Journal articles on the topic 'Sculpture-on-the-round'

In the past fifty years Nigeria has witnessed an almost unparalleled upsurge in three-dimensional art production significantly, sculpture in the round. The emergence of the latter can be traced to pioneer African sculptures whose pieces have been adjudged contribution to world artistic heritage. This paper, therefore, examines the continuity and change in sculpture practice as a result of contact with Western cultures and the artistic influence in form, style, theme and material of contemporary sculpture in Nigeria. Significantly, this paper hopefully serves as reference point for future scholarship on sculpture in Africa, while at the same time assist in formulating critical theories on sculpture practice in contemporary Africa, and Nigeria in particular.

New finds of stone sculptures from the epoch of early nomads are quite rare. Therefore, the publication of such new sculptures of pre-Scythian times, besides, two more at once, should be of interest. Moreover, both steles were found in a very limited area of the North-Western Black Sea region and each of them has a unique iconography and a rather original repertoire of objects. The stele from Kairy village is a type of pillar-shaped sculpture. The most original image on it is a round shield with a very rich ornamental composition. The stele from Aleksandrovka belongs to the stele-slabs. This type of sculpture is possibly an intermediate link between purely phallomorphic (Cimmerian) and anthropomorphic (Scythian) sculptures. Since markers of relative chronology are columnar and slab steles – the first are early, the second – late, this may mean that in the upper reaches of the Tiligul estuary in a fairly limited area, the tradition of installing the Cimmerian sculptures persisted for quite a long time.

Background and Aims: The Chinese government has issued a series of policy documents to support the development of the cultural industry, providing policy guarantees and guidance for the development of sculpture education. Traditional teaching methods usually use unified teaching content and teaching methods, which cannot meet the individual needs of students. The comprehensive application of "Mastery Learning with Mind Mapping" theory and methods can provide solid technical support and rich teaching methods for the reform of sculpture education. Through the application of personalized learning plans and mind mapping, students' learning content and space can be expanded, and their learning efficiency and learning quality can be improved. This comprehensive approach can not only meet students' learning needs but also stimulate their learning interest and creativity and promote their all-round development. Therefore, the promotion and application of this method in sculpture education are of great significance and value. This study aims to explore and evaluate the impact of mastery learning combined with mind mapping technique on college students' sculpture learning achievements and performance ability through mastery learning combined with mind mapping technique. Materials and Methods: The instruments for the experiment were four lesson plans. To evaluate the quality of a curriculum plan, it can be assessed using a Likert five-point scale. The quality of the scale can be measured using the Item-Objective Congruence (IOC) The assessment process involves analyzing each component of the lesson plan, attributing scores on the Likert scale, and then calculating the average score and the standard deviation (SD) for each component. The instruments for collecting data were two instruments needed to collect the sampling data, as the detailed list showed: sculpture score assessment and sculpture performance competency assessment. The sample was 30 students (one class) among the 120 junior students in the 2023 academic year. The procedures for data collection are as follows, the sample learning achievement before and after learning through Mastery Learning with Mind mapping and sculpture performance ability after learning through Mastery Learning with Mind mapping with the established 70 percent Results: The study evaluated the effectiveness of employing mastery learning combined with mind mapping techniques to enhance students' learning achievement and sculpture performance ability. Significant improvement was observed, with posttest scores surpassing pretest scores (t =13.06*, p =0.05). Furthermore, students' sculpture performance ability scores after mastering learning with mind mapping (81.1%) exceeded the 70% criterion, with statistical significance (t =11.05*, p =0.001). Conclusion: Compared with previous related studies, the results of this study showed that using mastery learning combined with mind mapping technique teaching had a significant positive effect on the sophomore research on sculpture performance ability. This is consistent with the findings of Chen Linsheng (2022), who found that the use of mind-mapping techniques in art education can improve students' learning achievement. Combining the findings of previous studies and the results of this study, we can conclude that mastery learning combined with mind mapping technique teaching has positive effects on the ability of sculpture performance in sophomore students. However, further research still needs to explore the impact of different teaching methods on students of different grades and specialties to get a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of mastery learning combined with mind-mapping technique teaching.

The well-known image of Tigran the Great of modern drams occupies a central place in monumental sculpture as well as high-sculpture iconography. While creating round statues, sculptors-engravers depicted Tigran the Great in their own way, dressing him in imitation of the clothes of the famous Roman rulers of the time. The sculptors did not even protect the well-known portrait from the dram: they were guided by their own ideas. In that sense, the episodes are more conservative. In their high sculptures, Tigran the Great has a recognizable image and repeats the image on the drams. Among the Armenian artists, the statues of Tigran the Great were created by the Tokmajian family. In their works, the image of the king is more symbolic than concrete.
 The statue "Tigran, King of Armenia" created by Matteos Lespagnandelli (17th century), differs in form and content.
 The high-value sculptures of the Armenian king depicted on the obverse of Tigran the Great drams are original works of art.
 The article discusses the image of Tigran the Great in sculptural art. Based on the historical and chronological comparative analysis of the works, an attempt was made to understand the features of the works depicting Tigran the Great.

When sculpture came to prominence in Western Church architecture in the eleventh century it had largely been absent for some seven centuries. Scholars have explained the paucity as a recognition among Christian leaders of the dangers of life-like, in-the-round objects that might move observers into idolatry. Scholarly consensus has also explained sculpture’s reappearance in the period of Romanesque as a part of the revivalist efforts aimed at reclaiming the grandeur and authority of ancient Rome. Thomas E. A. Dale is perhaps too subtle in situating his book within and against this historical context, but he quite explicitly and emphatically piles on evidence for an alternative.

Two new species from China, Bryochoerus liupanensis sp. nov. and Pseudechiniscus chengi sp. nov. (Tardigrada: Heterotardigrada: Echiniscidae), are reported. Bryochoerus liupanensis sp. nov. is characterized by median plates 1 and 2 divided into four parts while median plate 3 is divided into three parts, and by two lateral plates on each side of all median plates. The new species differs from Bryochoerus intermedius in having a different cuticular sculpture and different lateral plates. Pseudechiniscus chengi sp. nov. is characterized by: head plate faceted, cephalic papilla dome-shaped, pseudosegmental plate with a longitudinal median fold, all plates including the dorsal plates and plates on legs with ornamentation composed of dense round dots, differing in size, and lacking striae between the dots. Pseudechiniscus chengi sp. nov. is most similar to Pseudechiniscus santomensis but differs by: lacking striae between the round dots on dorsal plates, lacking the tiny projections on the caudal margin of pseudosegmental plate, and the divided pseudosegmental plate.

Electronoyesella antiqua Simutnik, gen. et sp. nov., is described and illustrated based on a female specimen from late Eocene Rovno amber. Like most previously described Eocene Encyrtidae, the new taxon differs from the majority of extant ones in a number of features. Sclerotised metasomal structures, similar to the paratergites of extant Tetracneminae, are seen here for the first time in fossils. The new genus is characterized also by the frontovertex with four vertical rows of piliferous punctures and the face also with intricate sculpture; notauli are present as small but distinct depressions, only anteriorly; the apex of metatibia with a peg originating from a round, deep pit; and the unusual setation of the hind wing.

Electronoyesella antiqua Simutnik, gen. et sp. nov., is described and illustrated based on a female specimen from late Eocene Rovno amber. Like most previously described Eocene Encyrtidae, the new taxon differs from the majority of extant ones in a number of features. Sclerotised metasomal structures, similar to the paratergites of extant Tetracneminae, are seen here for the first time in fossils. The new genus is characterized also by the frontovertex with four vertical rows of piliferous punctures and the face also with intricate sculpture; notauli are present as small but distinct depressions, only anteriorly; the apex of metatibia with a peg originating from a round, deep pit; and the unusual setation of the hind wing.

The article focuses on comprehensive analyses of four new Turkic statues from the territory of the Ongudai and Ust-Kan districts of the Altai Republic and introduction of the new data into scientific circulation. All the sculptures have been relocated from their original places and, as a rule, were discovered in the course of agricultural works. The analysis of these sculptures by the author was possible thanks to the information provided by a local historian. The considered sculptures belong to two most numerous groups of such monuments in Altai: sculptures of man-warrior in canonical pose and the so-called facial sculptures. The four sculptures can be preliminary dated to the 7th–9th centuries and attributed to the Karluk population. Two sculptures (from Amaldai and Yabogan) representing vivid examples of the Turkic monumental art of Altai, are particularly notable. The head of the Yabogan sculpture belonged to a noble man-warrior, probably in a canonical pose - one of the most expressive and skillfully made Turkic sculptures of the Altai. This is evidenced by the thoroughly and artistically rendered facial features, as well as the presumed size of the sculpture of 2–2.5 meters high. The Amaldai, which gives the full impression of a round sculpture, probably reproduces a left-handed man holding a vessel in his left hand. This fact is as vivid evidence that the Turkic sculptures portrayed real people rather than a generalized image of a warrior, as some researchers believe. Taking into account the four Turkic statues published in this article, their total number in Altai today is close to 340, which puts the Russian Altai among the most studied regions in terms of early medieval monuments.

Despite its rarity, wooden sculpture of the Urals has been the subject of numerous publications and scientific researches. The anthropomorphic sculptures made of stone, clay, and engraved anthropomorphic images are less known. Currently, the literature describes about 400 images of living creatures found in the Urals and the adjacent Trans-Urals and dated in the time range from the Paleolithic to the Bronze Age. Anthropomorphic images are represented by 60 artifacts, which is only 15 % of the total. Anthropomorphic stone images can be roughly divided into round, flat and flint sculptures. Pendants made in the form of a human head are very interesting. Clay figures are represented by images of women and separate heads. Anthropomorphic engraved images on stone and bone are rare finds. Images of anthropomorphic figures on ceramic vessels constitute a separate group. Most of the sculptural and graphic images dates back to the Neolithic and the Eneolithic.

This article focuses on the problems of localization, cultural interpretation, and the development of the tradition of using these monuments within the regions of Greek colonization along the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. In the northern Black Sea region, the reliefs are divided into two types. The first type includes tombstones in the form of human busts in high relief (Fig. 1. 1). The second type includes tombstones with anthropomorphic images in low relief or cut by lines (Fig. 1. 2). Sculptural groups are represented by stelae with a round or oval "head" on a rectangular or trapezoidal base and paired busts with a common "body type" (Fig. 1. 3-4). The combination of an anthropomorphic stele or relief with a rectangular stele of the "Greek type" has only been recorded in Tauric Chersonesos (Figs. 2. 1-3).  Another region where anthropomorphic sculpture was widespread is Anatolia. Idol-like anthropomorphic stelae and reliefs have been found in Phrygia since prehistoric times (Fig. 3. 1-2). Findings of such monuments in Greek necropolises in the region are extremely rare. One stele was discovered outside the necropolis of Assos (Fig. 3. 3-4). Differences in the form and semantics of the monuments within these regions indicate the interrelated development of this type of sculpture. Furthermore, in each of the identified regi-ons, anthropomorphic stelae and reliefs exemplify intercultural interaction and communication. The local characteristics of these monuments highlight their originality and allow us to tentatively trace the extent and nature of cultural transformations in different parts of the ancient world during the 7th to 2nd centuries BC. 

The following article is the first attempt to analyze and systematize the sculptural images of St. John of Nepomuk in the late XVIII-XIX centuries in Galicia, determine the accurate location to suggest the authorship of the work and develop a restoration program to put into effect work on the monument. Having conducted a stylistic inquiry, we can say that the author was a sculptor Jan Nepomuckski from the village of Velyka Vyshenky. He was under the influence of such Lviv sculptors as Peter and Matthew Poleiowski. Compositional techniques, manner of interpretation of folds, and plasticity testify to close cooperation with these authors. The similarity to the mode of Peter Poleiowski is especially noticeable. Matthew Poleiowski was a talented organizer, had great authority and performed an impressive number of works. He organized other sculptors under his guidance, and there is a suggestion that Ivan Poleiovsky was the leading one. Therefore, probably since Matthew signed contracts for the work, we see the work of the whole shop, and one of these sculptors was the author of sculptures, Jan Nepomuk, from the villages of Velyka Vyshenka and Tovstolug. The sculpture under restoration suffered significant damage and loss. There is no pedestal on which it had initially located. But the round column remained smooth and without decor. From the elbow, along with the hands, both hands are missing. Also, parts of the folds of clothing are missing. There are numerous chips and cracks. The saint's face is barely visible. A traditional attribute of the saint, the metal halo, is also missing. Although, we found traces of them, such as mounting slots on the sculpture. Before restoring the white stone sculpture of Jan Nepomuk from the village of Velyka Vyshenky, we developed the program. It includes the following steps: 1. To execute the photo-fixation of the object, make all necessary measurements and drawings. 2. To carry out a preliminary inspection to assess the damage and condition of the stone. 3. To determine the sequence of works on stone conservation. 4. To perform stone cleaning by dry method with brushes. 5. To clean the stone with a steam generator; 6. To clean the neck and head part from the remnants of cement with the help of metal tools, so-called preliminary restoration and pre-moisten the concrete with water. 7. Take measures to salt the stone with cellulose compresses and distilled water. 8. To perform structural strengthening of the stone with silicon-organic elements. 9. Glue the head and part of Christ with epoxy-based material from TENOX. 10. To supplement the lost items of clothing with mineral restoration solution. 11. To make several elements, such as hands, lost parts of the figure of Christ from plasticine. To make a plaster mould and reconstruct them from artificial stone. 12. To strengthen the structure of the stone with silicon-organic substance. 13. To cover the work with a biocidal solution of long-lasting action. 14. To perform sculpting of wood. 15. To conduct hydrophobization of the work. 16. To develop recommendations to organize the exhibition of works, providing optimal storage conditions. The white stone sculpture of Jan Nepomuk from the village of Velyka Vyshenka is an invaluable example of the late Baroque masters of the Lviv School of Sculpture, created by Ivan Poleiowski. However, today it is impossible to chronicle this. In the process of restoration of the Jan Nepomuk Sculpture, we used established and original restoration technologies and methods. It may allow displaying this sacred work as an object for prayer and worship. We would recommend exhibiting it under the cover to protect from the aggressive impact of precipitation.

