usually represented by bodily fluids such as pus or blood or a kind of in-betweenness, such as the zombies’ state between life and death. Mark Bould and Sherryl Vint argue that apocalyptic fiction uses the scenario of the end of the world as a way to rebuild and reorganise society (23). The very question of possible futures and society in a post-apocalyptic world is raised and questioned in The Walking Dead when everyday survival is at stake. This alters, however, when Rick Grimes has to focus on the long-term survival of the group and his family when his wife becomes pregnant. Lori Grimes argues that the world they find themselves in is no place to raise a child and to establish new lives. Rick does not agree with Lori and her pessimistic view of society as it stands. In an uncanny twist, the survivors do not know what has caused the apocalypse, but they later learn that everyone is infected and will re-animate when dead: they are the “walking dead”.Conclusion The Walking Dead is a modern Gothic text that uses many of the tropes of the Gothic to explore cultural anxieties present today. One such area is that of decay, chaos and lawlessness in the post-apocalyptic world of the zombie. This is a key area of the Gothic tradition played out in the modern afflicted world. At the start of The Walking Dead, society is seen as “normal”, two police officers are eating lunch in their vehicle and talking about life. After Rick Grimes awakens after his coma what was once “normal” has transformed into a site of uncanny horror, suspense and terror. Much of the first series is spent with Grimes and his survivors trying to contain and combat the zombie threat. Botting argues that early Gothic fiction articulated a shift from a feudal economy to a capitalistic one (2008). In similar vein, in The Walking Dead the future is one where capitalist society has totally collapsed. This could be a critique of the 2008 financial crash, or a fear of what could happen if a pandemic were to occur that ended consumer life and society as it is known (Bishop 41). It also demonstrates that what is seen as established norms quickly disintegrate in the new post-apocalyptic society. Social structures in the post-apocalyptic world no longer function as they once did. The normality of a pregnancy which should, under “normal” circumstances, herald hope for the future, sets off ambivalence in the Grimes family about the life circumstances the survivors find themselves in, and the future that is available to them or their offspring. Core institutions and structures have fallen; the hospital at the start of the series no longer functions and the police are no longer upholders of the law. Chaos and anarchy are now the everyday life that confronts the survivors. The survivors are frequently left with questions about what is the point is of their lives. At the centre of the chaos is the change in family and society. The structures of modern society are seen as flimsy and easily disturbed in the post-apocalyptic zombie future. As Botting says, “uncertainties about the nature of power, law, society, family and sexuality dominate Gothic fiction” (Gothic 3). The modern day Gothic then questions these key areas of society. The death in the Gothic post-apocalyptic zombie future is that of society as well as individuals. References Bishop, Kyle William. American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture. Jefferson: McFarland Company, 2010. Bo, Kristian. Surviving the End. Thesis. University of Tromso, 2013. Botting, Fred. “Aftergothic: Consumption,Machines, and Black Holes.” In Hogle, The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction. ———. The Gothic. London: Routledge. 1995. ———. Limits of Horror: Technology, Bodies, Gothic. New York: Manchester University Press, 2008. ———. “Science Fiction and Film in Gothic.” London: Routledge. 2005. Bould, Mark, and Sherryl Vint. The Routledge Concise History of Science Fiction. New York: Routledge, 2011. Creed, Barbara. “Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection.” Feminist Film Theory: A Reader. Ed. Sue Thornham. New York: New York University Press, 1999. Chopra, Samir. “American Horror Story, The Walking Dead, and the American Gothic”. samirchopra.com, 2014. Goddu, Teresa A. Gothic America: Narrative, History, and Nation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Hughes, William, David Punter and Andrew Smith. The Encyclopaedia of the Gothic. London: Wiley, 2014. Kavka, M. “The Gothic on Screen.” The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, ed. C. Jerold Hogle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Overbey, Erin. “The Walking Dead Returns”. The New Yorker, 2012. The Walking Dead, Frank Darabont. AMC, 2010. DVD.

In February 2021, during the third COVID-19 lockdown in the state of Victoria, Australia, artist Shaun Wilson used the teleconferencing platforms Teams and Skype to create a slow cinema feature length artwork titled Fading Light to demonstrate how innovative creative practice can overcome barriers of distance experienced by creative practitioners from the limitations sustained during the COVID-19 pandemic. While these production techniques offer free access to develop new methodologies through practice, the wider scope of pandemic lockdowns mediated artists with teleconferencing as a tool to interrogate the nature of life during our various global lockdowns. It thus afforded a pioneering ability for artists to manufacture artwork about lockdowns whilst in lockdown, made from the tools commonly used for virtual communication. The significance of such opportunities, as this article will argue, demonstrates a novel approach to making artwork about COVID-19 in ways that were limited prior to the start of 2020 in terms of commonality, that now are “turning us all into broadcasters, streamers and filmmakers” (Sullivan). However, as we are only just becoming familiar with the cultural innovation pioneered from the limitations brought about by the pandemic, new aesthetics are emerging that challenge normative traditions of manufacturing and thinking about creative artefacts. Teleconferencing platforms were used differently prior to 2020 when compared to the current pandemic era. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, there were no global gigascale movement restrictions or medical dangers to warrant a global shutdown that would ultimately determine how a person interacts with public places. In a pre-pandemic context, the daily use of teleconferencing was a luxury. Its subsequent use in the COVID-19 era became a necessity in many parts of day-to-day life. As artists have historically been able to comment through their work on global health crises, how has contemporary art responded since 2020 in using teleconferencing within critical studio practice? To explore such an idea, this article will probe examples of practice from artists making artworks with teleconferencing about pandemics during the COVID-19 pandemic. Discussion will purposely not consider a wider historical scope of teleconferencing in art and scholarship as the context in this article explicitly addresses art made in and commenting on the COVID-19 pandemic using the tools of lockdown readily available through teleconferencing platforms. It will instead concentrate on three artists addressing the pandemic during 2020 and 2021. The first example will be There Is No Such Thing as Internet from Polish artists Maria Magdalena Kozlowska and Maria Tobola, “performers who identify as one artist, Maria Małpecki” (“Pogo”). The second example is New York artist Michael Mandiberg’s Uncle Bob 85th Birthday via Zoom 3:00-4:00PM, August 16, 2020 (#24), from the series Zoom Paintings. The third example is Australian artist Shaun Wilson’s Fading Light. These works will be discussed as a means of considering teleconferencing as a contemporary art medium used in response to COVID-19 and art made as pandemic commentary through the technology that has defined its global social integration. Figure 1: Maria Małpecki, There Is No Such Thing as Internet, used with permission. There Is No Such Thing as Internet was presented as a live stream on 7 May 2020 and as an online video between 7-31 May 2020 in the “Online Cocktail Party with Maria Małpecki” at Pogo Bar, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin by Maria Małpecki and curator Tomek Pawlowski Jarmolajew (“Pogo”). The work represents a twenty-minute livestream essay created in part by a teleconferencing video call performance and appropriated video streams. This includes video chat examples from Chomsky and Žižek, compiled together through intertextual video collages which The Calvert Journal described as a work “that explore[s] identity and different modes of communication in times of isolation” (De La Torre). One of the key strengths of this work in terms of teleconferencing is how it embraces the medium as an integral part of the performative methodology. To such an extent, one might argue that if it was removed and replaced by traditional video camera shots, which do feature in the video but are not the main aesthetic driver, the Metamodernist troupe of Małpecki’s videos would not perform the same critique of the pandemic. So, for Małpecki to comment on isolation through the Internet requires video calls to be central in the artwork in order for it to hold the cultural value it embeds through the subject. The conceptual framework relies on short segments to create episodic moments reliant on philosophical laments relating to each part of the work. For example, the first act unfolds with a montage of short video clip collages reminiscent of the quick-clip YouTube browsing habit culture from the pandemic to expedite an argument that indeed, there really is no singular internet. Rather, from this, what we are experiencing is arguably something else entirely. From here we move to the second act titled “We wake up in a different room every morning. We wander in a labyrinth where most doors are already open” (Małpecki); but as Małpecki comments, “sometimes our job is to shut them”. The sequence evolves into a disorientating dual screen sequence of the artists panicking to what they are viewing on screen. What this is exactly remains unclear. It may be us as the audience or something else as Malpecki holds their webcam devices upside down to provide an unnerving menage amidst the screams and exacerbations that invites spatial disorientation as a point of engagement for the viewer. As we recognise that video call protocols during