Journal articles on the topic 'Miniature painting, european'

Eleonora Mattia: Three Italian illuminated Cuttings in the Royal Library of Copenhagen Some observations on the history of collecting illuminated cuttings serve to introduce three unpublished Italian fragments that are part of a collection of illuminated fragments conserved in the Royal Danish Library. The miniatures are described from the point of view of their liturgical and art-historical content and are presented in the form of entries in a catalogue raisonné. The Master B. F., who grew up under the shadow of Leonardo de Vinci, was among those miniaturists most sought-after by collectors in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century because of his evident stylistic debts to the great painter. The beautiful miniature in Copenhagen can now be added to the other known works of this Master and is critical not only to the reconstruction of his corpus, but also for the history of collecting, as it comes from the prestigious Holford Collection. It was already correctly attributed when it entered the collection of the Royal Library; it is here inserted into the activity of the artist, a dating is proposed, and a provenance is suggested from the series of choir books in the monastery of Santi Angelo e Nicolò a Villanova Sillaro in Lombardy, which were broken up around 1799. The Danish cutting here attributed to Attavante has a specific iconography that demonstrates an originality and an independence from models followed by contemporary Florentine painting, qualities not always acknowledged to the well known miniaturist whose extensive figurative production has sometimes been considered repetitive. A third fragment is here attributed to the Pisan Master of Montepulciano Gradual I. This anonymous miniaturist is at the centre of the most recent and innovative studies of fourteenth-century Tuscan painting: his activity belongs to the diversified texture of artistic production between Florence and its nearby cities, with expressive modalities independent of the tradition of the more strictly Giottesque masters. The miniature attributed to him here is to be added to the catalogue of his works, dispersed as they are in many European and American collections.

From early Christian times up to the sixteenth century, books occur so often in mediaeval illumination that a study of the book as it appears within the book would involve a survey of the whole course of Western miniature painting. Despite its ubiquity, however, little has been written on the subject of the symbolism of the book in art. In The Idea of the Book in the Middle Ages, Jesse M. Gellrich takes a semiotic approach rather than the viewpoint of art history. Ernst Curtius has a chapter on “The Book as a Symbol” in his classic European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, but he does not concern himself with artistic representation. Even so, he admits, “The subject, so far as I am aware, has hitherto been touched upon by no one but Goethe” (302). The same is true of the presence of the book in art.

Notarial signs serving to authenticate private and public legal documents emerged in Dalmatia during the 12th century, and by the late Middle Ages they had become a mandatory part of official documents written on parchment for the legal parties. These signs were graphic as a rule: more or less elaborate drawings with decorative motifs, occasionally with integrated typography, yet without any figural elements. Among the very diverse forms of notarial signs preserved in Croatian archives, that of Split’s canon and Zadar’s notary Helias deserves special attention: instead of using a simple graphic symbol, he depicted a young man’s torso, which for several reasons may be presumed to be his self-portrait. More than fifty notarial signs by Helias have been preserved, but it may be presumed that he produced more than a thousand during more than two decades of his career as a notary. These signs are drawing of very small dimensions (3 x 1.5 cm on the average) and most probably not a result of “artistic” ambition, presuming that such terminology applies at all to the visual production of the time. As many other literate men, Helias probably indulged in drawing and incorporated some of this inclination and skill into his work in a peculiar manner. Over the period of two decades, the depicted figure went through several transformations. Starting from a relatively realistic and quite detailed depiction, in the second phase Helias simplified the drawing and enhanced its elements of caricature, ending with a partially stylized and unified version of his sign. Generally speaking, his drawings were closer to the genre of caricature than an official visual representation, which is why he could style them rather freely as compared to the norms that could be observed in the professional circles, especially in the monumental painting of the 14th century. Despite the fact that they seem somehow timeless, their visual features indicate certain knowledge of the formal language of representative painting. Helias’s skilful handling of lines and the ease with which he used a minimum of expressive devices to outline not only the portrait itself, but also the psychological characteristics of the depicted person, are basically a legacy of Gothic visual culture. Self-portrait as a form, albeit absent at least declaratively from medieval monumental painting, was nevertheless present, even if quite rarely and only in isolated cases, in medieval miniature painting (e.g. the self-portraits of St. Dunstan, the notary Vigil, the painter Hildebertus and his assistant Everwinusa, friar Rufillus, the nun Gude, the miniature painter Matthew Paris, or the illuminator Richard de Montbaston and his wife Jeanne). Nevertheless, the paucity of such examples, as well as the spatial and temporal (partly also cultural) distance, makes it difficult to assess the place of Helias’s self-portraits within a broader context. In any case, the group of some fifty portraits from the 14th century, regardless of their dimensions and character, is certainly a peculiar phenomenon in the context of European visual culture. The key point is thereby not the artistic quality of the drawings, but rather the variety of visual communication in 14th-century Dalmatia.