The Tenasserim Range runs from north to south and forms not only a natural border between Thailand and Myanmar, but also the backbone of the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot, which is rich in endemic species, especially of the malacofauna. Knowledge of land snail diversity in Thailand is continuously expanding and being refined, and various groups have been revised recently. From field surveys throughout the country, unique snails with delicate shell shape and sculpture hidden in mountainous areas have been discovered and described. Firstly, a new species of the Charopidae, Glyptaulax spectabilis sp. nov. has round tubercles arranged on spiral ridges. Second, Maelamaodiscus somsakpanhai gen. et sp. nov. of the Ariophantidae is described from the Moei River Basin. These new taxa differ from all Southeast Asian ariophantids by having a prominent radial ridge, peculiar aperture with wide sinulus, and an impression on the last whorl. This discovery of endemic taxa reflects the high biodiversity in this region, and suggests that many more land snail treasures are still waiting to be revealed.

Laksmi Shitaresmi is a female artist from Yogyakarta who specializes in painting, sculpture, and installation, as well as other two- and three-dimensional media. Because she freely shares stories about herself and her experiences as a Javanese woman trying to balance the roles of housewife, artist, and wife, her works have a strong appeal. The various visual components she shapes and arranges in her sculptures or reliefs, as well as the stories she tells in them, can prompt us to consider our own lives. The stories in Laksmi's works are always autobiographical; the autobiographical aspect of her works clearly features self-portrait images, although they also often take the form of animals such as pigs, dogs or elephants. She views these forms as representations of herself that are symbolic and connected to a particular round of personal experience. Her mixed-figure works, which include animals with human heads, elephants with human feet, humans with mouse heads, scorpions with human heads, and so on, demonstrate this. Lakshmi's sculptures are interesting to study and learn about because of their intricate techniques and composite figure forms with diverse attributes.

In this study I have tried my level best to show how the Marxist Cultural Movement ( 1940s) of Bengal/ India left its all-round imprint on contemporary periodicals such as Parichay, Agrani, Arani, Janayuddha, Natun Sahitya, Kranti, Sahityapatra etc. That movement was generated in the stormy backdrop of the devastating Second World War, famine, communal riots with bloodbath, and Partition of india. Undoubtedly the Communist Party of India gave leadership in this cultural renaissance established on social realism but renowned personalities not under the umbrella of the Marxist ideology also participated and contributed a lot in it which influenced contemporary literature, songs, painting, sculpture, dance movements and world of movie- making. Organisations like the All-India Progressive Writers” Association( 1936), Youth Cultural Institute ( 1940), Association of Friends of the Soviet Union (1941), Anti- Fascist Writers and Artists” Association ( 1942) and the All- India People”s Theatre Association (1943) etc emerged as pillars of that movement. I.P.T.A was nothing but a very effective arm of the Pragati Lekhak Sangha, which was created mainly for flourishing talent of artists engaged with singing and drama performances. The Anti- Fascist Writers and Artists “Organisation was a perfect name which had arisen in the hour of emergency and the Youth Cultural Institute along with the Soviet suhrid Samiti jointly paved the path for establishment of the Anti- Fascist Organisation and I.P.T.A. All these events and total impact of them were documented well- enough not only in the Anti- Fascist pamphlets and memoirs/ reminiscences of renowned people but also in a large number of periodicals.

The subfamily Panchaetothripinae (family Thripidae) is represented by 140 species under 40 genera (Thrips Wiki 2019). In India, 36 species under 16 genera are recorded (Tyagi & Kumar 2016, Tyagi et al. 2017, Rachana and Varatharajan, 2018, Johnson et al. 2019). The members of this subfamily are leaf-feeders and usually dark brown in colour with strongly reticulate sculpture on body, terminal antennal segments needle-shaped, tarsi 1- or 2-segmented, fore wing upper vein fused with costa. The genus Tryphactothrips was established by Bagnall (1919), and this genus remains monobasic with only Dinurothrips rutherfordi Bagnall from Sri Lanka as the type species. The genus Tryphactothrips can be distinguished from related genera by the presence of sculptured round areolae on abdominal segments. It is closely related to Anisopilothrips Stannard & Mitri but can be identified by paired sigmoidal setae on abdominal tergites (absent in Anisopilothrips), mesonotum without complete median longitudinal split (complete median longitudinal in Anisopilothrips). Recently, a series of both sexes of Tryphactothrips rutherfordi with banded fore wings was collected on fern from Kerala state of India. Females were identified using published keys (Wilson 1975), and the male is here described for the first time. DNA was isolated from the studied specimens and partial fragment of mtCOI gene was amplified and sequenced (Tyagi et al. 2017). Four sequences were submitted in the GenBank (Accession No. MN627201 to MN627204). Photographs and illustrations were taken through a Leica Trinocular Microscope (Leica DM-1000) using Leica software application suite (LAS EZ 2.1.0). The studied specimens were deposited in the National Zoological Collections (NZC), Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata, India.

The paper is devoted to the analysis of versions of the probable use of gold cone-shaped objects that were in use from the last decades of the 6th centuries BC to the end of the 4th centuries BC. They are differ in size (base diameter varies from 5 to 19.8 cm, height — from 4 to 18 cm) and some shape features. At the same time, they are characterized by hollowness, a wide round base, which is usually 1.2—2.0 times greater than the height, and the obligatory presence (with two exceptions) of a small round hole in the «upper» part. All of them are made of gold or covered with this precious metal. Currently 26 such objects are known, and they originate from 19 assemblages from the Northern Pontic and Azov Sea regions (12), the Middle Don (1), the North Caucasus (2) and the Southern Urals (4).
 The context of finding objects is considered in detail. It is concluded that they were mostly worn attached to the gorytos. This is also confirmed by the images on the stone sculpture. It is believed that the cones could have been a decoration of the gorytos or a sign of prestige. But, probably, the purpose of these items was different. Some of the cones were found in ritual complexes — hiding places within the burial chamber or next to the burial.
 Researchers have put the different versions of the possible functional purpose of cone-shaped objects: ritual objects, part of a ceremonial headdress; a cap for tassels that were tied to the horse’s neck; pommel of a standard or staff; «case» for storing scalps; censer; ritual utensils. But most versions are based on arbitrary assumptions that contradict both the archaeological context of the find and the general cultural context.
 From all versions, it is probable that the majority of the cones were used as ritual vessels for sacrifice by pouring out liquid. In several cases, these objects were found in caches together with ritual utensils. Other examples of ritual vessels with holes in the bottom are known. Some objects have a decoration in the form of a rosette (it surrounds the hole) which is placed only at the bottom of the bowls. It is possible that Herodotus’ information about the bowls that the Scythians wore on their belts is related to these objects. They could be used for sacrifices to «Scythian Ares», which we also know about from Herodotus’ «History».

Around the time the postcolonial paradigm was establishing in the Humanities, so too was the Ptolemaic period receiving growing attention. Scholars studying this chronology, during the second half of the twentieth century, however, understood Egypt’s society and culture as a set of impermeable communities/ traditions, only coexisting with one another. This interpretation caused a radical turn in the historiography of the topic. More significantly, though, it left material culture that did not belong exclusively to neither one of the cultural sets (Greek or Egyptian) largely overlooked, and, later on, underestimated in the debates on who influenced who. The author’s Master dissertation took as a case study the Greco-Egyptian stone sculpture in the round of the male Ptolemaic rulers, looking to further understand the epreviously underestimated objects. They were not underestimated, however, in the sense that their existence was not acknowledged or analysed, but in the sense that the explanation put forward was not complex enough. The authors formulated their interpretation mainly from the point of view of state and elites, disconsidering thus other possible realms of agency. This article presents a part of the investigation, namely the theoretical framework adopted to suggest another interpretation for the existence of the “mixed” statuary of Ptolemaic rulers. Although today Ptolemaic Egypt is not understood as a colonial case, postcolonial studies will contribute to this alternative line of interpretation by decentralizing analysis, from the state to other groups. Nevertheless, the major contribution will come from a theory of consumption, which in turn aims to decentralize studies, from issues of power to other realms.

Abstract The equestrian statue of D. José I, in Lisbon, is a masterpiece of the sculptor Joaquim Machado de Castro. It weights over thirty eight tons and was made in a single casting by Bartolomeu da Costa in a copper alloy (brass). After over two centuries exposure, the statue presented an unappealing heterogeneous appearance and showed some deterioration features that required attention. Preliminary studies showed that the deterioration phenomena were typical of copper alloys exposed to outdoor urban environments. The proximity of the seacoast also contributed to some specific decay mechanisms. The highly contrasting patterns of the superficial patinas consisted of black dense deposits covering an original cuprite layer side by side with the common green deposits of basic copper sulfates, hydroxides and chlorides. The highly corrosive nantokite was present in sheltered areas, where chlorides are able to accumulate. The conservation intervention included cleaning, mostly carried out with low pressure jets of round glass beads. Onsite tests were made to select the cleaning levels required to match the areas of black and green patinas. A reddish brown cuprite layer was found underneath most of the areas with black dense deposits, while it could only be perceived by transparency on the green covered areas. When a high contrast remained between the two areas, these were mitigated with the application of water colors during the final protection phase. Nantokite active areas were passivated with sodium oxalate after the entire statue was first washed with clean water and treated with lime water to leave an alkaline reserve to slow down the eventual corrosion process, and the sculpture rinsed with ethanol to accelerate its drying. The final protection was made with Paraloid B44 and microcrystalline waxes.

AbstractInteractions happen in time. Most of us will agree, therefore, that interactions benefit from an appropriate temporal structure. And for many activities there exists a more or less stringent set of rules regarding that structure. This article, on the other hand, describes how such a structure for an everyday activity, i.e. a group conversation, may arise not from the application of pre-established rules, but from a collective creative effort. The elements of this co-operative process are individual preferences regarding the principal temporal parameters, the tools are the basic procedures used in musical composition for structuring time.

Background. Comparative palynomorphological studies of naturally occurring and introduced Pterocarya Kunth representatives reveal the taxonomic significance of pollen morphological features and pollen characters of cultivated plants. The quality of pollen material and the potential of the plants from the Botanical Garden of BIN RAS for introduction are characterized.Materials and methods. Pollen grains were investigated using light, confocal laser scanning and scanning electron microscopes. Fertility was assessed using the standard acetocarmine method.Results. Comparison of pollen morphology in cultivated and naturally growing plants of this genus was made for the first time. Pollen fertility of two cultivated species (Pterocarya rhoifolia Siebold et Zucc., and P. stenoptera DC.) was very high, generally over 90%. Fertility of P. fraxinifolia (Lam.) Spach grains varied from 28 to 73% in different years, which is a low or medium level of pollen quality. Morphologically, pollen grains of all 12 specimens from five taxa are flattened, medium sized, 21–45 μm in diameter, with 4–8 pores; pores are located mainly at or near the equator. The pores are round or oval, with a limbus. Exine is three-layered, thickened near the pore. The sculpture is microechinate. The low-fertile P. fraxinifolia specimen contains small pollen grains, as well as grains in tetrads and dyads. The data on the introduction of the genus in St. Petersburg are presented.Conclusion. The palynonomophological description is diagnostic for the genus Pterocarya. The Pterocarya pollen is well distinguishable from other wind-pollinated taxa; however, species identification by pollen for spore-pollen analysis is not practicable. Morphologically, the most diverse are the grains of the low fertile specimen P. fraxinifolia. The limited possibility of seed propagation of P. fraxinifolia is probably explained by low pollen fertility. The pollen quality of the introduced P. rhoifolia and P. stenoptera is high.

Although a relatively young subject, the historiography of Irish architecture has had a remarkably significant impact on the manner in which particular styles have been interpreted and valued. Since the genesis of the topic in the mid-eighteenth century, specific styles of architecture have been inextricably connected with the political history of the country, and each has been associated with the political and religious affiliations of its patrons. From the mid-nineteenth century, the focus on identifying an Irish ‘national’ architecture became particularly strong, with Early Christian and Romanesque architecture firmly believed to imbue ‘the spirit of native genius’, while Gothic, viewed as the introduction of the Anglo-Norman invader, was seen as marking the end of ‘Irish’ art. Inevitably, with such a strong motivation behind them, early texts were keen to find structures that were untouched by the hand of the colonizer as exemplars of the ‘national architecture’. Scholars, including the pioneering George Petrie (1790–1866) in works such as his 1845 study of the round towers of Ireland, believed that through historical research he and others were the first to understand the ‘true value’ of these buildings and that any former interest in them had been purely in their destruction, rather than in their restoration or reconstruction. It was believed that such examples of early medieval architecture and sculpture as had survived had done so despite, rather than because of, the efforts of former ages, and, although often in ruins, the remains could be interpreted purely in terms of the date of their original, medieval, creation.Informed by such studies, from the mid-nineteenth century a movement grew to preserve and consolidate a number of threatened Romanesque buildings with the guiding philosophy of preserving the monuments as close to their original ‘pre-colonial’ form as possible. Consolidation of the ruins of the Nuns’ Church at Clonmacnoise (Co. Offaly) is traditionally amongst the earliest and most celebrated of these endeavours, undertaken by the Kilkenny and Southeast Ireland Archaeological Society in the 1860s, setting a precedent for both the type of monument and method of preservation that was to become the focus of activity from the 1870s, and thus for the first State initiatives in architectural conservation.