the pandemic are visually static and that normative ‘rules’ of video calls require stabilised video and clean sound, Małpecki subverts these protocols to that of an uncomfortable, anarchic performance. It's at odds with the gentility of video call aesthetics which, in the case of this artwork, is more like watching a continuous point of view shot from a participant on a roller coaster or an extreme fairground ride. As the audience moves through each of the eclectic acts, this randomness laments a continuity that, sometimes satirical and at other times sublime, infuses the silliness and obliqueness of habitual lockdown video viewing. Even the most mundane of videos we watch to pass the time have become anthems of the COVID-19 era as a mixture of boredom, stupidity, and collective grief. Małpecki’s work in this regard becomes a complex observation for a society in crisis. It eloquently uses video calls as a way to comment on what this article argues to be an important cultural artefact in contemporary art’s response to COVID-19. Just as Goya subverted the Venetian pandemic in the grim Plague Hospital, Małpecki reflects our era in the same disruptive way by using frailty as a mirror to reveal an uneasy reflection masked in satirical obscurity, layered with fragments of the Internet and its subjective “other”. Figure 2: Michael Mandiberg, Uncle Bob 85th Birthday via Zoom 3:00-4:00PM, August 16, 2020 (#24), used with permission. Conversely, the work of New York artist Michael Mandiberg uses teleconferencing in a different way by painting the background of video calls onto stretched canvases mostly over the duration of the actual call time. Yet in doing so, the removal of people from inside the frame highlights aspects of isolation and absence in lockdown. At the Denny Dinin Gallery exhibition in New York, The Zoom Paintings “presented in the digital sphere where they were born” (Defoe). Zoom provided both the frame and the exhibition space for these works, with “one painting … on view each day [on Zoom], for a total of ten paintings” (“Zoom”). Describing the works, Mandiberg states that they are “about the interchangeability of people and places. It’s not memorializing a particular event; it’s memorializing how unmemorable it is” (Mandiberg; Defoe). This defines an innovative approach to teleconferencing that engages with place in times when the same kinds of absence experienced in the images of peopleless Zoom video calls mirror the external absence of people in public places during lockdown. Uncle Bob 85th Birthday via Zoom 3:00-4:00PM, August 16, 2020 (#24) is time stamped with the diaristic nature of the Zoom Paintings series. These works are not just a set of painting subjects interlinked through a common theme of paintings ‘about Zoom backgrounds’. They, rather, operate as a complex depiction of absence located in the pandemic, evidently capturing a powerful social commentary about what the artist experienced during these times. In doing so, it immediately prompts the viewer into tensions that conceptually frame COVID-19, whether that be the isolation of waiting out the pandemic in lockdown, the removal of characters through illness from the virus, or even a sudden death from the virus itself. The camera’s point of view illustrates an empty space where we know something is missing. At the very least the artist suggests that someone nearby once inhabited these empty spaces but they are, at present, removed from the scene or have vanished altogether. On 16 August 2020, the day that the painting was made, the New York Times estimated that 514 people in the United States died from COVID-19 (“Coronavirus”). When measured against a further death rate peaking at 5,463 people in the United States who died on 11 February 2021, the catastrophic mortality data in the United States alone statistically supports Mandiberg’s lament as to the severity of the pandemic, which serves as the context of his work. Based on this data alone, the absence in Mandiberg’s paintings intensifies a sense of isolation and loss insofar as the subjectivity embedded within the video call frame speaks to a powerful way that contemporary art is providing commentary during the pandemic (“Coronavirus”). Art in this context becomes a silent observer using teleconferencing to address both what is taken away from us and what visually remains behind. This article acknowledges the absence in Mandiberg’s paintings as a timely reminder of the socio-devastation experienced in the pandemic’s wake. Therein lies a three-folded image within an image within an image, not unlike what we see in Blade Runner when Deckard’s Esper Machine investigates the reflection in a mirror of someone else, and no more vivid than in Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait. From a structural point of view, we witness Mandiberg’s images during its exhibition on Zoom in much the same conceptual way. In this case though, it is a mirrored online image of an image painted from a video call interpreted online from a recorded image transmitted online through teleconferencing. Through similar transactions, Shaun Wilson’s utilisation of video calls is represented in Fading Light as a way to comment on COVID-19 through the lens of Teams and Skype. The similarities of Fading Light to There Is No Such Thing as Internet stem obviously from the study of figuration used as the driver of the works but at the same time, it also draws comparison with Mandiberg’s stillness as represented in the frozen poses of each figure. At a more complex level, there is, though, a polar opposite in the mechanics that, for Mandiberg, uses video to translate into painted subjects. Fading Light does the opposite, with paintings recontextualised into video subjects. Such an analysis of both works brings about a sense of trepidation. For Mandiberg, it is the unsettling stillness through absence. In Fading Light it is the oppressive state of the motionlessness in frame that offers the same sense of awkwardness found in Mandiberg’s distorted painted laptop angles, and that makes the same kind of uncomfortableness bearable. It is only as much as an audience affords the time to allow before the loneliness of the subject renders the Zoom paintings a memorial to what is lost. Of note in Fading Light are the characteristically uncomfortable traits of what we detect should be in the frame of the subject but isn’t, which lends a tension to the viewer who has involuntarily been deprived of what is to be expected. For a modern Internet audience, a video without movement invites a combination of tension, boredom, and annoyance, drawing parallels to Hitchcock’s premise that something has just happened but we’re not entirely sure exactly what it was or is. Likewise, Małpecki’s same juxtaposition of tension with glimpses of Chomsky and Žižek videos talking over each other is joined by the artists’ breaking the fourth wall of cinema theory. Observing the artists lose concentration while watching the other videos in the video call scenario enact the mundane activities we encounter in the same kinds of situations of watching someone else on Zoom. However, in this context, we are watching them watching someone else whom we are also watching, while watching ourselves at the same time. Figure 3: Shaun Wilson, Fading Light, used with permission. The poses in Fading Light are reconfigured from characters in German medieval paintings and low relief religious iconography created during the Black Death era. Such works hang in the Gothic St. Michael’s Church in Schwäbisch Hall in Germany originally used by Martin Luther as his Southern Germany outpost during the Reformation. Wilson documented these paintings in October 2006, which then became the ongoing source images used in the 51 Paintings Suite films. The church itself has a strong connection to pandemics where a large glass floor plate behind the altar reveals an open ossuary of people who died of plague during the Black Death. This association brings an empirical linkage to the agency in Fading Light that mediates the second handed nature of the image, initially painted during a medieval pandemic, and now juxtaposed into the video frame captured in a current pandemic. From a conceptual standpoint, the critical analysis reflected in such a framework allows the artwork to reveal itself at a multi-level perspective, operating within a Metamodernist methodology. Two separate elements oscillate in tandem with one another, yet completely independent, or in this case, impervious to each other’s affect. Fading Light’s key affordance from this oscillation consolidate Wilson’s methodology in the artwork in as much detail as what Małpecki and Mandiberg construct in their respective works, yet obviously for very different motivations. If the basis of making video art in the pandemic using teleconferencing changes the way we might think about using these platforms, which otherwise may not have previously been taken serious by the academy as a valid medium in art, then the quiet meaningfulness throughout the film transcends a structured method to ascertain a pictorial presence of the image in its facsimile state. This pays respect to the source images but also embraces and overlays the narrative of the current pandemic intertwined within the subject. Given that Fading Light allows a ubiquitous dialogue to grow from the framed image, a subjective commonality in these mentioned works provide insight into how artists have engaged innovation strategies with teleconferencing to develop artwork made and commenting about the current pandemic. Whether it be Małpecki’s subversive pandemic variety show, the loneliness of Mandiberg’s Zoom call paintings or Wilson’s refilming of Black Death era paintings, all three artists use video call platforms as a contemporary art medium capable of social commentary during histo-trauma. These works also raise the possibility of interdisciplinary Metamodernist approaches to consider the implications of non-traditional mediums in offering socio-commentary during profoundly impactful times. It remains to be seen if contemporary video call platforms will become a frequented tool in contemporary art long after the COVID-19 pandemic is over. However, by these works and indeed, from the others to follow and not yet revealed, the current ossuary provides an opportunity for artists to respond to their own immediate surroundings to redefine existing boundaries in art and look to innovation in the methods they use. We are in a new era of art making, only now beginning to reveal itself. It may take years or even decades to better understand the magnitude of the significance that artists have contributed towards their own practices since the beginnings of the pandemic. This time of profound change only strengthens the need for contemporary art to preserve and enlighten humanity through the journey from crisis to hope. References Blade Runner. Dir. by Ridley Scott, Warner Brothers, 1982. “Coronavirus US Cases.” New York Times, 27 Mar. 2021. 