Abstract In seventeenth-century Dutch paintings, ascetics are a rare and remarkable subject, even more so when they are Hindu ascetics. The drawing of a yogi created by Rembrandt’s contemporary Willem Schellinks (1623– 1678) is unique for this reason. This article investigates the various possible sources of Schellinks’ drawing – an eyewitness report, the many travel accounts on South Asia, Indian miniatures, or the like – and discusses its place between the European tradition of exoticism and the iconography of saints, as well as its position in Schellinks’ own oeuvre. Far from resorting to exotic stereotypes, Schellinks enlarged the canon of Dutch painting by combining observed foreign objects with established exotic motifs.

The historical research of the illustrated Nuremberg Chronicle [Schedelsche Weltchronik (English: Schedel’s World Chronicle)] of Hartmann Schedel com­prises the complex historical knowledge about numerous woodcuts which pre­sent views of various cities important in the world’s history, e.g. Jerusalem, Constantinople, or the European ones such as: Rome, some Italian, German or Polish cities e.g. Wrocław and Cracow; some Hungarian and some Czech Republic cities. Researchers have made a serious study to recognize certain constructions in the woodcuts; they indicated the conservative and contractual architecture, the existing places and the unrealistic (non-existent) places. The results show that there is a common detail in all the views – the defensive wall round each of the described cities. However, in reality, it may not have existed in some cities during the lifetime of the authors of the woodcuts. As for some further details: behind the walls we can see feudal castles on the hills shown as strongholds. Within the defensive walls there are numerous buildings with many towers typical for the Middle Ages and true-to-life in certain ways of building the cities. Schematically drawn buildings surrounded by the ring of defensive walls indicate that the author used certain patterns based on the previously created panoramic views. This article is an attempt of making analogical comparisons of the cities in medieval painting. The Author of the article presents Roman mosaics and the miniature painting e.g. the ones created in the scriptorium in Reichenau. Since the beginning of 14th century Italian painters such as: Duccio di Buoninsegna, Giotto di Bondone, Simone Martini and Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted parts of the cities or the entire monumental panoramas in various compositions and with various meanings. One defining rule in this painting concerned the definitions of the cities given by Saint Isidore of Seville, based on the rules which he knew from the antique tradition. These are: urbs – the cities full of architecture and buildings but uninhabited or civita – the city, the living space of the human life, build-up space, engaged according to the law, kind of work and social hierarchy. The tra­dition of both ways of describing the city is rooted in Italy. This article indicates the particular meaning of Italian painting in distributing the image of the city – as the votive offering. The research conducted by Chiara Frugoni and others indica­ted the meaning of the city images in the painting of various forms of panegyrics created in high praise of cities, known as laude (Lat.). We can find the examples of them rooted in the Roman tradition of mosaics, e.g. in San Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna. They present both palatium and civitas. The medieval Italian painting, especially the panel painting, presents the city structure models which are uninha­bited and deprived of any signs of everyday life. The models of cities – urbs, are presented as votive offerings devoted to their patron saints, especially to Virgin Mary. The city shaped as oval or sinusoidal rings surrounded by the defensive walls resembled a container filled with buildings. Only few of them reflected the existing cities and could mainly be identified thanks to the inscriptions. The most characteristic examples were: the fresco of Taddeo di Bartolo in Palazzo Publico in Siena, which presented the Dominican Order friar Ambrogio Sansedoni holding the model of his city – Siena, with its most recognizable building - the Cathedral dedicated to the Assumption of Mary. The same painter, referred to as the master painter of the views of the cities as the votive offerings, painted the Saint Antilla with the model of Montepulciano in the painting from 1401 for the Cathedral devoted to the Assumption of Mary in Montepulciano. In the painting made by T. di Bartolo, the bishop of the city of Gimignano, Saint Gimignano, presents the city in the shape of a round lens surrounded by defence walls with numerous church towers and the feudal headquarters characteristic for the city. His dummer of the city is pyramidally-structured, the hills are mounted on the steep slopes reflecting the analogy to the topography of the city. We can also find the texts of songs, laude (Lat.) and panegyrics created in honour of the cities and their rulers, e.g. the texts in honour of Milan, Bonvesin for La Riva, known in Europe at that time. The city – Arcadia (utopia) in the modern style. Hartman Schedel, as a bibliophile and a scholar, knew the texts of medieval writers and Italian art but, as an ambitious humanist, he could not disregard the latest, contemporary trends of Renaissance which were coming from Nuremberg and from Italian ci­ties. The views of Arcadia – the utopian city, were rapidly developing, as they were of great importance for the rich recipient in the beginning of the modern era overwhelmed by the early capitalism. It was then when the two opposites were combined – the shepherd and the knight, the Greek Arcadia with the medie­val city. The reception of Virgil’s Arcadia in the medieval literature and art was being developed again in the elite circles at the end of 15th century. The cultural meaning of the historical loci, the Greek places of the ancient history and the memory of Christianity constituted the essence of historicism in the Renaissance at the courts of the Comnenos and of the Palaiologos dynasty, which inspired the Renaissance of the Latin culture circle. The pastoral idleness concept came from Venice where Virgil’s books were published in print in 1470, the books of Ovid: Fasti and Metamorphoses were published in 1497 and Sannazaro’s Arcadia was published in 1502, previously distributed in his handwriting since 1480. Literature topics presented the historical works as memoria, both ancient and Christian, composed into the images. The city maps drawn by Hartmann Schedel, the doctor and humanist from Nurnberg, refer to the medieval images of urbs, the woodcuts with the cities, known to the author from the Italian painting of the greatest masters of the Trecenta period. As a humanist he knew the literature of the Renaissance of Florence and Venice with the Arcadian themes of both the Greek and the Roman tradition. The view of Constantinople in the context of the contemporary political situation, is presented in a series of monuments of architecture, with columns and defensive walls, which reminded of the history of the city from its greatest time of Constantine the Great, Justinian I and the Comnenus dynasty. Schedel’s work of art is the sum of the knowledge written down or painted. It is also the result of the experiments of new technology. It is possible that Schedel was inspired by the hymns, laude, written by Psellos in honour of Constantinople in his elaborate ecphrases as the panegyrics for the rulers of the Greek dynasty – the Macedonians. Already in that time, the Greek ideal of beauty was reborn, both in literature and in fine arts. The illustrated History of the World presented in Schedel’s woodcuts is given to the recipients who are educated and to those who are anonymous, in the spirit of the new anthropology. It results from the nature of the woodcut reproduc­tion, that is from the way of copying the same images. The artist must have strived to gain the recipients for his works as the woodcuts were created both in Latin and in German. The collected views were supposed to transfer historical, biblical and mythological knowledge in the new way of communication.