The author examines the sculptural decoration of the Pura Beji temple – a vivid representative of the style of sacred architecture and decorative plasticity of northern Bali. This temple complex is the sanctuary of the subak irrigation association. It is unique with a peculiar vocabulary of decor, rich texture of stone carvings, masterfully executed in a “pink” paras. The purpose of the article is to use the example of analysis of the decorations of temple buildings (Candi Bentar gates, Candi Kurung, Candi Laras altars, Apit Lawang) and samples of round sculpture to identify the characteristic features of the decorative desing of Pura Beji, to reveal the features of the iconographic reading of individual motifs and images, their spatial configuration. The work is based on empirical material from field studies conducted in April 2019 (Desa Sangsit, kabupaten Buleleng). The study of the temple decor was carried out using the methods of full-scale research, non-standardized interviews; comparative analysis; iconographic, compositional, artistic analysis of images. For the first time, the diverse repertoire of Pura Beji's plastics was analyzed through the prism of the leading iconographic program related to the cult of fertility and the specifics of Balinese Hinduism (with its rich mythopoetics, metamorphoses of the divine and demonic worlds). This predetermined the abundance of floral ornaments and chimerical, fantastic images in the decoration of the temple, their organic fusion. The role of active contacts of the northern coast of Bali with the cultures of Eastern civilizations and Western Europe in the formation of the original style of carving by Sangsit masters is also taken into account. The author comes to the conclusion that the decorative design of Pura Beji is characterized by: rethinking the codified patterns of decor, the use of original motifs and borrowed replicas; compositional freedom of ornamental constructions; continuous filling of the wall surface with sculptural decoration in relief, the applicative manner of applying the ornament. Also noteworthy is the hyperbolized way of articulating decorative elements, manifested in the reception of emphasized grotesque in the interpretation of zoomorphic images and the dominance of a large pattern of leaves and flowers.

This research developed the design of Dan Kwian clay doll souvenir products from the identity of Korat Folksong, to add value to product which promote creative cultural tourism. The objectives of the research are 1) study the identity from Korat Folksong to create a small sculpture and creating prototypes from 3D Printing 2) Experimenting with Dan Kwian clay in order to create Dan Kwain clay doll and glazing to develop souvenir products. 3) To design packaging to convey contemporary Korat Folksong which promote cultural tourism. The research found that 1) The identity of Korat Folksong. Men's clothing is popular in wearing loincloths. Wear a round neck, short-sleeved shirt, no color limit, with a loincloth on the belly. Women wear loincloths and wear tight, collarless shirts with short sleeves. It is popular to wear brightly colored cloth. And the dance poses that express the identity of Korat Folksong are 1. Oh Ram Ro pose, 2. Chang Thiam Mae pose, and 3. Jok pose. By taking photo of the original Korat's Folksong performers. Then, draw it into a 3D image with computer program thereafter prototypes were printed with 3D printer reduced sizes to be used in the of making of plaster mold for casting the workpiece. 2) Experimenting with using triangular table to find ratios for all 36 slip formulas. It was found that clay formula 14 was suitable for casting the workpiece quickly and without cracking, with a ratio of 40% Dan Kwian clay, 40% Lampang kaolin clay, and 20% silica, chosen as the slip casting formula for creating the souvenir products and fined at 900 °C, then decorated with colored the glaze derived from the clothing of Korat Folksong performers. By applying glaze 1,100 °C, the workpiece shrinks by 12%. 3) The packaging is designed after the Korat music house, which is a pavilion raised under 4 pillars. When the pieces are packed in a box, it's like a musician singing and dancing in the music theater, and the Korat song is conveyed in the packaging design with fun rhythm content that attract tourists to Nakhon Ratchasima province. The song was composed by Mr. Kampan Nithiworapaiboon. The national artist. It is a souvenir product from Dan Kwian pottery to convey knowledge about the folk art of Korat songs to promote cultural tourism.

Studying the activities of the large center of church art in Rybotychi (Nadsiannia, now in Poland), active in the 1670’s – 1760’s, there is a number of issues that need to be taken into account. First of all, this is the systematization of artifacts, the definition of the period of the masters’ activities and the criteria by which the works can be attributed to this center. As there are very few artworks with the Rybotychi authors’ signatures, the iconography, painting stylistics, which includes various authors’ manners, and decorative framing of icons are important for identifying the art-works as belonging to Rybotychi workshop. We focus our attention on the icons’ decorative framing which was particularly important at the end of the 1680’s –1760’s. Ukrainian church art of the second half of the 17th –18th centuries is characterized by the combination of various components that shape particular artwork and the general view of the temple. During the 17th century, new form of high iconostasis established and new icon framings were borrowed from the West-European re-naissance art (in the first half of the 18th century – from the baroque). In this period, carved framing played an important role in decorating separate icons, iconostasis structures, and wall altars. Old scheme of the iconostasis with the templon, which prevailed since the time of Kyivan Rus until the end of the 16th century, was not used anymore. These changes can be observed (as far as the monuments allow to study) in the Ukrainian church art of all regions. However, each workshop had its own methods of painting and frame decoration. Peculiar methods of decorative framing were also used by masters from Rybotychi, who in the 1670’s –1760’s worked in the churches of Peremyshl and parts of the Mukachevo dioceses of the Ukrainian church (called “Ruska” at the time). Decorative icon framing by Rybotychi masters and its development during the 1670’s – 1760’s as well as the sources of shapes and motifs are considered in this article. For this purpose, the works that are in their original place in the churches (mostly in eastern Slovakia and, to a lesser extent, Poland and Ukraine) and the museum collections of Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary are studied. Despite the fact that art history literature provides information about the icon painters from Rybotychi, little is known about the evolution of the stylistics of decorative framing of the icons during the 1670’s – 1760’s. The purpose of the article is to study the evolution of the stylistics and forms of the decorative framing of the Rybotychi masters’ icons in the 1670’s – 1760’s. The results of the research support the idea that in general, the Rybotychi masters who worked in the late 17th – first half of the 18th century decorated their icons with deep carved frames, with silvering and even round sculpture. Such frames can be seen on the icons of the Sovereign tier of the iconostasis, on the wall icons in the church nave, on the icons of the main and wall altars and on the central icon of the Prayer tier of the iconostasis. As the works show, these frames on the icons of the Rybotychi masters have undergone a certain evolution. In the frames of 1688–1691 icons from the Kotan church iconostasis (Lemko region, Poland; Museum-Castle in Lancut), by the Rybotychi master Yakiv, we see renaissance-mannerist tendencies. These frames do not yet have much depth and torn cornices, as in the later icons of Rybotychi masters. It is important to note that on the fringes of the master Yakiv icons, for the first time on the works by the Rybotychi authors we see angels’ carved heads with wings. In the first half of the 18th century, the silhouette of the icon frames becomes more complicated due to torn cornices and protruding elements. Frames are deep (about 20 cm), two columns decorated with carving are attached on the sides. Frames are painted in two or more bright colors (red-orange, green) with silvering, often toned as gold. The ground for the columns is black or dark gray-blue. Approximately from the 1710’s, in the upper part of the border on the side corners of the icons by the Rybotychi masters, carved silhouettes of decorative vases with flowers could be attached. They are painted with colors and silvered over the gesso ground. In general, such complex baroque type frames support the idea that the icon painters from Rybotychi collaborated with carvers. According to the archival documents and inscription on the works, between 1670 and 1739, five local carvers were active, two of them worked in the 1670’s and 1680’s. Some painters from Rybotychi have engaged in carpentry and carving work themselves, as evidenced by author’s inscriptions and archival notes. The Rybotychi masters were quite conservative in the iconography and the form of the processional crosses, however, in the icon framing, they actively introduced new shapes and decorative elements from the works of Latin (Roman-catholic) art. At the end of the Ryboty-chi masters’ activity (in the middle of the 18th century) the decorative elements of carved frames are somewhat simplified, but the shape and motifs remain unchanged. We conclude that at the end of the 17th century the distinctive form and decorative motifs of the Rybotychi masters’ icons frames were established. In the first half of the 18th century, Rybotychi masters used fl at carving, open-work thread, carving in high relief and round sculpture. These frames, together with the icons, created a holistic ensemble reflecting baroque aesthetics. In the first half of the 18th century, a characteristic element of the ornamental decoration of the Rybotychi masters’ frames were carved heads of angels, painted on gesso. Such sculptural elements borrowed from works of Latin art were the only figurative round carving these masters used, and which distinguishes the works of their workshop.

In 2003, the 150th anniversary of the birth of Adolf Furtwängler was celebrated with an exhibition in his home town of Freiburg, accompanied by a memorial volume and an international symposium. His influence on Greek sculptural studies through emphasis on the search for individual craftsmen via Roman copies continues, particularly in Germany and the USA. The mystery of the ‘whodunit’ is still strong, and the cult of the creative artist is too deeply ingrained in our own thinking to be totally jettisoned for other, more impersonal considerations. There is such an innate desire to link a work of art to a name that, over the years, there has been a tendency to concentrate on the few names that have been vouchsafed to us from classical texts and the random discovery of inscriptions carrying the names of sculptors (the earliest dating from c.600 BC). Recent major exhibitions have centred round the sculptors Polykleitos, Praxiteles, and Lysippos, and there are studies that have highlighted the conjectural personalities of these and other named artists. Pollitt has declared his allegiance to this traditional approach:Those who believe that ancient Greek art, like that of all other places and times, was the result of the insights, instincts, taste and choices of individual artists and not the product of impersonal, mechanical, evolutionary forces have good reason for wanting to carry on the tradition of Furtwängler.

The study of the iconostases of Slobidska Ukraine in the 17th century made it possible to establish that the altar septums in different regiments of Slobozhanshchina had their own specific features. Three groups of iconostases were discovered: Sumy-Ostrogozhska, Kharkiv-Izyumska and Okhtyrska. Despite the general similarity of the iconostases of Slobozhanshchina at different historical stages, each had its own peculiarities in the solution of the altar septums. Despite the small amount of visual material, it can be argued that in the first half of the 18th century, the Sumy group of monuments retains some common features of the group: the general composition of the iconostasis (the iconostasis of the Church of the Transfiguration in Mezhirich), the figures of the local tier are cut to the middle of the thigh (icons from the Church of Resurrection in Lebedyn), the archetectural decision of the deesis tier, where the apostles were depicted one by one on separate boards (an icon from the village Ulanok). But innovations also appear: the image of the apostles in the deesis tier, two apostles depicted together on one board, the image of the Tree of Jesse on the Royal Doors, throne images of figures in the local tier (the iconostasis of the Church of the Transfiguration in Mezhirich), the use of a round sculpture with a crucifixion scene, which crowned it (Mikhailivsk Hermitage near Lebedyn). At the beginning of the 18th century the decoration of icons and iconostases changed significantly. The Slobozhanshchina iconostases of the 17th century used a wide range of manneristic ornamentation, while in the first half of the 18th century the mannerist decorative trim changed to baroque floral decor. The decor of acanthus leaves and the motif grape bunches dominated in the iconostases of the Sumy group at that time. From the second third of the 18th century the decoration of icons and altar septums of Slobozhanshchina is gradually occupied by decorative elements of the rococo style. In the iconostases of the Sumy group, this is, first of all, the motif of the oblique lattice and rocaille. young masters from the capital, who, having visited Europe, managed to get acquainted with the processes taking place there. The novelty of their techniques affected not only planning, approaches to decorative design, the introduction of new subjects, changes in the technology of wall painting, but also, which was in line with the spirit of the times, in the appeal to stylization, as one of the basic principles of Art Nouveau. Artists who worked on murals in Kharkiv churches (M. Pestrikov, I. Svyatenko, A. Sokol, P. Kryuchkov) mainly extended the line in sacred painting, founded by V. Vasnetsov in the Vladimir Cathedral in Kyiv in 1885– 1896. Somewhat aloof are only fragmentarily preserved paintings by A. Savinov in the Church of the Transfiguration in Natalevka. However, there were other trends, as evidenced by the symbolist projects for the murals of the house church of Yuzefovich’s printing house in Kharkiv. New documentary materials are introduced into scientific circulation, in particular, photos of church murals that have survived to this day.