28 Mar. 2021 <http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html>. Defoe, Taylor. “‘It's Memorializing How Unmemorable It Is’: Artist Michael Mandiberg on Painting Melancholy Portraits on Zoom.” Artnet News 10 Nov. 2020. 19 Mar. 2021 <http://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/mandiberg-zoom-paintings-1922159>. De La Torre, Lucia. “Art in the Age of Zoom: Explore the Video Art Collage Unraveling the Complexities of the Digital Age.” The Culvert Journal, 5 May 2020. 19 Mar. 2021 <https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/11788/online-performance-art-polish-artist-maria-malpecki-digital-age>. Goya, Francisco. Plaga Hospital. Private Collection. 1800. Małpecki, Maria. There Is No Such Thing as Internet. Vimeo, 2020. <http://vimeo.com/415998383>. Mandiberg, Michael. Uncle Bob 85th Birthday via Zoom 3:00-4:00PM, August 16, 2020 (#24). New York: Denny Dinin Gallery, 2020. “Pogo Bar: Maria Małpecki & Tomek Pawłowski Jarmołajew.” KW Institute for Contemporary Art, 7 May 2020. 19 Mar. 2021 <http://www.kw-berlin.de/en/maria-malpecki-tomek-pawlowski-jarmolajew/>. Sullivan, Eve. “Video Art during and after the Pandemic: 2020 Limestone Coast Video Art Festival.” Artlink, 2020. 19 Mar. 2021 <http://www.artlink.com.au/articles/4885/video-art-during-and-after-the-pandemic-2020-limes/>. Van Eyck, Jan. Arnolfini Portrait. Canberra: National Gallery, 1434. Wilson, Shaun. Fading Light. Bakers Road Entertainment, 2021. “The Zoom Paintings.” Denny Dimin Gallery, 12 Nov. 2020. <http://dennydimingallery.com/news/virtual_exhibition/zoom-paintings/>.

Introduction The coronation of King Charles III was steeped in the tradition of magic and ritual that has characterised English, and later British, coronations. The very idea of a coronation leverages belief in divinity; however, the coronation of Charles III occurred in a very different social environment than those of monarchs a millennium ago. Today, belief in the divine right of Kings is dramatically reduced. In this context, magic can also be thought of as a stage performance that relies on a tacit understanding between audience and actor, where disbelief is suspended in order to achieve the effect. This paper will examine the use of ritual and magic in the coronation ceremony. It will discuss how the British royal family has positioned its image in relation to the concept of magic and how social changes have brought the very idea of monarchy into question. One way to think about magic, according to Leddington (253), is that it has “long had an uneasy relationship with two thoroughly disreputable worlds: the world of the supposedly supernatural – the world of psychics, mediums and other charlatans – and the world of the con – the world of cheats, hustlers and swindlers”. While it may be that a magician aims to fool the audience, the act also requires audiences to willingly suspend disbelief. Once the audience suspends disbelief in the theatrical event, they enter the realm of fantasy. The “willingness of the audience to play along and indulge in the fantasy” means magic is not just about performances of fiction, but it is about illusion (Leddington 256). Magic is also grounded in its social practices: the occult, sorcery, and witchcraft, particularly when linked to the Medieval Euro-American witch-hunts of the fifteenth to seventeenth century (Ginzburg). Religion scorned magic as a threat to the idea that only God had “sovereignty over the unseen” (Benussi). By the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, intellectuals like Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Max Weber argued that “increases in literacy, better living conditions, and growing acquaintance with modern science, would make people gradually forget their consolatory but false beliefs in spirits, gods, witches, and magical forces” (Casanova). Recent booms in Wicca and neopaganism show that modernity has not dismissed supernatural inquiry. Today, ‘occulture’ – “an eclectic milieu mixing esotericism, pop culture, and urban mysticism” – is treated as a “valuable resource to address existential predicaments, foster resilience in the face of the negative, expand their cognitive resources, work on their spiritual selves, explore fantasy and creativity, and generally improve their relationship with the world” (Benussi). Indeed, Durkheim’s judgement of magic as a quintessentially personal spiritual endeavour has some resonance. It also helps to explain why societies are still able to suspend belief and accept the ‘illusion’ that King Charles III is appointed by God. And this is what happened on 6 May 2023 when millions of people looked on, and as with all magic mirrors, saw what they wanted to see. Some saw a … victory for the visibility of older women, as if we did not recently bury a 96-year-old queen, and happiness at last. Others saw a victory for diversity, as people of colour and non-Christian faiths, and women, were allowed to perform homage — and near the front, too, close to the god. (Gold 2023) ‘We must not let in daylight upon magic’ In 1867, English essayist Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) wrote “above all things our royalty is to be reverenced, and if you begin to poke about it, you cannot reverence it … . Its mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic” (cited in Ratcliffe). Perhaps, one may argue sardonically, somebody forgot to tell Prince Harry. In the 2022 six-part Netflix special Harry and Meghan, it was reported that Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have “shone not just daylight but a blinding floodlight on the private affairs of the royal family” (Holden). Queen Elizabeth II had already learnt the lesson of not letting the light in. In June 1969, BBC1 and ITV in Britain aired a documentary titled Royal Family, which was watched by 38 million viewers in the UK and an estimated 350 million globally. The documentary was developed by William Heseltine, the Queen’s press secretary, and John Brabourne, who was the son-in-law of Lord Mountbatten, to show the daily life of the royal family. The recent show The Crown also shows the role of Prince Phillip in its development. The 110-minute documentary covered one year of the royal’s private lives. Queen Elizabeth was shown the documentary before it aired. The following dialogue amongst the royals in The Crown (episode 3, season 4 ‘Bubbikins’) posits one reason for its production. It’s a documentary film … . It means, um ... no acting. No artifice. Just the real thing. Like one of those wildlife films. Yes, except this time, we are the endangered species. Yes, exactly. It will follow all of us in our daily lives to prove to everyone out there what we in here already know. What’s that? Well, how hard we all work. And what good value we represent. How much we deserve the taxpayer’s money. So, we’ll all have to get used to cameras being here all the time? Not all the time. They will follow us on and off over the next few months. So, all of you are on your best behaviour. As filming begins, Queen Elizabeth says of the camera lights, “it’s jolly powerful that light, isn’t it?” In 1977 Queen Elizabeth banned the documentary from being shown in Britain. The full-length version is currently available on YouTube. Released at a time of social change in Britain, the film focusses on tradition, duty, and family life, revealing a very conservative royal family largely out of step with modern Britain. Perhaps Queen Elizabeth II realised too much ‘light’ had been let in. Historian David Cannadine argues that, during most of the nineteenth century, the British monarchy was struggling to maintain its image and status, and as the population was becoming better educated, royal ritual would soon be exposed as nothing more than primitive magic, a hollow sham ... the pageantry centred on the monarchy was conspicuous for its ineptitude rather than for its grandeur. (Cannadine, "Context" 102) By the 1980s, Cannadine goes on to posit, despite the increased level of education there remained a “liking for the secular magic of monarchy” (Cannadine, "Context" 102). This could be found in the way the monarchy had ‘reinvented’ their rituals – coronations, weddings, openings of parliament, and so on – in the late Victorian era and through to the Second World War. By the time of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953, aided by television, “the British persuaded themselves that they were good at ceremonial because they always had been” (Cannadine, "Context" 108). However, Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation was very much an example of the curating of illusion precisely because it was televised. Initially, there was opposition to the televising of the coronation from both within the royal family and within the parliament, with television considered the “same as the gutter press” and only likely to show the “coronation blunders” experienced by her father (Hardman 123). Queen Elizabeth II appointed her husband Prince Phillip as Chair of the Coronation Committee. The Queen was opposed to the coronation being televised; the Prince was in favour of it, wanting to open the “most significant royal ceremony to the common man using the new technology of the day” (Morton 134). The Prince argued that opening the coronation to the people via television was the “simplest and surest way of maintaining the monarchy” and that the “light should be let in on the magic” (Morton 135). Queen Elizabeth II considered the coronation a “profound and sacred moment in history, when an ordinary mortal is transformed into a potent symbol in accordance with centuries-old tradition” (Morton 125). For the Queen, the cameras would be too revealing and remind audiences that she was in fact mortal. The press celebrated the idea to televise the coronation, arguing the people should not be “denied the climax of a wonderful and magnificent occasion in British history” (Morton 135). The only compromise was that the cameras could film the ceremony “but would avert their gaze during the Anointing and Holy