El presente estudio pretende ofrecer un análisis sobre las fuentes visuales de origen árabe y su influencia en las Cantigas de Santa María de Alfonso X el Sabio. Partiendo de un estado de la cuestión donde se tienen en cuenta aquellas propuestas realizadas a lo largo de estos años en relación al marco geográfico de influencias —situadas inicialmente en Francia e Italia pero defendiendo posteriormente la necesidad de reubicar la miniatura alfonsí dentro del ámbito del Mediterráneo— se pretenden aportar nuevas reflexiones críticas, cuestionando algunos de los vínculos concretos e intrínsecos que se han establecido entre el marial alfonsí y otros manuscritos iluminados del mundo árabe, especialmente algunos folios relativos a los Maqamat de al-Hariri.The aim of this paper is to provide an analysis of the Arabic visual resources and their influences on the Alfonso X the Learned’s Cantigas de Santa Maria.Firstly, I present the current status of the issue taking into account all of the proposals made throughout the last approaches concerning the geographical frame of influences. These frames of influences had been situated by the first researchers, particularly in the 19th Century, in France and Italy.Subsequently, other «inspirations», such as the Arabic and Byzantine world, started to be considered as an important focus to help us understand some of the miniatures of our manuscript, not only in style but also in regards to profane topics, which are generally predominant in the alphonsine productions.In response to these last suggestions, one of the principal purposes of this study is to defend the necessity to understand the alphonsine illumination in a Mediterranean context. Furthermore, I aim to present a new critical approach by questioning some of the specific links established between our codex and the Arabic illuminated manuscripts. In particular, there are some folios of the Maqamat illuminated by al-Wasiti which have been considered an essential influence for the Cantigas miniaturists. I go on to explain that other depictions that can be found in different 13th century painting productions— such as the crusader illumination, the miniatures made in the Staufen Court in Sicily or the Mural paintings of the conquest of Majorca, among others— present a very similar composition to those Arabic depictions and, therefore, to our Castilian manuscript.For that reason, taking these new proposals into consideration allow us to distance the Cantigas de Santa María from the Arabic models, without rejecting their presence, in order to talk about general depictions that appear in different productions made in the second half of the 13th century in diverse European courts and Mediterranean commercial points. Finally, we can affirm that the Cantigas de Santa María is the result of a fusion between foreign and local resources, and consequently it is difficult to find specific sources that could have been known and copied in an itinerant court.

Jewelry is main aspect of dressing and Mughal Jewelry is a fascinating theme to explore. Its styles can be traced through the paintings that clearly give accurate information of the style and variety of ornaments that were used during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Jewelry is considered the feminine adornment part but miniature shows the beautiful ornamentation of Mughal emperors also with variation in sizes and design. This article discusses the Mughal male head ornaments and study is focused on the turban ornamentations. As man’s turban is his sacrosanct property and variety of turban ornaments were used by Mughals. This paper is an attempt to understand and examine that how the Mughal turban ornament develops from simple feather to piece of complex jewelry designs and how other culture helps in its development. Why Mughal emperors worn such gemstones in headdress and which techniques were used for its decoration? Is there any specific reason of using such gemstones or just for ornamentations purposes? In the end it concludes that sarpech shapes helps in the development of European aigrette and became a part of European jewelry that later helped in the modification of turban ornaments and Euro-Indian sarpech-aigrette appeared with more delicate style.