The article discusses the earliest, mostly lost works known only through archival photographs, and the early preserved works by Rudolf Valdec (8 March 1872, Krapina – 1 February 1929, Zagreb) who, apart from RobertFrangeš-Mihanović, was Croatia’s first modern sculptor. These works were created upon Valdec’s return from studying at Vienna and Munich, in the period between 1896 to 1898, that is, prior to the exhibition CroatianSalon where they were displayed. The findings about his earliest, previously unknown, works have been gathered through research in archives and old journal articles which mention them. At the same time, Valdec’s early works are not only well-known but famous, for example the relief Love, the Sister of Death (Ljubav sestra smrti, 1897), Magdalena (1898) and Memento Mori (1898). These reliefs and sculptures in the round demonstrate Valdec’s skill in sculptoral modelling and provide evidence that he was a sculptor of good technical knowledge andcraftsmanship. They also show the thoroughness of his education at Vienna’s K. K. Kunstgewerbeschule des Österreichischen Museums für Kunst und Industrie where he studied under Professor August Kühne, and at the Königliche Bayerische Akademie der bildenden Künste in Munich where he was supervised by Professor Syrius Eberle. It is difficult to follow Rudolf Valdec’s continuity as a sculptor because his student works have not been preserved and neither have some of the earliest works he made when he returned to Zagreb. Only a small number of previously unknown or unpublished photographs have been found which show the works which have been irretrievably lost. These works of unknowndimensions were not signed and are therefore considered as preparatory studies for more large-scale works from the earliest phase of his career. These are the reliefs of Apollo made for the pediments of the Pavilion of the Arts (Umjetnički paviljon) at Zagreb which was designed by Floris Korb and Kálmán Giergl, the Hungarian historicist architects, to house the Croatian displays at the Millenial Exhibition at Budapest in 1896. A year later, in 1897, the iron frame of the pavilion was transported to Zagreb.The bid to carry out the work was won by the Viennese architects Herman Helmer and Ferdinand Fellner, but the actual construction was done by the Zagreb architects Leo Hönisberg and Julio Deutsch under thesupervision of the city’s engineer Milan Lenuci. Valdec was entrusted with the making of reliefs illustrating the hymn to Apollo (Apollo of Delphi, Apollo Pythoctonos, and Apollo Musagetes). These three bas-reliefs werenever affixed to the pediments of the Pavilion of the Arts because the City Council did not authorize the execution due to a lack of funds. However, they were displayed at the Millenial Exhibition at Budapest and the Croatian Salon in 1898, and contemporary critics praised them as successful works of the young Valdec. The first relief depicts the Apollo of Delphi (hymn to Apollo) holding a severed head in his raised left hand. The second relief depicts Apollo Musagetes next to a shoot of a laurel tree(the symbol of Daphne) with a lyre in his left hand. The third relief shows Apollo Pythoctonos who, in a dynamic movement, is stringing his silver bow and shooting an arrow into the gaping mouth of a fire-breathing dragon.In his youth, Valdec produced works which embodied fear, anxiety, pessimism, restlessness and bitterness, all corresponding to the general tendencies of the fin de siècle. In 1899 he made Pessimism (Pesimizam), a work only known through its mention in the press by the critic M. Nikolić. Many other youthful works from the period between 1885 to 1889 have also been lost. These were: Passion, Christ, and Love (Muka, Krist, and Ljubav, 1896-1896) which were displayed at the Millenial Exhibitionin Budapest, Altar of the Saviour (Spasiteljev žrtvenik), Lucifer, Per Aspera ad Astra, Kiss (Cjelov), Christ Salvator (Krist Salvator), Hymn to Apollo (Apolonova himna), Apollo Phoebus (Apolon Phoebus), Ridi Pagliaccio, and Jesus (Isus). Our research has yielded photographs of theworks Per Aspera ad Astra and Christ Salvator, both of 1898. All the work from his youthful phase is in the Art Nouveau style, in harmony with the dominant stylistic trends in Vienna, Munich and central Europe, which,unsurprisingly, attracted Valdec too. In his desire to express his feelings and spiritual condition, as can be seen in the works like Per Aspera ad Astra, Valdec reveals the stamp of the Art Nouveau symbolism.Although Valdec’s earliest and a number of his early works have mostly been lost, those that have been preserved are made of plaster and bronze (now at the Collection of Plaster Casts of the Croatian Academy ofArts and Sciences in Zagreb), and belong to the most significant works of Croatian modern sculpture. The works in question are the relief sculptures Love, the Sister of Death (1897), Memento Mori (1898) and Magdalena(1898). The relief Love, the Sister of Death represents the first example of symbolism and stylization which were a novelty in modern sculpture in Croatia. The relief of Magdalena is, regardless of the fierce criticism on account of its nudity published by the priest S. Korenić in Glas koncila, a master-piece not only because it represents an excellent nude but also because of the psychological and philosophical expression it radiates. It is one of the best reliefs in Croatian sculpture in general. The relief Memento Mori features the first and only example of Valdec’s self-portrait rendered in profile, in which he depicted himself as a fool. The busts of Plato (Platon) and Aristotle (Aristotel) are considered to be first portraitscommissioned by Iso Kršnjavi. They were made in 1898 and set up on the wings of the building which housed the seat of the Department of Theology and Teaching in 10 Opatička Street, at the head of which was Kršnjavi. Valdec made the busts of these two Greek philosophers in the style of Roman naturalistic portraits.

The article highlights the results of the first round of conservation works to return the lost image of the assembly hall (meeting hall of the great senate) – the main building of the oldest building of the university. The purpose of the works is to create the methodology basis to restore the wall painting and sculpture decoration of the hall, to return it to its original authentic appearance from 1880-1884. The decoration of the hall was realized in 1884 by the artist and architect Ivan Dolynskyi, according to the idea of the first rector, architect Julian Zahariewicz. However, the original artistic decoration of the assembly hall was lost in the subsequent periods after the First World War. The walls of the hall and decorative plastic were covered with new paint layers of a nondecorative nature. The first test studies in 2015 showed the possibility of removing layers and opening the original wall painting decoration. They also testified to the need for conservation and restoration works of the authentic wall painting decoration, which in some places had cracks, local losses, and unsatisfactory technical conditions (flaking from plaster). Complex scientific architectural and conservation studies of the interior of the assembly hall were carried out, including the performance of all necessary types of research – from archival searches to soundings in paint coatings and stucco, and laboratory analyzes of materials. Research has revealed the nature of layering and the different states of preservation of the authentic painting layer in all parts of the hall, at different levels of the walls and decor. As a result of research, it was established the possibility of cleaning all walls, decorative stucco, and sculptures by mechanical means. Due to the large volume, it was recommended to divide the cleaning and conservation works into several stages. According to the concept of the discussed and approved project, the following were recommended as the main methods and stages of restoration works: – mechanical cleaning of the entire wall plane; removal of paint coatings to the layer of authentic marbling; also removing putty from cracks and gaps in the plaster; – delicate wiping of the wall surface with distilled water to remove surface contamination; – injection of deep cracks with liquid restorative putty mass; – “bringing” plaster in places of losses, falls and chips, followed by its alignment in the plane of the wall and its priming; – strengthening of the places of the base where there are losses, shedding of the wall painting by the method of its structural strengthening with the help of impregnation with a special priming solution; – restoration reproduction and toning of the wall painting (exclusively within the limits of losses); – after the completion of the reproduction of the wall painting-marbling (when the toning has completely dried), applying a restoration wax-resin mastic to the entire surface of the wall; giving a gloss after the mastic has completely dried; if necessary, mastic can be re-applied on new layers of wall painting. In the article, we reveal the main results of the research work, as well as highlight the key positions of the conservation task and the conceptual project of conservation, and recommendations for planning executive works. We also reveal the process of implementation of conservation works at their first stage - in 2015-2016. The works were carried out by the restoration group of the Department of Architecture and Conservation with the involvement of students.

A valuable Middle Age Romanian art monument, the recumbent effi gy has its provenance from the “Saint Nicholas” Princely Church of Curtea de Argeş. To date, several scientifi c papers inferred that the gravestone belonged to the tomb of Prince Radu I (ca 1377 - ca 1383) or maybe of Prince Dan the 2nd (1420 - 1421). The bas-relief is carved in chalk and has the dimension 149.5 cm / 73 cm /33.5 cm. Th e sculpture shows a lying deceased person, with his hands on his chest. His face is surrounded by long hair and beard. Th e stone is cracked and the lower part is missing. Damaged and worn away, the recumbent effi gy has lost the details that could have made its identifi cation easier. Th is paper presents arguments in favor of identifying the recumbent effi gy with the gravestone of the fi rst Metropolitan Archbishop of the Romanian County, Iachint of Vicina (1359-1372). Specifi c religious vestments such as surplice (with a short collar round the neck), epitrachelion, phelonion (with luxurious embroideries on the chest and shoulders, and its bottom edge held on the left forearm, in a common gesture of a priest during the religious service), kamelavkion (with a long veil reaching to the ankles), reassemble the formal vestments that the first Metropolitan Orthodox Archbishop of Romanian County would have been buried with, in accordance with the religious customs. The Metropolitan Archbishop holds the crosier under his right arm. In addition, his head, covered with a “kamelavkion”, lies down on a carved piece of stone. In this connection, a brick is set under the deceased person’s head according to the monk burial customs, to date. The damaged condition of the recumbent effi gy doesn’t allow the identifi cation of certain details of the religious vestments of a high rank archbishop. However, one can’t rule out the possibility that the burial ritual of a Metropolitan Archbishop of that time included only the vestments and ornaments present on the recumbent effi gy, or that the craftman left out the carving of some pieces of clothing. On the right side of the gravestone, one can see an inscription with Cyrillic letters, “ПР ГЕРГЕ” - the name of the craftsman and his emblem. Th is is the fi rst registration of a craftsman stone carving in Romanian County. In conclusion, the bas-relief, even in its current state of preservation, is supporting the hypothesis that the recumbent effi gy is representing a high rank archbishop. Th is individual couldn’t have been any other than the fi rst Metropolitan Archbishop of UngroWallachia, Iachint of Vicina (1359 - 1372), buried in the church where he has served as a high priest. Th e “Saint Nicholas” Royal Church of Curtea de Argeş could, therefore, legitimately reclaim the title of the fi rst Metropolitan Orthodox Church of the Romanian County. Th e recumbent effi gy should be relocated to its initial site, at least in a form of a replica. Th is could be helpful in restoring the spiritually charged atmosphere from the second half of XIVth century.

<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>There is not so many scientific research on grave typology and tradition of burial in Paphlagonia region. In addition to this, there is not sufficient data on the history and culture of the region, which can be explained with the limited number of archaeological excavation in Paphlagonia region. Preliminary preparation for further far-reaching studies has been intended with this research on a piece of grave monument located in a yard at the south of Paphlagonia region, at the present time in Günesli village of Karabuk province. Even if this research is assesed as a preliminary study, the artefact we treat is of a high value in terms of grave typology of the region. The fact that there is Sora and Hadrianapolis in immediate environment of Gunesli village in which grave monument has been located suggests that it can be a small residential area subject to these ancient cities. However, there are no facts and figures to prove it. And yet, good craftsmanship in the artefact points out that the owner of the grave may be an important person. The artefact is cubical as it stands. Man and wife and two Eros figures holding torch in both sides are portayed in a niche frontally encircled by columns. There is lion sculpture on the upper part of the artefact while Gorgon (medusa) is engraved on the other sides. Given the existent features of the artefact, it can be said that the artefact is unique to the region. A great number of rectangular and round graveyard columns have been found in the course of scientific works in the region. The existence of the clamp hole beneath the artefact shows that this artefact has been placed on such a pedestal. Stylistic features of the figures on the artefact have been examined and it has been dated to the 3<sup>rd</sup> century A.C. At the end of this research a new type of grave has been added to the grave typology of Paphlagonia region and it has been proven how rich the grave typology of the region is.</p><p><strong>Öz</strong></p><p>Paphlagonia Bölgesi’nde mezar tipolojisi ve bu mezarlara yapılan gömü gelenekleri ile ilgili çok fazla bilimsel çalışma yapılmamıştır. Buna ek olarak bölgenin tarihi ve kültürü ile ilgili çok fazla veri de bulunmamaktadır ki bu durumu, bölgede arkeolojik kazıların sınırlı kalmasıyla açıklamak mümkündür. Paphlagonia Bölgesinin güneyinde günümüzde Karabük ili sınırları içerisinde kalan Güneşli Köyü’de bir bahçe içinde tespit edilen mezar anıtı parçası üzerine yaptığımız bu çalışmada ileride yapılacak geniş kapsamlı çalışmalara ön hazırlık yapılmaya çalışılmıştır. Bu çalışma bir ön hazırlık olarak değerlendirilse de ele aldığımız eser bölgenin mezar tipolojisi bakımından oldukça önemlidir. Mezar anıtının tespit edildiği Güneşli köyünün yakın çevresinde Sora ve Hadrianapolis antik kentlerinin varlığı olasılıkla köyün bu antik kentlere bağlı küçük bir yerleşim olabileceğini akla getirmektedir. Ancak bu durumu kesin kanıtlayacak kesin veriler bulunmamaktadır. Ancak eserde oldukça iyi işçilik mezar sahibinin önemli bir kişi olabileceğini de akla getirmektedir. Eser mevcut haliyle kübik bir şekil arz eder. Cephede sütunlarla çevrelenmiş bir niş içerisinde karıkoca ve onların her iki tarafında elinde meşale tutan iki eros betimlenmiştir. Diğer yüzlerde gorgo (medusa) işlenirken, eserin üst bölümünde kırık bir aslan heykeli vardır. Eserin mevcut özellikleri göz önüne alındığında eserin bölge için ünik olduğunu söylemek mümkündür. Bölgede yapılan bilimsel çalışmalarda çok sayıda dikdörtgen ve daire formlu mezar sütunları ele geçmiştir. Eserin altındaki zıvanın varlığı da bu eserin böyle bir kaide üzerine yerleştirildiğini göstermiştir. Eserde figürlerin stil özellikleri değerlendirilmiş ve M.S. 3 yüzyıla tarihlenmiştir. Bu çalışma sonucunda Paphlagonia Bölgesinin mezar tipolojisine yeni bir mezar türü daha eklenmiş ve bölgenin mezar tipolojisinin ne denli zengin olduğu ortaya koyulmuştur.</p>