Communion” (Hardman 123). Today, royal events are extensively planned, from the clothing of the monarch (Hackett and Coghlan) to managing the death of the monarch (Knight). Royal tours are also extensively planned, with elaborate visits designed to show off “royal symbols, vividly and vitally” (Cannadine 115). As such, their public appearances became more akin to “theatrical shows” (Reed 4). History of the ‘Magicalisation’ of Coronations British coronations originated as a “Christian compromise with earlier pagan rites of royal investiture” and in time it would become a “Protestant compromise with Britain’s Catholic past, while also referencing Britain’s growing role as an imperial power” (Young). The first English coronation was at Bath Abbey where the Archbishop of Canterbury crowned King Edgar in 973. When Edward the Confessor came to the throne in 1043, he commissioned the construction of Westminster Abbey on the site of a Benedictine monk church. The first documented coronation to take place at Westminster Abbey was for William the Conqueror in 1066 (Brain). Coronations were considered “essential to convince England’s kings that they held their authority from God” (Young). Following William the Conqueror’s coronation cementing Westminster Abbey’s status as the site for all subsequent coronation ceremonies, Henry III (1207-1272) realised the need for the Abbey to be a religious site that reflects the ceremonial status of that which authorises the monarch’s authority from God. It was under the influence of Henry III that it was rebuilt in a Gothic style, creating the high altar and imposing design that we see today (Brain). As such, this “newly designed setting was now not only a place of religious devotion and worship but also a theatre in which to display the power of kingship in the heart of Westminster, a place where governance, religion and power were all so closely intertwined” (Brain). The ‘magicalisation’ of the coronation rite intensified in the reign of Edward I (Young), with the inclusion of the Stone of Destiny, which is an ancient symbol of Scotland’s monarchy, used for centuries in the inauguration of Scottish kings. In 1296, King Edward I of England seized the stone from the Scots and had it built into a new throne at Westminster. From then on, it was used in the coronation ceremonies of British monarchs. On Christmas Day 1950, four Scottish students removed the stone from Westminster Abbey in London. It turned up three months later, 500 miles away at the high altar of Arbroath Abbey. In 1996, the stone was officially returned to Scotland. The stone will only leave Scotland again for a coronation in Westminster Abbey (Edinburgh Castle). The Stone is believed to be of pre-Christian origin and there is evidence to suggest that it was used in the investitures of pagan kings; thus, modern coronations are largely a muddle of the pre-Christian, the sacred, and the secular in a single ceremony (Young). But the “sheer colour, grandeur, and pageantry of Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953 was such a contrast with the drabness of post-war Britain that it indelibly marked the memories of those who watched it on television—Britain’s equivalent of the moon landings” (Young). It remains to be seen whether King Charles III’s coronation will have the same impact on Britain given its post-Brexit period of economic recession, political instability, and social division. The coronation channels “the fascination, the magic, the continuity, the stability that comes from a monarchy with a dynasty that has been playing this role for centuries, [and] a lot of people find comfort in that” (Gullien quoted in Stockman). However, the world of King Charles III's coronation is much different from that of his mother’s, where there was arguably a more willing audience. The world that Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in was much more sympathetic to the notion of monarchy. Britain, and much of the Commonwealth, was still reeling from the Second World War and willing to accept the fantasy of the 1953 coronation of the 25-year-old newly married princess. By comparison today, support for the monarchy is relatively low. The shift away from the monarchy has been evident since at least 1992, the annus horribilis (Pimlott 7), with much of its basis in the perceived antics of the monarch’s children, and with the ambivalence towards the fire at Windsor Castle that year demonstrating the mood of the public. Pimlott argues “it was no longer fashionable to be in favour of the Monarchy, or indeed to have much good to say about it”, and with this “a last taboo had been shed” (Pimlott 7). The net favourability score of the royal family in the UK sat at +41 just after the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Six months later, this had fallen to +30 (Humphrys). In their polling of adults in the UK, YouGov found that 46% of Britons were likely “to watch King Charles’ coronation and/or take part in celebrations surrounding it”, with younger demographics less likely to participate (YouGov, "How Likely"). The reported £100m cost of the coronation during a cost of living crisis drew controversy, with 51% of the population believing the government should not pay for it, and again the younger generations being more likely to believe that it should not be funded (YouGov, "Do You Think"). Denis Altman (17) reminds us that, traditionally, monarchs claimed their authority directly from God as the “divine right of kings”, which gave monarchs the power to stave off challenges. This somewhat magical legitimacy, however, sits uneasily with modern ideas of democracy. Nevertheless, modern monarchs still call upon this magical legitimacy when their role and relevance are questioned, as the late 1990s proved it to be for the Windsors. With the royal family now subject to a level of public scrutiny that they had not been subjected to in over a century, the coronation of King Charles III would occur in a very different socio-political climate than that of his mother. The use of ritual and magic, and a willing audience, would be needed if King Charles III’s reign was to be accepted as legitimate, never mind popular. As the American conservative commentator Helen Andrews wrote, “all legitimacy is essentially magic” (cited in Cusack). Recognising the need to continue to ensure its legitimacy and relevance, the British royal family have always recognised that mass public consumption of royal births and weddings, and even deaths and funerals are central to them retaining their “mystique” (Altman 30). The fact that 750 million people watched the fairytale wedding of Charles and Diana in 1981, that two billion people watched Diana’s funeral on television in 1997, and a similar number watched the wedding of William and Catherine, suggests that in life and death the royals are at least celebrities, and for some watchers have taken on a larger socio-cultural meaning. Being seen, as Queen Elizabeth II said, in order to be believed, opens the door to how the royals are viewed and understood in modern life. Visibility and performance, argues Laura Clancy (63), is important to the relevance and authority of royalty. Visibility comes from images reproduced on currency and tea towels, but it also comes from being visible in public life, ideally contributing to the betterment of social life for the nation. Here the issue of ‘the magic’ of being blessed by God becomes problematic. For modern monarchs such as Queen Elizabeth II, her power arguably rested on her public status as a symbol of national stability. This, however, requires her to be seen doing so, therefore being visible in the public sphere. However, if royals are given their authority from God as a mystical authority of the divine right of kings, then why do they seek public legitimacy? More so, if ordained by God, royals are not ‘ordinary’ and do not live an ordinary life, so being too visible or too ordinary means the monarchy risks losing its “mystic” and they are “unmasked” (Clancy 65). Therefore, modern royals, including King Charles III, must tightly “stage-manage” being visible and being invisible to protect the magic of the monarch (Clancy 65). For the alternative narrative is easy to be found. As one commentator for the Irish Times put it, “having a queen as head of state is like having a pirate or a mermaid or Ewok as head of state” (Freyne). In this depiction, a monarch is a work of fiction having no real basis. The anointing of the British monarch by necessity taps into the same narrative devices that can be found throughout fiction. The only difference is that this is real life and there is no guarantee of a happily ever after. The act of magic evident in the anointing of the monarch is played out in ‘Smoke and Mirrors’, episode 5 of the first season of the television series The Crown. The episode opens with King George VI asking a young Princess Elizabeth to help him practice his anointing ceremony. Complete with a much improved, though still evident stutter, he says to the young Princess pretending to be the Archbishop: You have to anoint me, otherwise, I can’t ... be King. Do you understand? When the holy oil touches me, I am tr... I am transformed. Brought into direct contact with the divine. For ... forever changed. Bound to God. It is the most important part of the entire ceremony. The episode closes with the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Watching the ceremony on television is the Duke of Windsor, the former King Edward VIII, who was not invited to the coronation. To an audience of his friends and his wife Wallis Simpson, he orates: Oils and oaths. Orbs and sceptres. Symbol upon symbol. An unfathomable web of arcane mystery and liturgy. Blurring so many lines no clergyman or historian or lawyer could ever untangle any of it – It's crazy – On the contrary. It's perfectly sane. Who wants transparency when you can have magic? Who wants prose when you can have poetry? Pull away the veil and what are you left with? An ordinary young woman of modest ability and little imagination. But wrap her up like this, anoint her with oil, and hey, presto, what do you have? A goddess. By the time of Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953, television would demand to show the coronation, and after Elizabeth’s initial reluctance was allowed to televise most of the event. Again, the issue of visibility and invisibility emerges. If the future Queen was blessed by God, why did the public need to see the event? Prime Minister Winston Churchill