This research addresses a sabaton, or an armour element protecting the foot, excavated in the western area of the prince’s palace of Mangup. The artifact is composed by seven cross-curved iron plates. The sabaton was attached to the shoe with strings, as evidenced by the through-holes in its central and lateral parts. The only archaeological analogy to the sabaton from Mangup is the two sets of plates for foot-protection from the collective burial of the participants of the battle of Visby (Sweden) in 1361. A significant number of analogies appeared among the manuscript miniatures and tombstones of Mediaeval Europe and Renaissance paintings and sculptures. According to the analysis of the analogies, the artifact in question is a knightly sabaton of the European pattern typical for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The archaeological context allowed the one to date the find within the period of the functioning of the Mangup palace in 1425–1475. The most probable date for the sabaton to get into the cultural layer is 1475, when the Ottomans besieged and assaulted Mangup. This statement may be confirmed by the finds of other weapons and layers of fire, recorded in the western part of the palace. The paper presents assumptions about the personality of the owner of the sabaton. This person was one of the defenders of the town and, apparently, was wealthy enough to purchase or order expensive armour. The owner of the sabaton possibly was a local noble, a soldier of the 300 “Wallachians” known from written sources, or one of the Genoese nobles who fled to Mangup after the fall of Kaffa.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the role of stylization as a style­forming principle in the evolution of the pastoral genre based on textbook chamber­vocal compositions (arias by W. A. Mozart), as well as little­known ones. The methodology. The proposed research differs from other studies, which are close in the topic (T. Livanova, A. Korobova, A. Taylor and others), by an interpretative­cognitive approach dictated by the challenges of modern performing practice. A comparative analysis of pastoral semantics in European and Chinese poetics was also used. The results. On the basis of vocal miniatures created in the XX century (S. Vasylenko “Pastoral” op. 45, No. 5 and A. Rudianskyi “Lotus” and “The Flute on the Water” from the cycle “The Lake of White Lotus” (2001), a parallel of the European pastorals and ancient Chinese poetry from the point of view of a pastoral person in different pictures of the world has been drawn. The onto­sonological foundation of the pastoral is made up of a human voice accompanied by a shepherd’s pipe, landscape sound painting (the singing of birds, the murmur of a brook), and the vastness of natural landscapes (plain air). The author develops the conceptual apparatus of the theory of the pastoral to reveal the richness of various composing interpretations of the genre, its dynamics: “semantics of the pastoral”, “ontology of the pastoral image”, “pastoral person”, “pastoral picture of the world”. The topicality of the interpretative­comparative analysis is the conclusion about the necessary principles of stylization of the pastoral: the presence of a genre invariant with its own stable, psychological mechanism of recognition by listeners; historical distancing from the prototype (ancient poetry, baroque opera); creative synthesis of many traditions of the artistic existence of the genre and the signs of its national musical attribution. Poetic text and symbolization of the musical language are also the mechanisms of stylization of the pastoral in vocal music. Musical and poetic symbols, created by the author’s intuition, form a new life for the pastoral in the creative work of the XX century composers. If the composer’s interpretation of the genre invariant of the pastoral has ensured its viability for millennia, then the performer of pastoral compositions is responsible for their genre and style “purity”. The performers must master the technique of recreating the sound­like world of a pastoral person. The practical significance of the topic is confirmed by the fact of the actualization of the pastoral in the performance of the XXI century, due to the systematic inclusion of its samples into the concert repertoire of vocalists (including those from the People’s Republic of China), which requires appropriate historical and theoretical knowledge when modelling the behaviour of a pastoral person in the modern cultural situation.