Bonino di Jacopo da Milano occupies a significant place in Dalmatian sculpture of the first half of the fifteenth century. In a relatively short period of time during which he was active – less than twenty years – this master managed to create numerous carvings and sculptures in almost every major Dalmatian town. Despite the fact that in the last ten years or so, a number of new and rather important works have been attributed to Bonino, while the works of a lesser quality have been identified as being produced by his collaborators, the assessment of this Lombard sculptor as an artist has remained the same and is based on the arguments put forward by Milan Prelog (1961) which portray him as having a backward looking, essentially Romanesque, understanding of the human figure and limited creative abilities. Because of this, he tends to be considered responsible for the works of a lesser quality with the major exception of a high relief depicting an angel bearing the coat of arms of the de Judicibus family from the bell tower of Split Cathedral (Fig. 1). The relief, now at the Museum of the City of Split, comes from the ground floor of the Cathedral bell tower where it stood on its south side. It replaced by a replica during the restorations works in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The first scholar who identified it as part of Bonino’s oeuvre or, more specifically, as a work of one of his assistants, was Cvito Fisković (1950). In contrast to this, earlier researchers such as A. Venturi (1908), H. Folnescis (1914), and Ljubo Karaman (1936) considered the relief to be more stylistically advanced and connected it to the mid-fifteenth century artistic activity of Juraj Dalmatinac. Since Ljubo Karaman (1954) maintained his initial opinion even after C. Fisković’s attribution and softened his estimation only slightly, C. Fisković went on to attribute the angel from the bell tower to Bonino himself in a later, somewhat more detailed, discussion of the works this sculptor produced in Split (1969). He pointed out that the angel may well have been produced around 1426-1427 when the ground floor of the bell tower was being consolidated and when, as we learn from the sources, Bonino was working on the ciborium of St Domnius for the local Cathedral. Even a superficial comparison between the angel from the bell tower and the angels on Bonino’s ciborium (Fig. 2) reveals not only significant differences in the modelling technique, but, even more importantly, a completely different feeling for sculptural form. The angel with the de Judicibus coat of arms comes across as being dynamic in the available pictorial space and as having a far livelier facial expression as well as physical impostation all of which demonstrate that the noted discrepancies in style, chronology, and attribution are not accidental. The figure of the de Judicibus angel gentler, slimmer and more graceful than those made by Bonino and was brought to life by a slight turn of his small round head featuring full cheeks and resting on a thin, slightly elongated neck which is not found on Bonino’s angels. Significant differences are also evident in the angels’ hair: the hair on the de Judicibus angel is lush and somewhat unnaturally pulled up from the face so that it resembles a wig. Particularly lively are his large drilled eyes and a faint smile which hovers at the corners of his mouth – a feature absent from Bonino’s figures. Almost identical features as on this serene and lovely face can be found in the sepia preparatory sketch of St Matthew on the vault of the ciborium of St Domnius (Fig. 4) which is why it is logical to assume that the masters responsible for its completion or painting in 1429 – Dujam Vučković and Giovanni di Pietro da Milano – also made the preparatory drawing which served as a model for the de Judicibus angel from the bell tower. Close analogies with the angels on Bonino’s ciborium, another obvious source of inspiration, point to the fact that the artist responsible for the angel holing the de Judicibus coat of arms should be sought among Bonino’s close assistants as C. Fisković had initially suggested. A different role of the angels, that is, the predominantly religious one in the case of the angels on the ciborium above the altar of the local patron saint, and the mostly secular location of the angel on the bell tower sheds more light on the circumstances in which the de Judicibus angel may have been produced. One of the members of the de Judicibus family, a local noble family, was the Archbishop of Split Domnius II (1415-1420) who began raising funds for the completion of the bell tower in 1416 and who appointed a certain master Tvrdoj as the foreman but he never started the job. Dissatisfied with the passing of Split into Venetian hands in 1420, Archbishop Domnius left for Hungary where he stayed at the court of King Sigismund until his death in 1435. This information was used by Lj. Karaman to disprove the argument that the angel was made during Bonino’s sojourn at Split because he thought that the new Venetian government would not have allowed the installing of the coat of arms belonging to this self-exiled archbishop. Given that the coat of arms does not feature the episcopal mitre and cross, as noted by C. Fisković, it cannot be interpreted as belonging to him. In addition, the fact that this bishop is mentioned on the sarcophagus of his mother which was placed in the peripter of the Cathedral in 1429 clearly demonstrates that political reasons did not prevent the family connection with this bishop from being displayed. Moreover, the angel relief was carved on a large stone block which was organically linked to the masonry meaning that it was made during the consolidation of the ground floor of the bell tower carried out by Bonino’s workshop. Although the issue of authorship does not depend on the exact date of the angel relief, conspicuous similarities with the figure of St Matthew on the vault of the ciborium of St Domnius open up the possibility that the angel may have been produced during 1428, after Bonino went to Šibenik to work on the portal of the future Cathedral of St James. This might help explain a certain freedom of expression which is evident in the de Judicibus angel and which is absent from other works produced by Bonino’s workshop. Regardless of these circumstances surrounding what might be called hidden, political and subversive artistic freedom, perhaps acquired at a later date, evident in the de Judicibus angel, the main reasons for the angel’s lively movement and dynamism within the pictorial space lie in the fact that this relief expresses a completely different visual aesthetics and sculptural poetics when compared to the angels on the Cathedral ciborium. This is also corroborated by the capital above the angel’s head (Fig. 5). The capital’s intensely curling leaves distance it from Bonino’s variations of the ‘northern’ vegetal ornaments which can be seen on the capitals of the ciborium of St Domnius and bring it closer to the Venetian capitals with lush and curling leaves which appeared a decade or two later. The strong movement and the restless, somewhat extroverted, artistic hand apparent on this capital – not on display but the replica can be seen on the Cathedral bell tower – is also present in the de Judicibus angel which leaves no doubt that the two were made by the same sculptor. The aforementioned stylistic characteristics enable us to attribute another work to this unnamed master, that is, the statue of St Michael in the atrium of the Episcopal Palace at Šibenik (Fig. 6). If we take a closer look at the head of St Michael and his full round cheeks but also at the way his thick and pulled-up hair is depicted, we can easily recognize the hand of the same sculptor who made the de Judicibus angel. St Michael’s thin waist and his tense limbs which are bent as if made of rubber together with the tautened smooth surface of his armour have resulted in the unusual appearance of a body which seems to be hovering. The impression that the limbs are not in harmony with each other and that they were mechanically attached to the torso is achieved mostly by the right leg which is bent at the knee and depicted in profile. It is obvious that the unnamed master wanted to depict the traditional iconographic type of St Michael as a frontally placed heavenly soldier, which he could have seen in the monumental relief of St Michael set in the town walls next to the land gate, in a new, livelier and more dynamic, way. However, the execution clearly demonstrates that this ambition to achieve a more convincing and dramatic representation of the battle greatly exceeded the sculptor’s creative abilities. Despite everything, his clumsy attempt displays the same youthful and confident passion, unspoiled by routine and seen in the de Judicibus angel, for a more modern approach to the pictorial expression and for bringing a breath of fresh air into conventional iconographic schemes. Based on all the above, I believe that we can agree with the suggestion that, apart from the already identified Master of St Peter, the circle of Bonino di Jacopo da Milano nurtured another unnamed master. Although his oeuvre is not large, the works of this master are nevertheless significant and symptomatic of a new moment in the local sculpture of the early fifteenth century. This moment corresponds to the time when, at the very end of the 1430s, Dalmatian sculpture finally attempted to break free from the visual patterns and aesthetic formulae which were deeply rooted in the Trecento and which were transmitted by Bonino da Milano throughout the Dalmatian coast. Nevertheless, because he was limited by and tied to the old models as well as being dependent on his teacher, this young and ambitious assistant of Bonino marks the end of the old era rather than the beginning of the new one which would be announced in around ten years’ time by the arrival of yet another sculptor from Lombardy – Pietro di Martino da Milano.

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.

King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (1458‒1490), son of the “Scourge of the Turks,” John Hunyadi, was a foremost patron of early Renaissance art. He was only fourteen years old in 1470 when he was elected king, and his patronage naturally took some time and maturity to develop, notably through his relations with the Neapolitan Aragon dynasty. In December 1476, he married Beatrice, daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon, who brought to Buda a love of books and music she had inherited from her grandfather, Alphonse of Aragon.I studied the work of Beatrice’s brother John of Aragon (Giovanni d’Aragona), previously known mainly from Thomas Haffner’s monograph on his library (1997), from the viewpoint of his influence on Matthias’s art patronage. John was born in Naples on June 25, 1456, the third son of Ferdinand I of Aragon. His father, crowned king by Pope Pius II in 1458 following the death of Alphonse of Aragon, intended from the outset that he should pursue a church career. Ferdinand’s children, Alphonse (heir to the throne), Beatrice, and John were educated by outstanding humanist teachers, including Antonio Beccadelli (Il Panormita) and Pietro Ranzano. Through his father and the kingdom’s good relations with the papacy, John acquired many benefices, and when Pope Sixtus IV (1471‒1484) created him cardinal at the age of twenty-one, on December 10, 1477, he made a dazzling entrance to Rome. John was — together with Marco Barbo, Oliviero Carafa, and Francesco Gonzaga — one of the principal contemporary patrons of the College of Cardinals.On April 19, 1479, Sixtus IV appointed John legatus a latere, to support Matthias’s planned crusade against the Ottomans. On August 31, he departed Rome with two eminent humanists, Raffaele Maffei (also known as Volaterranus), encyclopedist and scriptor apostolicus of the Roman Curia, and Felice Feliciano, collector of ancient Roman inscriptions. John made stops in Ferrara, and Milan, and entered Buda — according to Matthias’s historian Antonio Bonfini — with great pomp. During his eight months in Hungary, he accompanied Matthias and Beatrice to Visegrád, Tata, and the Carthusian monastery of Lövöld and probably exerted a significant influence on the royal couple, particularly in the collecting of books. Matthias appointed his brother-in-law archbishop of Esztergom, the highest clerical office in Hungary, with an annual income of thirty thousand ducats.Leaving Hungary in July 1480, John returned to Rome via Venice and Florence, where, as reported by Ercole d’Este’s ambassador to Florence, Lorenzo de’ Medici showed him the most valuable works of art in his palace, and he visited San Marco and its library and the nearby Medici sculpture garden.In September 1483, Sixtus IV again appointed John legate, this time to Germany and Hungary. He took with him the Veronese physician Francesco Fontana and stayed in Buda and Esztergom between October 1483 and June 1484. The royal couple presented him with silver church vessels, a gold chalice, vestments, and a miter.John’s patronage focused on book collecting and building. He spent six thousand ducats annually on the former. Among his acquisitions were contemporary architectural treatises by Leon Battista Alberti and Filarete, which he borrowed for copying from Lorenzo’s library. They were also featured in Matthias Corvinus’s library, perhaps reflecting John’s influence. Around 1480, during his stay in Buda (approximately 1478‒1480), the excellent miniaturist, Francesco Rosselli made the first few large-format luxury codices for Matthias and Beatrice. Both Queen Beatrice and John of Aragon played a part of this by bringing with them the Aragon family’s love of books, and perhaps also a few codices. The Paduan illuminator Gaspare da Padova (active 1466‒1517), who introduced the all’antica style to Neapolitan book painting, was employed in Rome by John as well as by Francesco Gonzaga, and John’s example encouraged Matthias and Beatrice commission all’antica codices. He may also have influenced the choice of subject matter: John collected only ancient and late classical manuscripts up to 1483 and mainly theological and scholastic books thereafter; Matthias’s collection followed a similar course in which theological and scholastic works proliferated after 1485. Anthony Hobson has detected a link between Queen Beatrice’s Psalterium and the Livius codex copied for John of Aragon: both were bound by Felice Feliciano, who came to Hungary with the Cardinal. Feliciano’s probable involvement with the Erlangen Bible (in the final period of his work, probably in Buda) may therefore be an important outcome of the art-patronage connections between John and the king of Hungary.John further shared with Matthias a passion for building. He built palaces for himself in the monasteries of Montevergine and Montecassino, of which he was abbot, and made additions to the cathedral of Sant’Agata dei Goti and the villa La Conigliera in Naples. Antonio Bonfini, in his history of Hungary, highlights Matthias’s interest, which had a great impact on contemporaries; but only fragments of his monumental constructions survive.We see another link between John and Matthias in the famous goldsmith of Milan, Cristoforo Foppa (Caradosso, c. 1452‒1526/1527). Caradosso set up his workshop in John’s palace in Rome, where he began but — because of his patron’s death in autumn 1485 — was unable to finish a famous silver salt cellar that he later tried to sell. John may also have prompted Matthias to invite Caradosso to spend several months in Buda, where he made silver tableware.Further items in the metalware category are our patrons’ seal matrices. My research has uncovered two kinds of seal belonging to Giovanni d’Aragona. One, dating from 1473, is held in the archives of the Benedictine Abbey of Montecassino. It is a round seal with the arms of the House of Aragon at the centre. After being created cardinal in late 1477, he had two types of his seal. The first, simple contained only his coat of arm (MNL OL, DL 18166). The second elaborate seal matrix made in the early Renaissance style, of which seals survive in the Archivio Apostolico Vaticano (Fondo Veneto I 5752, 30 September 1479) and one or two documents in the Esztergom Primatial Archive (Cathedral Chapter Archive, Lad. 53., Fasc. 3., nr.16., 15 June 1484). At the centre of the mandorla-shaped field, sitting on a throne with balustered arm-rest and tympanum above, is the Virgin Mary (Madonna lactans type), with two supporting figures whose identification requires further research. The legend on the seal is fragmentary: (SIGILL?)VM ……….DON IOANNIS CARDINALIS (D’?) ARAGONIA; beneath it is the cardinal’s coat of arms in the form of a horse’s head (testa di cavallo) crowned with a hat. It may date from the time of Caradosso’s first presumed stay in Rome (1475‒1479), suggesting him as the maker of the matrix, a hypothesis for which as yet no further evidence is known to me. The seals of King Matthias have been thoroughly studied, and the form and use of each type have been almost fully established.John of Aragon was buried in Rome, in his titular church, in the Dominican Basilica of Santa Sabina. Johannes Burckard described the funeral procession from the palace to the Aventine in his Liber notarum. Matthias died in 1490 in his new residence, the Vienna Burg, and his body was taken in grand procession to Buda and subsequently to the basilica of Fehérvár, the traditional place of burial of Hungarian kings. The careers of both men ended prematurely: John might have become pope, and Matthias Holy Roman emperor.(The bulk of the research for this paper was made possible by my two-month Ailsa Mellon Bruce Visiting Senior Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts [CASVA] of the National Gallery of Art [Washington DC] in autumn 2019.) [fordította: Alan Campbell]

Abstract The stone portraits discussed in this paper mainly refer to round carvings and high-relief sculptures of human figures that emphasize realism and a sense of three-dimensionality. The development of stone portraits in the pre-Qin period is briefly reviewed, and their cultural characteristics and causes are analyzed from various perspectives. The Neolithic period was not too late for the germination and start of Chinese portrait sculpture. Due to a series of factors such as geographical conditions, material selection, and cultural philosophy, the development of stone portrait sculpture was not given much attention before the Han Dynasty in China, and the development of realistic round and high-relief portrait art with larger volumes lagged. Along with the exchange and collision between civilizations along the Silk Road, thanks to the widespread dissemination of Buddhist statue art in China since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the art of large stone statues has taken on a new artistic appearance in terms of subject matter, techniques, types and uses, and has also gained a broader space for expression. Chinese stone portraits have continued to develop and innovate in terms of subject matter and sculpting techniques, and eventually formed an artistic style of portrait sculpture with distinctive national characteristics. This practice of transcending the secular and divine portraits also led to the maturation of secular portrait sculpting techniques such as Stone Wengzhong (翁仲), objectively opening another channel for the diversification of ancient Chinese portrait sculpture. It can be said that the cultural exchanges along the Silk Road had a very important role in promoting the development and maturation of ancient Chinese large stone portrait art.