argued that television should be banned from the coronation because the “religious and spiritual aspects should not be presented as if they were theatrical performance” (Clancy 67). Clancy goes on to argue that the need for television was misunderstood by Churchill: royal spectacle equated with royal power, and the “monarchy is performance and representation” (Clancy 67). But Churchill countered that the “risks” of television was to weaken the “magic of the monarch” (Clancy 67). King Charles III’s Coronation: ‘An ageing debutante about to become a god’ Walter Bagehot also wrote, “when there is a select committee on the Queen … the charm of royalty will be gone”. When asking readers to think about who should pay for King Charles III’s coronation, The Guardian reminded readers that the monarchy rests not on mantras and vapours, but on a solid financial foundation that has been deliberately shielded from parliamentary accountability … . No doubt King Charles III hopes that his coronation will have an enormous impact on the prestige of the monarchy – and secure his legitimacy. But it is the state that will foot the bill for its antique flummery. (The Guardian) Legitimacy it has been said is “essentially magic” (Cusack). The flummery that delivers royal legitimacy – coronations – has been referred to as “a magic hat ceremony” as well as “medieval”, “anachronistic”, and “outdated” (Young). If King Charles III lacks the legitimacy of his subjects, then where is the magic? The highly coordinated, extravagant succession of King Charles III has been planned for over half a century. The reliance on a singular monarch has ensured that this has been a necessity. This also begs the question: why is it so necessary? A monarch whose place was assured surely is in no need of such trappings. Andrew Cusack’s royalist view of the proclamation of the new King reveals much about the reliance on ritual to create magic. His description of the Accession Council at St James’s Palace on 10 September 2022 reveals the rituals that accompany such rarefied events: reading the Accession Proclamation, the monarch swearing their oath and signing various decrees, and the declaration to the public from the balcony of the palace. For the first time, the general public was allowed behind the veil through the lens of television cameras and the more modern online streaming; essential, perhaps, as the proclamation from the balcony was read to an empty street, which had been closed off as a security measure. Yet, for those privileged members of the Privy Council who were able to attend, standing there in a solemn crowd of many hundreds, responding to Garter’s reading of the proclamation with a hearty and united shout of “God save the King!” echoing down the streets of London, it was difficult not to feel the supernatural and preternatural magic of the monarchy. (Cusack) Regardless, the footage of the event reveals a highly rehearsed affair, all against a backdrop of carefully curated colour, music, and costume. Costumes need to be “magnificent” because they “help to will the spell into being” (Gold). This was not the only proclamation ceremony. Variations were executed across the Commonwealth and other realms. In Australia, the Governor-General made a declaration flanked by troops. “A coronation creates a god out of a man: it is magic” (Gold). But for King Charles III, his lack of confidence in the magic spell was obvious at breakfast time. As the congregation spooled into Westminster Abbey, with actors at the front – kings tend to like actors, as they have the same job – the head of the anti-monarchist pressure group Republic, Graham Smith, was arrested near Trafalgar Square with five other republican leaders (Gold). The BBC cut away from the remaining Trafalgar Square protestors as the royal cavalcade passed them by, meaning “screen[s] were erected in front of the protest, as if our eyes — and the king’s — were too delicate to be allowed to see it” (Gold). The Duke of York was booed as he left Buckingham Palace, but that too was not reported on (Ward). This was followed by “the pomp: the fantastical costumes, the militarism, the uneasy horses” (Gold). Yet, the king looked both scared and thrilled: an ageing debutante about to become a god [as he was] poked and prodded, dressed and undressed, and sacred objects were placed on and near him by a succession of holy men who looked like they would fight to the death for the opportunity. (Gold) King Charles III’s first remarks at the beginning of coronation were “I come not to be served, but to serve” (New York Times), a narrative largely employed to dispel the next two hours of well-dressed courtiers and clergy attending to all manner of trinkets and singing all matter of hymns. After being anointed with holy oil and presented with some of the crown jewels, King Charles was officially crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury placing the St Edward’s Crown upon his head. The 360-year-old crown is the centrepiece of the Crown Jewels. It stands just over 30 centimetres tall and weighs over two kilograms (Howard). In the literal crowning moment, Charles was seated on the 700-year-old Coronation Chair, believed to be the oldest piece of furniture in Europe still being used for its original purpose and holding two golden scepters as the glittering St. Edward’s Crown, made for King Charles II in 1661, was placed on his head. It is the only time he will ever wear it. (New York Times) The Indigenous Australian journalist Stan Grant perhaps best sums up the coronation and its need to sanctify via magic the legitimacy of the monarchy. He argues that taking the coronation seriously only risks becoming complicit in this antediluvian ritual. A 74-year-old man will finally inherit the crown of a faded empire. His own family is not united, let alone his country. Charles will still reign over 15 nations, among them St Lucia, Tuvalu, Grenada, Canada and, of course, steadfast Australia. The “republican” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will be among those pledging his allegiance. To seal it all, the new King will be anointed with holy oil. This man is apparently a gift from God. Conclusion Magic is central to the construction of the coronation ceremony of British monarchs, a tradition that stretches back over a millennium. Magic relies upon an implicit understanding between the actors and the audience; the audience knows what they are seeing is a trick, but nonetheless want to be convinced otherwise. It is for the actors to present the trick seamlessly for the audience to enjoy. The coronation relies upon the elevation of a singular person above all other citizens and the established ritual is designed to make the seemingly impossible occur. For centuries, British coronations occurred behind closed doors, with the magic performed in front of a select crowd of peers and notables. The introduction of broadcasting technology, first film, then radio and television, transformed the coronation ceremony and threatened to expose the magic ritual for the trick it is. The stage management of the latest coronation reveals that these concerns were held by the producers, with camera footage carefully shot so as to exclude any counter-narrative from being broadcast. However, technology has evolved since the previous coronation in 1953, and these undesired images still made their way into various media, letting the daylight in and disrupting the magic. It remains to be seen what effect, if any, this will have on the long-term reign of Charles III. References Altman, Dennis. God Save the Queen: The Strange Persistence of Monarchies. Melbourne: Scribe, 2021. Benussi, Matteo. "Magic." The Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Ed. Felix Stein. Cambridge 2019. Brain, Jessica. "The History of the Coronation." Historic UK, 2023. Cannadine, David. "The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual: The British Monarchy and the 'Invention of Tradition', c. 1820–1977." The Invention of Tradition. Eds. Eric Hobsbawm and T.O. Ranger. Canto ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992. 101-64. ———. Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Casanova, José. Public Religions in the Modern World. U of Chicago P, 2011. Clancy, Laura. Running the Family Firm: How the Monarchy Manages Its Image and Our Money. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2021. Cusack, Andrew. "Magic at St James's Palace." Quadrant 66.10 (2022): 14-16. Edinburgh Castle. "The Stone of Destiny." Edinburgh Castle, 2023. Ginzburg, Carlo. Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath. U of Chicago P, 2004. Gold, Tanya. "The Coronation Was an Act of Magic for a Country Scared the Spell Might Break." Politico 6 May 2023. Grant, Stan. "When the Queen Died, I Felt Betrayed by a Nation. For King Charles's Coronation, I Feel Something Quite Different." ABC News 6 May 2023. The Guardian. "The Guardian View on Royal Finances: Time to Let the Daylight In: Editorial." The Guardian 6 Apr. 2023. Hackett, Lisa J., and Jo Coghlan. "A Life in Uniform: How the Queen’s Clothing Signifies Her Role and Status." See and Be Seen. 2022. Hardman, Robert. Queen of Our Times: The Life of Queen Elizabeth II. Simon and Schuster, 2022. Holden, Michael, and Hanna Rantala. "Britain's Bruised Royals Stay Silent as Prince Harry Lets 'Light in on Magic'." Reuters 10 Jan. 2023. Howard, Jacqueline. "King Charles Has Been Crowned at His 'Slimmed-Down' Coronation Ceremony. These Were the Key Moments." ABC News 7 May 2023. Humphrys, John. "First the Coronation… But What Then?" YouGov 14 Apr. 2023. Knight, Sam. "'London Bridge Is Down': The Secret Plan for the Days after the Queen’s Death." The Guardian 2017. Leddington, Jason. "The Experience of Magic." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 74.3 (2016): 253-64. "Smoke and Mirrors." The Crown. Dir. Philip Martin. Netflix, 2016. "Bubbikins." The Crown. Dir. Benjamin Caron. Netflix, 2019. Morton, Andrew. The Queen. Michael O'Mara, 2022. New York Times. "Missed the Coronation? Here’s What Happened, from the Crown to the Crowds." New York Times 2023. Pimlott, Ben. "Jubilee and the Idea of Royalty." Historian 76 (2002): 6-15. Ratcliffe, Susan, ed. Oxford Essential Quotations. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2016. Reed, Charles, Andrew Thompson, and John Mackenzie. Royal Tourists, Colonial Subjects and the Making of a British World, 1860–1911. Oxford: Manchester UP, 2016. Stockman, Farah. "We Are Obsessed with Royalty." Editorial. The New York Times 10 Mar. 2021: A22(L). Ward, Victoria. "Prince Andrew Booed by Parts of Coronation Crowd." The Telegraph 6 May 2023. YouGov. "Do You Think the Coronation of King Charles Should or Should Not Be Funded by the Government?" 18 Apr. 2023. ———. "How Likely Are You to Watch King Charles’ Coronation and/or Take Part in Celebrations Surrounding It?" 13 Apr. 2023. Young, Francis. "The Ancient Royal Magic of the Coronation." First Things: Journal of Religion and Public Life 5 May 2023.