Background. А history of the development of the human community is at the same time a history of the relationship between men and women, their role in society, in formation of mindset, development of science, technology and art. A woman’s path to the recognition of her merits is a struggle for equality and inclusion in all sectors of public life. Originated with particular urgency in the twentieth century, this set of problems gave impetus to the study of the female phenomenon in the sociocultural space. In this context, the disclosure of the direct contribution of talented women to art and their influence on its development has become of special relevance. The purpose of the article is to summarize segmental of information that highlights the contribution of women to the treasury of world art, their creative and inspiring power. Analytical, historical-biographical and comparative studying methods were applied to reveal the gender relationships in art and the role of woman in them as well as in the sociocultural space in general. The results from this study present a panorama of gifted women from the world of art and music who paved the way for future generations. Among them are: A. Gentileschi (1593–1653), who was the first woman admitted to The Florence Academy of Art; M. Vigee Le Brun (1755–1842), who painted portraits of the French aristocracy and later became a confidant of Marie-Antoinette; B. Morisot (1841–1895), who was accepted by the impressionists in their circle and repeatedly exhibited her works in the Paris Salon; F. Caccini (1587–1640), who went down in history as an Italian composer, teacher, harpsichordist, author of ballets and music for court theater performances; J. Kinkel (1810–1858) – the first female choral director in Germany, who published books about musical education, composed songs on poems of famous poets, as well as on her own texts; F. Mendelssohn (1805–1847) – German singer, pianist and composer, author of cantatas, vocal miniatures of organ preludes, piano pieces; R. Clark (1886–1979) – British viola player and composer who created trio, quartets, compositions for solo instruments, songs on poems of English poets; L. Boulanger (1893–1918) became the first woman to receive Grand Prix de Rome; R. Tsekhlin (1926–2007) – German harpsichordist, composer and teacher who successfully combined the composition of symphonies, concerts, choral and vocal opuses, operas, ballets, music for theatrical productions and cinema with active performing and teaching activities, and many others. The article emphasise the contribution of women-composers, writers, poetesses to the treasury of world literature and art. Among the composers in this row is S. Gubaidulina (1931), who has about 30 prizes and awards. She wrote music for 17 films and her works are being performed by famous musicians around the world. The glory of Ukrainian music is L. Dychko (1939) – the author of operas, oratorios, cantatas, symphonies, choral concertos, ballets, piano works, romances, film music. The broad famous are the French writers: S.-G. Colette (1873–1954), to which the films were devoted, the performances based on her novels are going all over the world, her lyrics are being studied in the literature departments. She was the President of the Goncourt Academy, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, a square in the center of Paris is named after her. Also, creativity by her compatriot, L. de Vilmorin (1902–1969), on whose poems С. Arrieu, G. Auric, F. Poulenc wrote vocal miniatures, is beloved and recognized as in France as and widely abroad. The article denotes a circle of women who combined the position of a selfsufficient creator and a muse for their companion. M. Verevkina (1860–1938) – a Russian artist, a representative of expressionism in painting, not only helped shape the aesthetic views of her husband A. Yavlensky, contributing to his art education, but for a long time “left the stage” for to not compete with him and help him develop his talent fully. Furthermore, she managed to anticipate many of the discoveries as for the use of light that are associated with the names of H. Matisse, A. Derain and other French fauvist. F. Kahlo (1907–1954), a Mexican artist, was a strict critic and supporter for her husband D. Rivera, led his business, was frequently depicted in his frescoes. C. Schumann (1819–1896) was a committed promoter of R. Schumann’s creativity. She performed his music even when he was not yet recognized by public. She included his compositions in the repertoire of her students after the composer lost his ability to play due to the illness of the hands. She herself performed his works, making R. Schumann famous across Europe. In addition, Clara took care of the welfare of the family – the main source of finance was income from her concerts. The article indicates the growing interest of the twentieth century composers to the poems of female poets. Among them M. Debord-Valmore (1786–1859) – a French poetess, about whom S. Zweig, P. Verlaine and L. Aragon wrote their essays, and her poems were set to music by C. Franck, G. Bizet and R. Ahn; R. Auslender (1901–1988) is a German poetess, a native of Ukraine (Chernovtsy city), author of more than 20 collections, her lyrics were used by an American woman-composer E. Alexander to write “Three Songs” and by German composer G. Grosse-Schware who wrote four pieces for the choir; I. Bachmann (1926–1973) – the winner of three major Austrian awards, author of the libretto for the ballet “Idiot” and opera “The Prince of Hombur”. The composer H. W. Henze, in turn, created music for the play “Cicadas” by I. Bachmann. On this basis, we conclude that women not only successfully engaged in painting, wrote poems and novels, composed music, opened «locked doors», destroyed established stereotypes but were a powerful source of inspiration. Combining the roles of the creator and muse, they helped men reach the greatest heights. Toward the twentieth century, the role of the fair sex representatives in the world of art increased and strengthened significantly, which led Western European culture to a new round of its evolution.