<strong>Аннотация.</strong> В статье изучена раннесредневековая западноевропейская скульптура как исторический источник. Из-за запрета христианской церкви на идолопоклонство круглая скульптура в раннем средневековье создавалась редко, в отличие от барельефов и рельефных изображений. Их смысловой и символический компоненты содержат информацию о культурном обмене, экономических связях, политических договорённостях и конфликтах между европейскими народами и их соседями. <strong>Abstract.</strong> The article examines early medieval Western European sculpture as a historical source. Due to the Christian Church&#39;s ban on idolatry, round sculpture was rarely created in the early Middle Ages, unlike bas-reliefs and relief images. Their semantic and symbolic components contain information about cultural exchanges, economic ties, political agreements and conflicts between European peoples and their neighbors.

Статуя Мыслителя создана Огюстом Роденом в 1880-1882 гг. Скульптурные изображения человеческих фигур, сидящих в задумчивой позе и положивших голову на руки, встречаются уже в первобытном искусстве. Такая композиционная формула была особенно широко распространена в античной круглой скульптуре и рельефах, часто в погребальной пластике. Античная традиция не была утрачена и в период раннего христианства и средневековья, причем в том числе и в исламском искусстве. Образы «задумчивых» фигур интеллектуалов итальянского Ренессанса возрождали античную традицию. И дальше в искусстве нового времени композиционная формула, воплощенная впоследствии Роденом, не была редкостью как в живописи, так и в скульптуре. К этой позе обращались в своем творчестве и современники Родена. Роден, несомненно, изучал ее различные воплощения как в античной пластике, так и в скульптуре итальянского Ренессанса, и обращался к ним при создании своей статуи. Многие из них он мог видеть в собраниях Франции и Италии. Известно, что задумывая Врата ада и Мыслителя, Роден вдохновлялся итальянскими впечатлениями поездки 1876 года. The Statue of the Thinker was created by Auguste Rodin in 1880-1882. Sculptural images of human figures sitting in a pensive posture and laying the head on their hands, are already encountered in prehistoric art. Such a formula of composition was particularly widespread in antique round sculpture and reliefs, often in funerary plastic. The ancient tradition was not lost during the early Christianity and the Middle Ages, including in Islamic art. The images of “thoughtful” figures of intellectuals of the Italian Renaissance, revived the ancient tradition. And further in the art of modern times, the image the thinking person, embodied by Rodin, was not uncommon, both in painting and in sculpture. The contemporaries of Rodin also addressed to such posture in their oeuvre. Rodin undoubtedly studied its various images, both in antique plastics and in the sculpture of the Italian Renaissance, and appealed to them when creating his statue. Many of them he could see in the collections of France and Italy. It is known that when creating the Gate of Hell and the Thinker, Rodin was inspired by the Italian impressions of his 1876 trip.

Abstract This is a collaborative study and visual narrative in three-dimensional (3-d) art forms which was mounted at the main gate of the Federal College of Education (Technical) Asaba. It was executed with a view to tackling the challenges of poor enrolment into the college. The study focused on obtaining inputs from various sampled departments in randomly selected Schools, about the design elements and symbols, that best portrays the philosophy and objectives of the programmes mounted, in the sampled Schools in the College, in order to develop preliminary sketches, and working drawings. Moreover, the study utilized the selected design elements and symbols, to produce a three-dimensional (3-D) in front of the college gate. The researchers adopted art-based action research and a survey to obtain information from various Departments, about the appropriateness of the design elements and symbols, that best portrayed the philosophy and objectives of the programmes mounted, in the sampled departments in the College. Furthermore, various materials, tools and step-by-step processes were described in detail. Findings revealed that the developed preliminary sketches and the working drawing reflected the philosophy and objectives of the programmes mounted, in the various departments of the college and that the selected design elements and symbols, were utilized to produce a three-dimensional (3-D) sculpture-on-the-round in the front of the College main gate. It then recommended that More Tetfund research grants should be made available to sponsor similar research in the feature and that an assessment to ascertain the extent to which the project was able to achieve its objective should be conducted after a period of five years.

Roman statuette of a young male figure. The sculpture published here, kept in the Archaeological Museum of Piraeus (inv. no 1212), is a freestanding, smaller than life-size (max. preserved height: 0.415 m) statuette of a nude young man, preserved from the waist up. Evidence concerning its provenance does not exist, as the date at which the statuette was handed over to the Archaeological Museum of Piraeus remains unknown and no further information is available. Around 1971-72, the late Professor Giorgos Despinis, who served as Curator of Antiquities at the time, entered a brief description of the object into the Museum’s Inventory. The statuette is made of white, fine-grained marble, possibly Pentelic, covered with light brown patina. Aside from the lower body and the legs, the right upper limb is missing from the middle of the arm down. Similarly, the largest part of the left upper limb, which was possibly raised, is missing, also from the middle of the arm down. Traces of a round socket, intended for the insertion of a dowel, are preserved in the centre of the broken surface of the left arm. One more circular socket is found on the left shoulder connected to a shallow, narrow groove. On the left side of the torso, the remains of an integral rectangular support (puntello) survive, whose broken surface indicates that it was angled, leaning forward. Rasp marks are visible on either side of the neck, the area covered by the curls, as well as the left side of the torso, from the armpit to the puntello. Extensive use of drill is evident in the rendering of the hair. The figure’s hair that features “anastole” above the forehead, consists of rich curls that grow unevenly, framing the beardless youthful face, covering the ears completely. Based on stylistic grounds, the statuette is datable around the mid-2nd century AD or shortly later. The preserved evidence leads to the assumption that the figure held most likely a cornucopia in his raised left hand. The statuette depicted possibly a daemon or personified a benevolent force or a river.

Representing historical figures on visual media has always been a crucial aspect of political communication in the ancient world, as it is in modern society. A great example comes from ancient Rome, when the emperor&rsquo;s portraits were serially replicated on visual media to disseminate his image across the countries ruled by the Romans and to assert the power and authority that he embodied by making him universally recognizable. In particular, one of the most common media through which ancient Romans spread the imperial image was coinage, which showed a bi-dimensional projection of his portrait on the very low relief produced by the impression of the coin-die. In this work, we propose a new method that uses a multi-modal 2D and 3D approach to reconstruct the full portrait in the round of Roman emperors from their images adopted on ancient coins. A well-defined pipeline is introduced from the digitization of coins using 3D scanning techniques to the estimation of the 3D model of the portrait represented by a polygonal mesh. A morphable model trained on real 3D faces is exploited to infer the morphological (i.e., geometric) characteristics of the Roman emperor from the contours extracted from a coin portrait using a model fitting procedure. We present examples of face reconstruction of different emperors from coins produced in Rome as well as in the imperial provinces, which sometimes showed local variations of the official portraits centrally designed.

The so-called foot of Serapis sculptures (i.e. those in the round with a bust of Serapis directly on top of a right foot) are well known and studied. Nevertheless, it was still necessary to take into account the representations of this motif in other media, such as gems and coins. And that is precisely the purpose of the present paper. In the following pages, these images are analyzed in the iconographical context of their period (1st and 2nd centuries CE). Such an approach allows us to observe the development of the motif in the different materials. In addition, this analysis will help us better understand the meaning of this image, and also to formulate some theories concerning the possible uses of these gems.

AbstractMicroscopic techniques can be applied to solve taxonomic problems in the field of plant systematic and are extremely versatile in nature. This study was focused on the new approaches to visualizing the imaging, tool to cover the micro‐structural techniques applied to the pollen study of Amaranthaceae floral biology. In this detailed study, we used light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy to examine the shape and changes in pollen of 16 types of Amaranthaceae plants from the salty arid zone of Riyadh Saudi Arabia. We observed subtle variations among the studied species through meticulous examination of morpho‐palynological features such as symmetry, size, shape, pore ornamentation, and exine characteristics. The pollen grains were round and had rough or prickly outer coverings. They had different numbers of tiny pores; some were slightly sunken. These findings were utilized to develop a pollen taxonomy key, facilitating accurate identification and classification of Amaranthaceous species. Our results shed light on the taxonomic significance of pollen morphology for species differentiation within the Amaranthaceae family. Furthermore, this study provides valuable insights into the influence of geographical and ecological factors on pollen diversity and evolution. This study of pollen imaging visualization of Amaranthaceous species contributes to the opportunity for taxonomic evaluation and fill knowledge gaps in studies of Amaranthaceous flora identification using classical microscopic taxonomic tools for their accurate identification.Research Highlights The pollen characters of selected Amaranthaceae species were visualized using scanning electron microscopy to observe sculptural wall pattern. The comprehensive Amaranthaceous pollen examination approach allowed us to accurately identify their micromorphology. This high‐resolution imaging technique provided detailed insights into the surface structures and ornamentation of the pollen grains.