Introduction Crime fiction is one of the world’s most popular genres. Indeed, it has been estimated that as many as one in every three new novels, published in English, is classified within the crime fiction category (Knight xi). These new entrants to the market are forced to jostle for space on bookstore and library shelves with reprints of classic crime novels; such works placed in, often fierce, competition against their contemporaries as well as many of their predecessors. Raymond Chandler, in his well-known essay The Simple Art of Murder, noted Ernest Hemingway’s observation that “the good writer competes only with the dead. The good detective story writer […] competes not only with all the unburied dead but with all the hosts of the living as well” (3). In fact, there are so many examples of crime fiction works that, as early as the 1920s, one of the original ‘Queens of Crime’, Dorothy L. Sayers, complained: It is impossible to keep track of all the detective-stories produced to-day [sic]. Book upon book, magazine upon magazine pour out from the Press, crammed with murders, thefts, arsons, frauds, conspiracies, problems, puzzles, mysteries, thrills, maniacs, crooks, poisoners, forgers, garrotters, police, spies, secret-service men, detectives, until it seems that half the world must be engaged in setting riddles for the other half to solve (95). Twenty years after Sayers wrote on the matter of the vast quantities of crime fiction available, W.H. Auden wrote one of the more famous essays on the genre: The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the Detective Story, by an Addict. Auden is, perhaps, better known as a poet but his connection to the crime fiction genre is undisputed. As well as his poetic works that reference crime fiction and commentaries on crime fiction, one of Auden’s fellow poets, Cecil Day-Lewis, wrote a series of crime fiction novels under the pseudonym Nicholas Blake: the central protagonist of these novels, Nigel Strangeways, was modelled upon Auden (Scaggs 27). Interestingly, some writers whose names are now synonymous with the genre, such as Edgar Allan Poe and Raymond Chandler, established the link between poetry and crime fiction many years before the publication of The Guilty Vicarage. Edmund Wilson suggested that “reading detective stories is simply a kind of vice that, for silliness and minor harmfulness, ranks somewhere between crossword puzzles and smoking” (395). In the first line of The Guilty Vicarage, Auden supports Wilson’s claim and confesses that: “For me, as for many others, the reading of detective stories is an addiction like tobacco or alcohol” (406). This indicates that the genre is at best a trivial pursuit, at worst a pursuit that is bad for your health and is, increasingly, socially unacceptable, while Auden’s ideas around taste—high and low—are made clear when he declares that “detective stories have nothing to do with works of art” (406). The debates that surround genre and taste are many and varied. The mid-1920s was a point in time which had witnessed crime fiction writers produce some of the finest examples of fiction to ever be published and when readers and publishers were watching, with anticipation, as a new generation of crime fiction writers were readying themselves to enter what would become known as the genre’s Golden Age. At this time, R. Austin Freeman wrote that: By the critic and the professedly literary person the detective story is apt to be dismissed contemptuously as outside the pale of literature, to be conceived of as a type of work produced by half-educated and wholly incompetent writers for consumption by office boys, factory girls, and other persons devoid of culture and literary taste (7). This article responds to Auden’s essay and explores how crime fiction appeals to many different tastes: tastes that are acquired, change over time, are embraced, or kept as guilty secrets. In addition, this article will challenge Auden’s very narrow definition of crime fiction and suggest how Auden’s religious imagery, deployed to explain why many people choose to read crime fiction, can be incorporated into a broader popular discourse on punishment. This latter argument demonstrates that a taste for crime fiction and a taste for justice are inextricably intertwined. Crime Fiction: A Type For Every Taste Cathy Cole has observed that “crime novels are housed in their own section in many bookshops, separated from literary novels much as you’d keep a child with measles away from the rest of the class” (116). Times have changed. So too, have our tastes. Crime fiction, once sequestered in corners, now demands vast tracts of prime real estate in bookstores allowing readers to “make their way to the appropriate shelves, and begin to browse […] sorting through a wide variety of very different types of novels” (Malmgren 115). This is a result of the sheer size of the genre, noted above, as well as the genre’s expanding scope. Indeed, those who worked to re-invent crime fiction in the 1800s could not have envisaged the “taxonomic exuberance” (Derrida 206) of the writers who have defined crime fiction sub-genres, as well as how readers would respond by not only wanting to read crime fiction but also wanting to read many different types of crime fiction tailored to their particular tastes. To understand the demand for this diversity, it is important to reflect upon some of the appeal factors of crime fiction for readers. Many rules have been promulgated for the writers of crime fiction to follow. Ronald Knox produced a set of 10 rules in 1928. These included Rule 3 “Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable”, and Rule 10 “Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them” (194–6). In the same year, S.S. Van Dine produced another list of 20 rules, which included Rule 3 “There must be no love interest: The business in hand is to bring a criminal to the bar of justice, not to bring a lovelorn couple to the hymeneal altar”, and Rule 7 “There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better” (189–93). Some of these directives have been deliberately ignored or have become out-of-date over time while others continue to be followed in contemporary crime writing practice. In sharp contrast, there are no rules for reading this genre. Individuals are, generally, free to choose what, where, when, why, and how they read crime fiction. There are, however, different appeal factors for readers. The most common of these appeal factors, often described as doorways, are story, setting, character, and language. As the following passage explains: The story doorway beckons those who enjoy reading to find out what happens next. The setting doorway opens widest for readers who enjoy being immersed in an evocation of place or time. The doorway of character is for readers who enjoy looking at the world through others’ eyes. Readers who most appreciate skilful writing enter through the doorway of language (Wyatt online). These doorways draw readers to the crime fiction genre. There are stories that allow us to easily predict what will come next or make us hold our breath until the very last page, the books that we will cheerfully lend to a family member or a friend and those that we keep close to hand to re-read again and again. There are settings as diverse as country manors, exotic locations, and familiar city streets, places we have been and others that we might want to explore. There are characters such as the accidental sleuth, the hardboiled detective, and the refined police officer, amongst many others, the men and women—complete with idiosyncrasies and flaws—who we have grown to admire and trust. There is also the language that all writers, regardless of genre, depend upon to tell their tales. In crime fiction, even the most basic task of describing where the murder victim was found can range from words that convey the genteel—“The room of the tragedy” (Christie 62)—to the absurd: “There it was, jammed between a pallet load of best export boneless beef and half a tonne of spring lamb” (Maloney 1). These appeal factors indicate why readers might choose crime fiction over another genre, or choose one type of crime fiction over another. Yet such factors fail to explain what crime fiction is or adequately answer why the genre is devoured in such vast quantities. Firstly, crime fiction stories are those in which there is the committing of a crime, or at least the suspicion of a crime (Cole), and the story that unfolds revolves around the efforts of an amateur or professional detective to solve that crime (Scaggs). Secondly, crime fiction offers the reassurance of resolution, a guarantee that from “previous experience and from certain cultural conventions associated with this genre that ultimately the mystery will be fully explained” (Zunshine 122). For Auden, the definition of the crime novel was quite specific, and he argued that referring to the genre by “the vulgar definition, ‘a Whodunit’ is correct” (407). Auden went on to offer a basic formula stating that: “a murder occurs; many are suspected; all but one suspect, who is the murderer, are eliminated; the murderer is arrested or dies” (407). The idea of a formula is certainly a useful one, particularly when production demands—in terms of both quality and quantity—are so high, because the formula facilitates creators in the “rapid and efficient production of new works” (Cawelti 9). For contemporary crime fiction readers, the doorways to reading, discussed briefly above, have been cast wide open. Stories relying upon the basic crime fiction formula as a foundation can be gothic tales, clue puzzles, forensic procedurals, spy thrillers, hardboiled narratives, or violent crime narratives, amongst many others. The settings can be quiet villages or busy metropolises, landscapes that readers actually inhabit or that provide a form of affordable tourism. These stories can be set in the past, the here and now, or the future. Characters can range from Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin to Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade, from Agatha Christie’s Miss Jane Marple to Kerry Greenwood’s Honourable Phryne Fisher. Similarly, language can come in numerous styles from the direct (even rough) words of Carter Brown to the literary prose of Peter Temple. Anything is possible, meaning everything is available to readers. For Auden—although he required a crime to be committed and expected that crime to be resolved—these doorways were only slightly ajar. For him, the story had to be a Whodunit; the setting had to be rural England, though a college setting was also considered suitable; the characters had to be “eccentric (aesthetically interesting individuals) and good (instinctively ethical)” and there needed to be a “completely satisfactory detective” (Sherlock Holmes, Inspector French, and Father Brown were identified as “satisfactory”); and the language descriptive and detailed (406, 409, 408). To illustrate this point, Auden’s concept of crime fiction has been plotted on a taxonomy, below, that traces the genre’s main developments over a period of three centuries. As can be seen, much of what is, today, taken for granted as being classified as crime fiction is completely excluded from Auden’s ideal. Figure 1: Taxonomy of Crime Fiction (Adapted from Franks, Murder 136) Crime Fiction: A Personal Journey I discovered crime fiction the summer before I started high school when I saw the film version of The Big Sleep starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. A few days after I had seen the film I started reading the Raymond Chandler novel of the same title, featuring his famous detective Philip Marlowe, and was transfixed by the second paragraph: The main hallway of the Sternwood place was two stories high. Over the entrance doors, which would have let in a troop of Indian elephants, there was a broad stained-glass panel showing a knight in dark armour rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree and didn’t have any clothes on but some very long and convenient hair. The knight had pushed the visor of his helmet back to be sociable, and he was fiddling with the knots on the ropes that tied the lady to the tree and not getting anywhere. I stood there and thought that if I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb up there and help him. He didn’t seem to be really trying (9). John Scaggs has written that this passage indicates Marlowe is an idealised figure, a knight of romance rewritten onto the mean streets of mid-20th century Los Angeles (62); a relocation Susan Roland calls a “secular form of the divinely sanctioned knight errant on a quest for metaphysical justice” (139): my kind of guy. Like many young people I looked for adventure and escape in books, a search that was realised with Raymond Chandler and his contemporaries. On the escapism scale, these men with their stories of tough-talking detectives taking on murderers and other criminals, law enforcement officers, and the occasional femme fatale, were certainly a sharp upgrade from C.S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia. After reading the works written by the pioneers of the hardboiled and roman noir traditions, I looked to other American authors such as Edgar Allan Poe who, in the mid-1800s, became the father of the modern detective story, and Thorne Smith who, in the 1920s and 1930s, produced magical realist tales with characters who often chose to dabble on the wrong side of the law. This led me to the works of British crime writers including Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Dorothy L. Sayers. My personal library then became dominated by Australian writers of crime fiction, from the stories of bushrangers and convicts of the Colonial era to contemporary tales of police and private investigators. There have been various attempts to “improve” or “refine” my tastes: to convince me that serious literature is real reading and frivolous fiction is merely a distraction. Certainly, the reading of those novels, often described as classics, provide perfect combinations of beauty and brilliance. Their narratives, however, do not often result in satisfactory endings. This routinely frustrates me because, while I understand the philosophical frameworks that many writers operate within, I believe the characters of such works are too often treated unfairly in the final pages. For example, at the end of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, Frederick Henry “left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain” after his son is stillborn and “Mrs Henry” becomes “very ill” and dies (292–93). Another example can be found on the last page of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four when Winston Smith “gazed up at the enormous face” and he realised that he “loved Big Brother” (311). Endings such as these provide a space for reflection about the world around us but rarely spark an immediate response of how great that world is to live in (Franks Motive). The subject matter of crime fiction does not easily facilitate fairy-tale finishes, yet, people continue to read the genre because, generally, the concluding chapter will show that justice, of some form, will be done. Punishment will be meted out to the ‘bad characters’ that have broken society’s moral or legal laws; the ‘good characters’ may experience hardships and may suffer but they will, generally, prevail. Crime Fiction: A Taste For Justice Superimposed upon Auden’s parameters around crime fiction, are his ideas of the law in the real world and how such laws are interwoven with the Christian-based system of ethics. This can be seen in Auden’s listing of three classes of crime: “(a) offenses against God and one’s neighbor or neighbors; (b) offenses against God and society; (c) offenses against God” (407). Murder, in Auden’s opinion, is a class (b) offense: for the crime fiction novel, the society reflected within the story should be one in “a state of grace, i.e., a society where there is no need of the law, no contradiction between the aesthetic individual and the ethical universal, and where murder, therefore, is the unheard-of act which precipitates a crisis” (408). Additionally, in the crime novel “as in its mirror image, the Quest for the Grail, maps (the ritual of space) and timetables (the ritual of time) are desirable. Nature should reflect its human inhabitants, i.e., it should be the Great Good Place; for the more Eden-like it is, the greater the contradiction of murder” (408). Thus, as Charles J. Rzepka notes, “according to W.H. Auden, the ‘classical’ English detective story typically re-enacts rites of scapegoating and expulsion that affirm the innocence of a community of good people supposedly ignorant of evil” (12). This premise—of good versus evil—supports Auden’s claim that the punishment of wrongdoers, particularly those who claim the “right to be omnipotent” and commit murder (409), should be swift and final: As to the murderer’s end, of the three alternatives—execution, suicide, and madness—the first is preferable; for if he commits suicide he refuses to repent, and if he goes mad he cannot repent, but if he does not repent society cannot forgive. Execution, on the other hand, is the act of atonement by which the murderer is forgiven by society (409). The unilateral endorsement of state-sanctioned murder is problematic, however, because—of the main justifications for punishment: retribution; deterrence; incapacitation; and rehabilitation (Carter Snead 1245)—punishment, in this context, focuses exclusively upon retribution and deterrence, incapacitation is achieved by default, but the idea of rehabilitation is completely ignored. This, in turn, ignores how the reading of crime fiction can be incorporated into a broader popular discourse on punishment and how a taste for crime fiction and a taste for justice are inextricably intertwined. One of the ways to explore the connection between crime fiction and justice is through the lens of Emile Durkheim’s thesis on the conscience collective which proposes punishment is a process allowing for the demonstration of group norms and the strengthening of moral boundaries. David Garland, in summarising this thesis, states: So although the modern state has a near monopoly of penal violence and controls the administration of penalties, a much wider population feels itself to be involved in the process of punishment, and supplies the context of social support and valorization within which state punishment takes place (32). It is claimed here that this “much wider population” connecting with the task of punishment can be taken further. Crime fiction, above all other forms of literary production, which, for those who do not directly contribute to the maintenance of their respective legal systems, facilitates a feeling of active participation in the penalising of a variety of perpetrators: from the issuing of fines to incarceration (Franks Punishment). Crime fiction readers are therefore, temporarily at least, direct contributors to a more stable society: one that is clearly based upon right and wrong and reliant upon the conscience collective to maintain and reaffirm order. In this context, the reader is no longer alone, with only their crime fiction novel for company, but has become an active member of “a moral framework which binds individuals to each other and to its conventions and institutions” (Garland 51). This allows crime fiction, once viewed as a “vice” (Wilson 395) or an “addiction” (Auden 406), to be seen as playing a crucial role in the preservation of social mores. It has been argued “only the most literal of literary minds would dispute the claim that fictional characters help shape the way we think of ourselves, and hence help us articulate more clearly what it means to be human” (Galgut 190). Crime fiction focuses on what it means to be human, and how complex humans are, because stories of murders, and the men and women who perpetrate and solve them, comment on what drives some people to take a life and others to avenge that life which is lost and, by extension, engages with a broad community of readers around ideas of justice and punishment. It is, furthermore, argued here that the idea of the story is one of the more important doorways for crime fiction and, more specifically, the conclusions that these stories, traditionally, offer. For Auden, the ending should be one of restoration of the spirit, as he suspected that “the typical reader of detective stories is, like myself, a person who suffers from a sense of sin” (411). In