Picture recitation is the art of storytelling in verse accompanied with a visual prop like a scroll painting or a tapestry. Numerous picture recitation practices were active in India but suffered during colonization by the British in many ways. The subtle Victorian censorship of the theme of erotic expressed in the religious narratives (which formed the bulk of the picture recitation genre), the erasure of orature as primitive, the relegation of picture recitation practices as folk art and the split between picture (object and props that can be displayed in museums) and recitation (performative aspects that could not be easily museumized) while stuffing European museums with colonial artifacts, have inflicted huge damage to the living traditions of picture recitation in India. My practice-led research seeks to decolonize picture recitation to undo these damages. Following Walter Mignolo’s call to delink oneself from western hegemony, I seek to highlight (instead of European notions of beauty and aesthetics) classical Indian theories of affect (from circa 300 CE) that can produce aesthetic pleasure in the viewer. Thus using classical Indian Rasa theory as well as subversion, I create contemporary narratives for picture recitation using empirical facts from scientific research (Neuroscience, Microbiology, Phytochemistry and Meteorology) which are aided with visual props made by amalgamating aesthetics of medieval Indian miniature painting as well as contemporary medical Illustration. A practice-led research is the only method to redeem the practice of picture recitation, just as the contemporary practice of neo-miniatures has rescued the genre of miniature paintings from the classification of oriental kitsch. By investing in erotic subject matter and orature as well as by reuniting picture and recitation, I hope to remove the adverse effects of colonization from some genres of Indian arts. Concretely my practice looks at contemporizing classical erotic Sanskrit poetry which has existed since 1000 BC by composing erotic poetry incorporating scientific research and creating compositions of image and text as was once found in medieval Indian miniatures. The second approach looks at reviving picture recitation using a classical Indian archetype of a female heroine who goes out to meet her lover braving grave dangers and contemporizing it with reading through neuroscientific lenses. Via the practice of picture recitation, I discover my bodily memories surfacing during the performance, the role of breath in voice, how image, text, voice and performance influence each other iteratively and how affect is transfered via the performance to the viewer. Through practice, I establish a wider field for newcomers with greater vigour and validity than simply echoing a theoretical call for decolonization.