1. Make a list of things to do2. Copy list of things left undone from previous list3. Add items to list of new things needing to be done4. Add some of the things already done from previous list and immediately cross off so as to put off the feeling of an interminable list of never accomplishable tasks5. Finish writing list and sit back feeling an overwhelming sense of listlessnessIt started so well. Get up: make list: get on. But lists can breed listlessness. It can’t always be helped. The word “list” referring to a sequence of items comes from the Italian and French words for “strip”—as in a strip of material. The word “list” that you find in the compound “listlessness” comes from the old English word for pleasing (to list is to please and to desire). To be listless is to be without desire, without the desire to please. The etymologies of list and listless don’t correspond but they might seem to conspire in other ways. Oh, and by the way, ships can list when their balance is off.I list, like a ship, itemising my obligations to job, to work, to colleagues, to parenting, to family: write a reference for such and such; buy birthday present for eighty-year-old dad; finish article about lists – and so on. I forget to add to the list my necessary requirements for achieving any of this: keep breathing; eat and drink regularly; visit toilet when required. Lists make visible. Lists hide. I forget to add to my list all my worries that underscore my sense that these lists (or any list) might require an optimism that is always something of a leap of faith: I hope that electricity continues to exist; I hope my computer will still work; I hope that my sore toe isn’t the first sign of bodily paralysis; I hope that this heart will still keep beating.I was brought up on lists: the hit parade (the top one hundred “hit” singles); football leagues (not that I ever really got the hang of them); lists of kings and queens; lists of dates; lists of states; lists of elements (the periodic table). There are lists and there are lists. Some lists are really rankings. These are clearly the important lists. Where do you stand on the list? How near the bottom are you? Where is your university in the list of top universities? Have you gone down or up? To list, then, for some at least is to rank, to prioritise, to value. Is it this that produces listlessness? The sense that while you might want to rank your ten favourite films in a list, listing is something that is constantly happening to you, happening around you; you are always in amongst lists, never on top of them. To hang around the middle of lists might be all that you can hope for: no possibility of sudden lurching from the top spot; no urgent worries that you might be heading for demotion too quickly.But ranking is only one aspect of listing. Sometimes listing has a more flattening effect. I once worked as a cash-in-hand auditor (in this case a posh name for someone who counts things). A group of us (many of whom were seriously stoned) were bussed to factories and warehouses where we had to count the stock. We had to make lists of items and simply count what there was: for large items this was relatively easy, but for the myriad of miniscule parts this seemed a task for Sisyphus. In a power-tool factory in some unprepossessing town on the outskirts of London (was it Slough or Croydon or somewhere else?) we had to count bolts, nuts, washers, flex, rivets, and so on. Of course after a while we just made it up—guesstimates—as they say. A box of thousands of 6mm metal washers is a homogenous set in a list of heterogeneous parts that itself starts looking homogenous as it takes its part in the list. Listing dedifferentiates in the act of differentiating.The task of making lists, of filling-in lists, of having a list of tasks to complete encourages listlessness because to list lists towards exhaustiveness and exhaustion. Archives are lists and lists are often archives and archived. Those that work on lists and on archives constantly battle the fatigue of too many lists, of too much exhaustiveness. But could exhaustion be embraced as a necessary mood with which to deal with lists and archives? Might listlessness be something of a methodological orientation that has its own productivity in the face of so many lists?At my university there resides an archive that can appear to be a list of lists. It is the Mass-Observation archive, begun at the end of 1936 and, with a sizeable hiatus in the 1960s and 1970s, is still going today. (For a full account of Mass-Observation, see Highmore, Everyday Life chapter 6, and Hubble; for examples of Mass-Observation material, see Calder and Sheridan, and Highmore, Ordinary chapter 4; for analysis of Mass-Observation from the point of view of the observer, see Sheridan, Street, and Bloome. The flavour of the project as it emerges in the late 1930s is best conveyed by consulting Mass-Observation, Mass-Observation, First Year’s Work, and Britain.) It was begun by three men: the filmmaker Humphrey Jennings, the poet and sociologist Charles Madge, and the ornithologist and anthropologist-of-the-near Tom Harrisson. Both Jennings and Madge were heavily involved in promoting a form of social surrealism that might see buried forces in the coincidences of daily life as well as in the machinations and contingency of large political and social events (the abdication crisis, the burning of the Crystal Palace—both in late 1936). Harrisson brought a form of amateur anthropology with him that would scour football crowds, pub clientele, and cinema queues for ritualistic and symbolic forms. Mass-Observation quickly recruited a large group of voluntary observers (about a thousand) who would be “the meteorological stations from whose reports a weather-map of popular feeling can be compiled” (Mass-Observation, Mass-Observation 30). Mass-Observation combined the social survey with a relentless interest in the irrational and in what the world felt like to those who lived in it. As a consequence the file reports often seem banal and bizarre in equal measure (accounts of nightmares, housework routines, betting activities). When Mass-Observation restarted in the 1980s the surrealistic impetus became less pronounced, but it was still there, implicit in the methodology. Today, both as an on-going project and as an archive of previous observational reports, Mass-Observation lives in archival boxes. You can find a list of what topics are addressed in each box; you can also find lists of the contributors, the voluntary Mass-Observers whose observations are recorded in the boxes. What better way to give you a flavour of these boxes than to offer you a sample of their listing activities. Here are observers, observing in 1983 the objects that reside on their mantelpieces. Here’s one:champagne cork, rubber band, drawing pin, two hearing aid batteries, appointment card for chiropodist, piece of dog biscuit.Does this conjure up a world? Do we have a set of clues, of material evidence, a small cosmology of relics, a reduced Wunderkammer, out of which we can construct not the exotic but something else, something more ordinary? Do you smell camphor and imagine antimacassars? Do you hear conversations with lots of mishearing? Are the hearing aid batteries shared? Is this a single person living with a dog, or do we imagine an assembly of chiropodist-goers, dog-owners, hearing aid-users, rubber band-pingers, champagne-drinkers?But don’t get caught imagining a life out of these fragments. Don’t get stuck on this list: there are hundreds to get through. After all, what sort of an archive would it be if it included a single list? We need more lists.Here’s another mantelpiece: three penknives, a tube of cement [which I assume is the sort of rubber cement that you get in bicycle puncture repair kits], a pocket microscope, a clinical thermometer.Who is this? A hypochondriacal explorer? Or a grown-up boy-scout, botanising on the asphalt? Why so many penknives? But on, on... And another:1 letter awaiting postage stamp1 diet book1 pair of spare spectacles1 recipe for daughter’s home economics1 notepad1 pen1 bottle of indigestion tablets1 envelope containing 13 pence which is owed a friend1 pair of stick-on heels for home shoe repairing session3 letters in day’s post1 envelope containing money for week’s milk bill1 recipe cut from magazine2 out of date letters from schoolWhat is the connection between the daughter’s home economics recipe and the indigestion tablets? Is the homework gastronomy not quite going to plan? Or is the diet book causing side-effects? And what sort of financial stickler remembers that they owe 13p; even in 1983 this was hardly much money? Or is it the friend who is the stickler? Perhaps this is just prying...?But you need more. Here’s yet another:an ashtray, a pipe, pipe tamper and tobacco pouch, one decorated stone and one plain stone, a painted clay model of an alien, an enamelled metal egg from Hong Kong, a copper bracelet, a polished shell, a snowstorm of Father Christmas in his sleigh...Ah, a pipe smoker, this much is clear. But apart from this the display sounds ritualistic – one stone decorated the other not. What sort of religion is this? What sort of magic? An alien and Santa. An egg, a shell, a bracelet. A riddle.And another:Two 12 gauge shotgun cartridges live 0 spread Rubber plantBrass carriage clockInternational press clock1950s cigarette dispenser Model of Panzer MKIV tankWWI shell fuseWWI shell case ash tray containing an acorn, twelve .22 rounds of ammunition, a .455 Eley round and a drawing pinPhoto of Eric Liddell (Chariots of Fire)Souvenir of Algerian ash tray containing marbles and beach stonesThree 1930s plastic duck clothes brushesLetter holder containing postcards and invitations. Holder in shape of a cow1970s Whizzwheels toy carWooden box of jeweller’s rottenstone (Victorian)Incense holderWorld war one German fuse (used)Jim Beam bottle with candle thereinSol beer bottle with candle therein I’m getting worried now. Who are these people who write for Mass-Observation? Why so much military paraphernalia? Why such detail as to the calibrations? Should I concern myself that small militias are holding out behind the net curtains and aspidistra plants of suburban England?And another:1930s AA BadgeAvocado PlantWooden cat from MexicoKahlua bottle with candle there in1950s matchbook with “merry widow” cocktail printed thereonTwo Britain’s model cannonOne brass “Carronade” from the Carron Iron Works factory shopPhotography pass from Parkhead 12/11/88Grouse foot kilt pinBrass incense holderPheasant featherNovitake cupBlack ash tray with beach pebbles there inFull packet of Mary Long cigarettes from HollandPewter cocktail shaker made in ShanghaiI’m feeling distance. Who says “there in” and “there on?” What is a Novitake cup? Perhaps I wrote it down incorrectly? An avocado plant stirs memories of trying to grow one from an avocado stone skewered in a cup with one “point” dunked in a bit of water. Did it ever grow, or just rot? I’m getting distracted now, drifting off, feeling sleepy...Some more then – let’s feed the listlessness of the list:Wood sculpture (Tenerife)A Rubber bandBirdJunior aspirinToy dinosaur Small photo of daughterSmall paint brushAh yes the banal bizarreness of ordinary life: dinosaurs and aspirins, paint brushes and rubber bands.But then a list comes along and pierces you:Six inch piece of grey eyeliner1 pair of nail clippers1 large box of matches1 Rubber band2 large hair gripsHalf a piece of cough candy1 screwed up tissue1 small bottle with tranquillizers in1 dead (but still in good condition) butterfly (which I intended to draw but placed it now to rest in the garden) it was already dead when I found it.The dead butterfly, the tranquillizers, the insistence that the mantelpiece user didn’t actually kill the butterfly, the half piece of cough candy, the screwed up tissue. In amongst the rubber bands and matches, signs of something desperate. Or maybe not: a holding on (the truly desperate haven’t found their way to the giant tranquillizer cupboard), a keeping a lid on it, a desire (to draw, to place a dead butterfly at rest in the garden)...And here is the methodology emerging: the lists works on the reader, listing them, and making them listless. After a while the lists (and there are hundreds of these lists of mantle-shelf items) begin to merge. One giant mantle shelf filled with small stacks of foreign coins, rubber bands and dead insects. They invite you to be both magical ethnographer and deadpan sociologist at one and the same time (for example, see Hurdley). The “Martian” ethnographer imagines the mantelpiece as a shrine where this culture worships the lone rubber band and itinerant button. Clearly a place of reliquary—on this planet the residents set up altars where they place their sacred objects: clocks and clippers; ammunition and amulets; coins and pills; candles and cosmetics. Or else something more sober, more sombre: late twentieth century petite-bourgeois taste required the mantelpiece to hold the signs of aspirant propriety in the form of emblems of tradition (forget the coins and the dead insects and weaponry: focus on the carriage clocks). And yet, either way, it is the final shelf that gets me every time. But it only got me, I think, because the archive had worked its magic: ransacked my will, my need to please, my desire. It had, for a while at least, made me listless, and listless enough to be touched by something that was really a minor catalogue of remainders. This sense of listlessness is the way that the archive productively defeats the “desire for the archive.” It is hard to visit an archive without an expectation, without an “image repertoire,” already in mind. This could be thought of as the apperception-schema of archival searching: the desire to see patterns already imagined; the desire to find the evidence for the thought whose shape has already formed. Such apperception is hard to avoid (probably impossible), but the boredom of the archive, its ceaselessness, has a way of undoing it, of emptying it. It corresponds to two aesthetic positions and propositions. One is well-known: it is Barthes’s distinction between “studium” and “punctum.” For Barthes, studium refers to a sort of social interest that is always, to some degree, satisfied by a document (his concern, of course, is with photographs). The punctum, on the other hand, spills out from the photograph as a sort of metonymical excess, quite distinct from social interest (but for all that, not asocial). While Barthes is clearly offering a phenomenology of viewing photographs, he isn’t overly interested (here at any rate) with the sort of perceptional-state the viewer might need to be in to be pierced by the puntum of an image. My sense, though, is that boredom, listlessness, tiredness, a sort of aching indifference, a mood of inattentiveness, a sense of satiated interest (but not the sort of disinterest of Kantian aesthetics), could all be beneficial to a punctum-like experience. The second aesthetic position is not so well-known. The Austrian dye-technician, lawyer and art-educationalist Anton Ehrenzweig wrote, during the 1950s and 1960s, about a form of inattentive-attention, and a form of afocal-rendering (eye-repelling rather than eye-catching), that encouraged eye-wandering, scanning, and the “‘full’ emptiness of attention” (Ehrenzweig, The Hidden Order 39). His was an aesthetics attuned to the kind of art produced by Paul Klee, but it was also an aesthetic propensity useful for making wallpaper and for productively connecting to unconscious processes. Like Barthes, Ehrenzweig doesn’t pursue the sort of affective state of being that might enhance such inattentive-attention, but it is not hard to imagine that the sort of library-tiredness of the archive would be a fitting preparation for “full emptiness.” Ehrenzweig and Barthes can be useful for exploring this archival mood, this orientation and attunement, which is also a disorientation and mis-attunement. Trawling through lists encourages scanning: your sensibilities are prepared; your attention is being trained. After a while, though, the lists blur, concentration starts to loosen its grip. The lists are not innocent recipients here. Shrapnel shards pull at you. You start to notice the patterns but also the spaces in-between that don’t seem to fit sociological categorisations. The strangeness of the patterns hypnotises you and while the effect can generate a sense of sociological-anthropological homogeneity-with-difference, sometimes the singularity of an item leaps out catching you unawares. An archive is an orchestration of order and disorder: however contained and constrained it appears it is always spilling out beyond its organisational structures (amongst the many accounts of archives in terms of their orderings, see Sekula, and Stoler, Race and Along). Like “Probate Inventories,” the mantelpiece archive presents material objects that connect us (however indirectly) to embodied practices and living spaces (Evans). The Mass-Observation archive, especially in its mantelpiece collection, is an accretion of temporalities and spaces. More crucially, it is an accumulation of temporalities materialised in a mass of spaces. A thousand mantelpieces in a thousand rooms scattered across the United Kingdom. Each shelf is syncopated to the rhythms of diverse durations, while being synchronised to the perpetual now of the shelf: a carriage clock, for instance, inherited from a deceased parent, its brass detailing relating to a different age, its mechanism perpetually telling you that the time of this space is now. The archive carries you away to a thousand living rooms filled with the momentary (dead insects) and the eternal (pebbles) and everything in-between. Its centrifugal force propels you out to a vast accrual of things: ashtrays, rubber bands, military paraphernalia, toy dinosaurs; a thousand living museums of the incidental and the memorial. This vertiginous archive threatens to undo you; each shelf a montage of times held materially together in space. It is too much. It pushes me towards the mantelshelves I know, the ones I’ve had a hand in. Each one an archive in itself: my grandfather’s green glass paperweight holding a fragile silver foil flower in its eternal grasp; the potions and lotions that feed my hypochondria; used train tickets. Each item pushes outwards to other times, other spaces, other people, other things. It is hard to focus, hard to cling onto anything. Was it the dead butterfly, or the tranquillizers, or both, that finally nailed me? Or was it the half a cough-candy? I know what she means by leaving the remnants of this sweet. You remember the taste, you think you loved them as a child, they have such a distinctive candy twist and colour, but actually their taste is harsh, challenging, bitter. There is nothing as ephemeral and as “useless” as a sweet; and yet few things are similarly evocative of times past, of times lost. Yes, I think I’d leave half a cough-candy on a shelf, gathering dust.[All these lists of mantelpiece items are taken from the Mass-Observation archive at the University of Sussex. Mass-Observation is a registered charity. For more information about Mass-Observation go to http://www.massobs.org.uk/]ReferencesBarthes, Roland. Camera Lucida. Translated by Richard Howard. London: Fontana, 1984.Calder, Angus, and Dorothy Sheridan, eds. Speak for Yourself: A Mass-Observation Anthology 1937–1949. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1985.Ehrenzweig, Anton. The Psychoanalysis of Artistic Vision and Hearing: An Introduction to a Theory of Unconscious Perception. Third edition. London: Sheldon Press, 1965. [Originally published in 1953.]---. The Hidden Order of Art. London: Paladin, 1970.Evans, Adrian. “Enlivening the Archive: Glimpsing Embodied Consumption Practices in Probate Inventories of Household Possessions.” Historical Geography 36 (2008): 40-72.Highmore, Ben. Everyday Life and Cultural Theory. London: Routledge, 2002.---. Ordinary Lives: Studies in the Everyday. Abingdon: Routledge, 2011.Hubble, Nick. Mass-Observation and Everyday Life: Culture, History, Theory, Houndmills and New York: Palgrave, 2006.Hurdley, Rachel. “Dismantling Mantelpieces: Narrating Identities and Materializing Culture in the Home.” Sociology 40, 4 (2006): 717-733Mass-Observation. Mass-Observation. London: Fredrick Muller, 1937.---. First Year’s Work 1937-38. London: Lindsay Drummond, 1938.---. Britain. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1939.Sekula, Allan. “The Body and the Archive.” October 39 (1986): 3-64.Sheridan, Dorothy, Brian Street, and David Bloome. Writing Ourselves: Mass-Observation and Literary Practices. Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press, 2000.Stoler, Ann Laura. Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things. Durham and London: Duke UP, 1995. Stoler, Ann Laura. Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2009.