this way, the “phantasy, then, which the detective story addict indulges is the phantasy of being restored to the Garden of Eden, to a state of innocence, where he may know love as love and not as the law” (412), indicating that it was not necessarily an accident that “the detective story has flourished most in predominantly Protestant countries” (408). Today, modern crime fiction is a “broad church, where talented authors raise questions and cast light on a variety of societal and other issues through the prism of an exciting, page-turning story” (Sisterson). Moreover, our tastes in crime fiction have been tempered by a growing fear of real crime, particularly murder, “a crime of unique horror” (Hitchens 200). This has seen some readers develop a taste for crime fiction that is not produced within a framework of ecclesiastical faith but is rather grounded in reliance upon those who enact punishment in both the fictional and real worlds. As P.D. James has written: [N]ot by luck or divine intervention, but by human ingenuity, human intelligence and human courage. It confirms our hope that, despite some evidence to the contrary, we live in a beneficent and moral universe in which problems can be solved by rational means and peace and order restored from communal or personal disruption and chaos (174). Dorothy L. Sayers, despite her work to legitimise crime fiction, wrote that there: “certainly does seem a possibility that the detective story will some time come to an end, simply because the public will have learnt all the tricks” (108). Of course, many readers have “learnt all the tricks”, or most of them. This does not, however, detract from the genre’s overall appeal. We have not grown bored with, or become tired of, the formula that revolves around good and evil, and justice and punishment. Quite the opposite. Our knowledge of, as well as our faith in, the genre’s “tricks” gives a level of confidence to readers who are looking for endings that punish murderers and other wrongdoers, allowing for more satisfactory conclusions than the, rather depressing, ends given to Mr. Henry and Mr. Smith by Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell noted above. Conclusion For some, the popularity of crime fiction is a curious case indeed. When Penguin and Collins published the Marsh Million—100,000 copies each of 10 Ngaio Marsh titles in 1949—the author’s relief at the success of the project was palpable when she commented that “it was pleasant to find detective fiction being discussed as a tolerable form of reading by people whose opinion one valued” (172). More recently, upon the announcement that a Miles Franklin Award would be given to Peter Temple for his crime novel Truth, John Sutherland, a former chairman of the judges for one of the world’s most famous literary awards, suggested that submitting a crime novel for the Booker Prize would be: “like putting a donkey into the Grand National”. Much like art, fashion, food, and home furnishings or any one of the innumerable fields of activity and endeavour that are subject to opinion, there will always be those within the world of fiction who claim positions as arbiters of taste. Yet reading is intensely personal. I like a strong, well-plotted story, appreciate a carefully researched setting, and can admire elegant language, but if a character is too difficult to embrace—if I find I cannot make an emotional connection, if I find myself ambivalent about their fate—then a book is discarded as not being to my taste. It is also important to recognise that some tastes are transient. Crime fiction stories that are popular today could be forgotten tomorrow. Some stories appeal to such a broad range of tastes they are immediately included in the crime fiction canon. Yet others evolve over time to accommodate widespread changes in taste (an excellent example of this can be seen in the continual re-imagining of the stories of Sherlock Holmes). Personal tastes also adapt to our experiences and our surroundings. A book that someone adores in their 20s might be dismissed in their 40s. A storyline that was meaningful when read abroad may lose some of its magic when read at home. Personal events, from a change in employment to the loss of a loved one, can also impact upon what we want to read. Similarly, world events, such as economic crises and military conflicts, can also influence our reading preferences. Auden professed an almost insatiable appetite for crime fiction, describing the reading of detective stories as an addiction, and listed a very specific set of criteria to define the Whodunit. Today, such self-imposed restrictions are rare as, while there are many rules for writing crime fiction, there are no rules for reading this (or any other) genre. People are, generally, free to choose what, where, when, why, and how they read crime fiction, and to follow the deliberate or whimsical paths that their tastes may lay down for them. Crime fiction writers, past and present, offer: an incredible array of detective stories from the locked room to the clue puzzle; settings that range from the English country estate to city skyscrapers in glamorous locations around the world; numerous characters from cerebral sleuths who can solve a crime in their living room over a nice, hot cup of tea to weapon wielding heroes who track down villains on foot in darkened alleyways; and, language that ranges from the cultured conversations from the novels of the genre’s Golden Age to the hard-hitting terminology of forensic and legal procedurals. Overlaid on these appeal factors is the capacity of crime fiction to feed a taste for justice: to engage, vicariously at least, in the establishment of a more stable society. Of course, there are those who turn to the genre for a temporary distraction, an occasional guilty pleasure. There are those who stumble across the genre by accident or deliberately seek it out. There are also those, like Auden, who are addicted to crime fiction. So there are corpses for the conservative and dead bodies for the bloodthirsty. There is, indeed, a murder victim, and a murder story, to suit every reader’s taste. References Auden, W.H. “The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on The Detective Story, By an Addict.” Harper’s Magazine May (1948): 406–12. 1 Dec. 2013 ‹http://www.harpers.org/archive/1948/05/0033206›. Carter Snead, O. “Memory and Punishment.” Vanderbilt Law Review 64.4 (2011): 1195–264. Cawelti, John G. Adventure, Mystery and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1976/1977. Chandler, Raymond. The Big Sleep. London: Penguin, 1939/1970. ––. The Simple Art of Murder. New York: Vintage Books, 1950/1988. Christie, Agatha. The Mysterious Affair at Styles. London: HarperCollins, 1920/2007. Cole, Cathy. Private Dicks and Feisty Chicks: An Interrogation of Crime Fiction. Fremantle: Curtin UP, 2004. Derrida, Jacques. “The Law of Genre.” Glyph 7 (1980): 202–32. Franks, Rachel. “May I Suggest Murder?: An Overview of Crime Fiction for Readers’ Advisory Services Staff.” Australian Library Journal 60.2 (2011): 133–43. ––. “Motive for Murder: Reading Crime Fiction.” The Australian Library and Information Association Biennial Conference. Sydney: Jul. 2012. ––. “Punishment by the Book: Delivering and Evading Punishment in Crime Fiction.” Inter-Disciplinary.Net 3rd Global Conference on Punishment. Oxford: Sep. 2013. Freeman, R.A. “The Art of the Detective Story.” The Art of the Mystery Story: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Howard Haycraft. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1924/1947. 7–17. Galgut, E. “Poetic Faith and Prosaic Concerns: A Defense of Suspension of Disbelief.” South African Journal of Philosophy 21.3 (2002): 190–99. Garland, David. Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993. Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. London: Random House, 1929/2004. ––. in R. Chandler. The Simple Art of Murder. New York: Vintage Books, 1950/1988. Hitchens, P. A Brief History of Crime: The Decline of Order, Justice and Liberty in England. London: Atlantic Books, 2003. James, P.D. Talking About Detective Fiction. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. Knight, Stephen. Crime Fiction since 1800: Death, Detection, Diversity, 2nd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2010. Knox, Ronald A. “Club Rules: The 10 Commandments for Detective Novelists, 1928.” Ronald Knox Society of North America. 1 Dec. 2013 ‹http://www.ronaldknoxsociety.com/detective.html›. Malmgren, C.D. “Anatomy of Murder: Mystery, Detective and Crime Fiction.” Journal of Popular Culture Spring (1997): 115–21. Maloney, Shane. The Murray Whelan Trilogy: Stiff, The Brush-Off and Nice Try. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 1994/2008. Marsh, Ngaio in J. Drayton. Ngaio Marsh: Her Life in Crime. Auckland: Harper Collins, 2008. Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Penguin Books, 1949/1989. Roland, Susan. From Agatha Christie to Ruth Rendell: British Women Writers in Detective and Crime Fiction. London: Palgrave, 2001. Rzepka, Charles J. Detective Fiction. Cambridge: Polity, 2005. Sayers, Dorothy L. “The Omnibus of Crime.” The Art of the Mystery Story: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Howard Haycraft. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1928/1947. 71–109. Scaggs, John. Crime Fiction: The New Critical Idiom. London: Routledge, 2005. Sisterson, C. “Battle for the Marsh: Awards 2013.” Black Mask: Pulps, Noir and News of Same. 1 Jan. 2014 http://www.blackmask.com/category/awards-2013/ Sutherland, John. in A. Flood. “Could Miles Franklin turn the Booker Prize to Crime?” The Guardian. 1 Jan. 2014 ‹http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jun/25/miles-franklin-booker-prize-crime›. Van Dine, S.S. “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories.” The Art of the Mystery Story: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Howard Haycraft. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1928/1947. 189-93. Wilson, Edmund. “Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd.” The Art of the Mystery Story: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Howard Haycraft. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1944/1947. 390–97. Wyatt, N. “Redefining RA: A RA Big Think.” Library Journal Online. 1 Jan. 2014 ‹http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2007/07/ljarchives/lj-series-redefining-ra-an-ra-big-think›. Zunshine, Lisa. Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2006.