Abstract The long tradition of asceticism in India has an extensive iconography. It usually represents a poor and emaciated man, living on his own, occasionally with wild animals for company. Hindu and Muslim art and literature contain many such scenes, but female ascetics or yoginis only rarely appear. However, there is a seventeenth-century miniature in the Rietberg Museum which depicts the well-known subject of a young disciple visiting her guru. Seated together in a landscape in front of a thatched hut, they are surrounded by precisely painted Ustad Mansur-style flora and fauna. It was customary practice in Indian workshops for artists to copy original works by their masters, and to make versions using a stencil or charba. This particular miniature has been recreated several times. In the earliest, the two yoginis are placed in the same setting with their modest possessions. The topos remained popular until the end of the eighteenth century when a change occurred: the disciple of the old yogini disappeared, having been “swallowed up” by a tiger. Instead of two mystics talking together, the scene depicted is that of a tiger near a hermit, a typical Ragamala image known as Bengali Ragini. These new compositions were readily acquired by European collectors. A final version also exists that derives from the original Mughal topos which depicts the three: hermit, tiger, and…disciple.

Nicolò Manucci (or Manuzzi) (ca 1638-1720) is a well-known figure among scholars: a Venetian adventurer, artilleryman and doctor in Early Modern India. He was a dynamic man, who frequented for a long time both the Mughal courts and the European agents of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century trade companies, leaving meaningful testimonies of his age, and thus becoming an important (and controversial) historical source on South Asia. In spite of the celebrity gained by his biography and his work, Manucci’s role as European patron of Indian artists has been undervalued so far, with scholars often preferring to define him as a mere collector of works of Indian miniatures. Through an historic and artistic examination of his work, of other coeval works of art and contemporary sources, the aim of this paper is to show that Manucci was actually an important patron of Indian painting, a paradigmatic precursor of figurative didactic works mainly illustrated by (unfortunately anonymous) Indian artists under his guidance, and at the same time mediated by his bias and his culture, following an interesting and original hybrid format that bridges European figurative culture and Indian art.

The first half of the 19th century provided the areas from Banat with a certain degree of material prosperity, which could be closely pursued in the county’s capital, Timişoara. Although it preserved a prevalent military character, the town also comprised numerous civilians (noblemen living in the town, clerks, traders, doctors, teachers etc.) who gradually secured the commodity market for the art products. The orders of this social class had drawn the artists of the time towards the Empire’s eastern area, where they hoped to ensure their livelihood from their creation, which was paid more or less. Among these travelling artists – painters, drawers, gilders, engravers, stucco workers and, more seldom, sculptors – there had already been some who could be proud of their academic artistic training. Thus, K. Brocky, B. Schäffer, A. Faix, I. Neugass, N. Aleksić, J. Krämer or H. Dunajszky had graduated from the Art Academies of the great European centres (Vienna, Berlin, München). They were the ones who conducted the Central European art – even if only for a short period of time, as long as they worked here – towards the areas of Timiş county. Besides well-known artists, there were some other painters (J. Fiala, K. Daniel, S. Petrović, I. Vizkelety), living in the town, and specialised in local workshops, who contributed to the improvement of public preferences: they made portraits, frescoes, historical and religious paintings, guild flags or miniatures, they adorned the sleeping partners’ churches and houses. Some of the works created by the artists in the first half of the century were preserved in family and museum collections. Another aspect of their presence in the town is certified by Registers of births, marriages and burials (Civil registries), the List of Citizens, the private notes/records of the time or by the newspapers/weekly papers letting the eager public know about their specialized services. The confirmation of more documents allows us to outline a dynamic artistic life in the fortified town during the first half of the 19th century while emphasizing new data regarding the biography and creation of some of these artists.