Ways of Seeing"Images … define our experiences more precisely in areas where words are inadequate." (Berger 33)"Different skins, you know, different ways of seeing the world." (Morrison)The research question animating this article is: 'How does an individual creative worker re-present themselves as a contemporary - and evolving - brand?' Berger notes that the "principal aim has been to start a process of questioning" (5), and the raw material energising this exploration is the life's work of Richard Morrison, the creative director and artist who is the key moving force behind The Morrison Studio collective of designers, film makers and visual effects artists, working globally but based in London. The challenge of maintaining currency in this visually creative marketplace includes seeing what is unique about your potential contribution to a larger project, and communicating it in such a way that this forms an integral part of an evolving brand - on trend, bleeding edge, but reliably professional. One of the classic outputs of Morrison's oeuvre, for example, is the title sequence for Terry Gilliam's Brazil.Passion cannot be seen yet Morrison conceives it as the central engine that harnesses skills, information and innovative ways of working to deliver the unexpected and the unforgettable. Morrison's perception is that the design itself can come after the creative artist has really seen and understood the client's perspective. As he says: "What some clients are interested in is 'How can we make money from what we're doing?'" Seeing the client, and the client's motivating needs, is central to Morrison's presentation of self as a brand: "the broader your outlook as a creative, the more chance you have of getting it right". Jones and Warren draw attention to one aspect of this dynamic: "Wealthy and private actors, both private and state, historically saw creative practice as something that money was spent on - commissioning a painting or a sculpture, giving salaries to composers to produce new works and so forth. Today, creativity has been reimagined as something that should directly or indirectly make money" (293). As Berger notes, "We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves…The world-as-it-is is more than pure objective fact, it includes consciousness" (9, 11). What is our consciousness around the creative image?Individuality is central to Berger's vision of the image in the "specific vision of the image-maker…the result of an increasing consciousness of individuality, accompanying an increasing awareness of history" (10). Yet, as Berger argues "although every image embodies a way of seeing, our perception or appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing" (10). Later, Berger links the meanings viewers attribute to images as indicating the "historical experience of our relation to the past…the experience of seeking to give meaning to our lives" (33). The seeing and the seeking go hand in hand, and constitute a key reason for Berger's assertion that "the entire art of the past has now become a political issue" (33). This partly reflects the ways in which it is seen, and in which it is presented for view, by whom, where and in which circumstances.The creation of stand-out images in the visually-saturated 21st century demands a nuanced understanding of ways in which an idea can be re-presented for consumption in a manner that makes it fresh and arresting. The focus on the individual also entails an understanding of the ways in which others are valuable, or vital, in completing a coherent package of skills to address the creative challenge to hand. It is self-evident that other people see things differently, and can thus enrich the broadened outlook identified as important for "getting it right". Morrison talks about "little core teams, there's four or five of you in a hub… [sometimes] spread all round the world, but because of the Internet and the way things work you can still all be connected". Team work and members' individual personalities are consequently combined, in Morrison's view, with the core requirement of passion. As Morrison argues, "personality will carry you a long way in the creative field".Morrison's key collaborator, senior designer and creative partner/art director Dean Wares lives in Valencia, Spain whereas Morrison is London-based and their clients are globally-dispersed. Although Morrison sees the Internet as a key technology for collaboratively visualising the ways in which to make a visual impact, Berger points to the role of the camera in relation to the quintessential pre-mechanical image: the painting. It is worth acknowledging here that Berger explicitly credits Walter Benjamin, including the use of his image (34), as the foundation for many of Berger's ideas, specifically referencing Benjamin's essay "The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction". Noting that, prior to the invention of the camera, a painting could never be seen in more than one place at a time, Berger suggests that the camera foments a revolutionary transformation: "its meaning changes. Or, more exactly, its meaning multiplies and fragments into many meanings" (19). This disruption is further fractured once that camera-facilitated image is viewed on a screen, ubiquitous to Morrison's stock in trade, but in Berger's day (1972) particularly associated with the television:The painting enters each viewer's house. There it is surrounded by his wallpaper, his furniture, his mementoes. It enters the atmosphere of his family. It becomes their talking point. It lends its meaning to their meaning. At the same time it enters a million other houses and, in each of them, is seen in a different context. Because of the camera, the painting now travels to the spectator, rather than the spectator to the painting. In its travels, its meaning is diversified. (Berger, 19-20)Even so, that image, travelling through space and time is seen on the screen in a sequential and temporal context: "because a film unfolds in time and a painting does not. In a film the way one image follows another, their succession constructs an argument which becomes irreversible. In a painting all its elements are there to be seen simultaneously." Both these dynamics, the still and the sequence, are key to the work of a visual artist such as Morrison responsible for branding a film, television series or event. But the works also create an unfolding sequence which tells a different story to each recipient according to the perceptions of the viewer/reader. For example, instead of valorising Gilliam's Brazil, Morrison's studio could have been tagged with Annaud's Enemy at the Gates or, even, the contemporary Sky series, Niel Jordan's Riviera. Knowing this sequence, and that the back catalogue begins with The Who's Quadrophenia (1979), changes the way we see what the Morrison Studio is doing now.Ways of WorkingRichard Morrison harnesses an evolutionary metaphor to explain his continuing contribution to the industry: "I've adapted, and not been a dinosaur who's just sunk in the mud". He argues that there is a need to explore where "the next niche is and be prepared for change 'cause the only constant thing in life is change. So as a creative you need to have that known." Effectively, adaptation and embracing innovation has become a key part of the Morrison Studio's brand. It is trumpeted in the decision that Morrison and Ware made when they decided to continue their work together, even after Ware moved to Spain. This demonstrated, in an age of faxes and landlines, that the Morrison Studio could make cross country collaboration work: the multiple locations championed the fact that they were open for business "without boundaries".There was travel, too, and in those early pre-Internet days of remote location Morrison was a frequent visitor to the United States. "I'd be working in Los Angeles and he'd be wherever he was […] we'd use snail mail to actually get stuff across, literally post it by FedEx […]." The intercontinental (as opposed to inter-Europe) collaboration had the added value of offering interlocking working days: "I'd go to sleep, he wakes up […] We were actually doubling our capacity." If anything, these dynamics are more entrenched with better communications. Currah argues that Hollywood attempts to manage the disruptive potential of the internet by "seeking to create a 'closed' sphere of innovation on a global scale […] legitimated, enacted and performed within relational networks" (359). The Morrison Studio's own dispersed existence is one element of these relational networks.The specific challenge of technological vulnerability was always present, however, long before the Internet: "We'd have a case full of D1 tapes" - the professional standard video tape (1986-96) - "and we'd carefully make sure they'd go through the airport so they don't get rubbed […] what we were doing is we were fitting ourselves up for the new change". At the same time, although the communication technologies change, there are constants in the ways that people use them. Throughout Morrison's career, "when I'm working for Americans, which I'm doing a lot, they expect me to be on the telephone at midnight [because of time zones]. […] They think 'Oh I want to speak to Richard now. Oh it's midnight, so what?' They still phone up. That's constant, that never goes away." He argues that American clients are more complex to communicate with than his Scandinavian clients, giving the example that people assume a UK-US consistency because they share the English language. But "although you think they're talking in a tongue that's the same, their meaning and understanding can sometimes be quite a bit different." He uses the example of the A4 sheet of paper. It has different dimensions in the US than in the UK, illustrating those different ways of seeing.Morrison believes that there are four key constants in his company's continuing success: deadlines; the capacity to scope a job so that you know who and how many people to pull in to it to meet the deadline; librarian skills; and insecurity. The deadlines have always been imposed on creative organisations by their clients, but being able to deliver to deadlines involves networks and self-knowledge: "If you can't do it yourself find a friend, find somebody that's good at adding up, find somebody that's good at admin. You know, don't try and take on what you can't do. Put your hand up straight away, call in somebody that can help you". Chapain and Comunian's work on creative and cultural industries (CCIs) also highlights the importance of "a new centrality to the role of individuals and their social networks in understanding the practice of CCIs" (718).Franklin et al. suggest that this approach, adopted by The Morrison Studio, is a microcosm of the independent film sector as a whole. They argue that "the lifecycle of a film is segmented into sequential stages, moving through development, financing, production, sales, distribution and exhibition stages to final consumption. Different companies, each with specialized project tasks, take on responsibility and relative financial risk and reward at each stage" (323). The importance that Morrison places on social networks, however, highlights the importance of flexibility within relationships of trust - to the point where it might be as valid to engage someone on the basis of a history of working with that person as on the basis of that person's prior experience. As Cristopherson notes, "many creative workers are in vaguely defined and rapidly changing fields, seemingly making up their careers as they go along" (543).The skills underlying Morrison's approach to creative collaboration, however, include a clear understanding of one's own strength and weaknesses and a cool evaluation of others, "just quietly research people". This people-based research includes both the capabilities of potential colleagues, in order to deliver the required product in the specified time frame, along with research into creative people whose work is admired and who might provide a blueprint for how to arrive at an individual's dream role. Morrison gives the example of Quentin Tarantino's trajectory to directing: "he started in a video rental and all he did is watch lots and lots of films, particularly westerns and Japanese samurai films and decided 'I can do that'". One of his great pleasures now is to mentor young designers to help them find their way in the industry. That's a strategy that may pay dividends into the future, via Storper and Scott's "traded and untraded interdependencies" which are, according to Gornostaeva, "expressed as the multiple economic and social transactions that the participants ought to conduct if they wish to perpetuate their existence" (39).As for the library skills, he says that they are crucial but a bit comical:It's a bit like being a constant librarian in old-fashioned terms, you know, 'Where is that stuff stored?' Because it's not stored in a plan chest anymore where you open the drawer and there it is. It's now stored in, you know, big computers, in a cloud. 'Where did we put that file? Did we dump it down? Have we marked it up? […] Where's it gone? What did we do it on?'While juggling the demands of technology, people and product The Morrison brand involves both huge confidence and chronic insecurity. The confidence is evident in the low opinion Morrison has of the opportunities offered by professional disruptor sites such as 99designs: "I can't bear anything like that. I can see why it's happening but I think what you're doing is devaluing yourself even before you start […] it would destroy your self-belief in what you're doing". At the same time, Morrison says, his security is his own insecurity: "I'm always out hunting to see what could be next […] the job you finish could be your last job."Ways of BrandingChristopherson argues that there is "considerable variation in the occupational identities of new media workers among advanced economies. In some economies, new media work is evolving in a form that is closer to that of the professional [in contrast to economies where it is] an entrepreneurial activity in which new media workers sell skills and services in a market" (543). For The Morrison Studio, its breadth, history and experience supports their desire to be branded as professional, but their working patterns entirely resonate with, and are integrated within, the entrepreneurial. Seeing their activity in this way is a juxtaposition with the proposition advanced by Berger that:The existing social conditions make the individual feel powerless. He lives in the contradiction between what he is and what he would like to be. Either he then becomes fully conscious of the contradiction and its causes, and so joins the political struggle for a full democracy which entails, among other things, the overthrow of capitalism; or else he lives, continually subject to an envy which, compounded with his sense of powerlessness, dissolves into recurrent day-dreams (148).The role of the brand, and its publicity, is implicated by Berger in both the tension between what an individual is and what s/he would like to be; and in the creation of an envy that subjugates people. For Berger, the brand is about publicity and the commodifying of the future. Referring to publicity images, Berger argues that "they never speak of the present. Often they refer to the past and always they speak of the future". Brands are created and marketed by such publicity images that are often, these days, incorporated within social media and websites. At the same time, Berger argues that "Publicity is about social relationships, not objects [or experiences]. Its promise is not of pleasure, but of happiness: happiness as judged from the outside by others. The happiness of being envied is glamour." It is the dual pressure from the perception of the gap between the individual's actual and potential life, and the daydreaming and envy of that future, that helps construct Berger's powerless individual.Morrison's view, fashioned in part by his success at adapting, at not being a dinosaur that sinks into the mud, is that the authenticity lies in the congruence of the brand and the belief. "A personal brand can help you straight away but as long as you believe it […] You have to be true to what you're about and then it works. And then the thing becomes you [… you] just go for it and, you know, don't worry about failure. Failure will happen anyway".Berger's commentary on publicity is partially divergent from branding. Publicity is generally a managed message, on that is paid for and promoted by the person or entity concerned. A brand is a more holistic construction and is implicated in ways of seeing in that different people will have very different perceptions of the same brand. Morrison's view of his personal brand, and the brand of the Morrison Studio, is that it encompasses much more than design expertise and technical know-how. He lionises the role of passion and talks about the importance of ways of managing deadlines, interlocking skills sets, creative elements and the insecurity of uncertainty.For the producers who hire Morrison, and help build his brand, Berger's observation of the importance of history and the promise for the future remains key to their hiring decisions. Although carefully crafted, creative images are central to the Morrison Studio's work, it is not the surface presentation of those images that determines the way their work is perceived by people in the film industry, it is the labour and networks that underpin those images. While Morrison's outputs form part of the visual environment critiqued in Ways of Seeing, it is informed by the dynamics of international capitalism via global networks and mobility. Although one of myriad small businesses that help make the film industry the complex and productive creative sphere that it is, Morrison Studios does not so much seek to create a public brand as to be known and valued by the small group of industry players upon whom the Studio relies for its existence. Their continued future depends upon the ways in which they are seen.ReferencesBenjamin, Walter. Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. United States of America, 1969.Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books, 1972.Brazil. Dir. Terry Gilliam. Universal Pictures. 1985. Film. Chapain, Caroline, and Roberta Comunian. "Enabling and Inhibiting the Creative Economy: The Role of the Local and Regional Dimensions in England." Regional Studies 44.6 (2010): 717-734. Christopherson, Susan. "The Divergent Worlds of New Media: How Policy Shapes Work in the Creative Economy." Review of Policy Research 21.4 (2004): 543-558. Currah, Andrew. "Hollywood, the Internet and the World: A Geography of Disruptive Innovation." Industry and Innovation 14.4 (2007): 359-384. Enemies at the Gates. Dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud. Paramount. 2001. FilmFranklin, Michael, et al. "Innovation in the Application of Digital Tools for Managing Uncertainty: The Case of UK Independent Film." Creativity and Innovation Management 22.3 (2013): 320-333. Gornostaeva, Galina. "The Wolves and Lambs of the Creative City: The Sustainability of Film and Television Producers in London." Geographical Review (2009): 37-60. Jones, Phil, and Saskia Warren. "Time, Rhythm and the Creative Economy." Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 41.3 (2016): 286-296. Morrison, Richard. Personal Interview. 13 Oct 2016.The Morrison Studio. The Morrison Studio, 2017. 16 June 2017 &lt;https://themorrisonstudio.com/&gt;.Quadrophenia. Dir. Franc Roddam. Brent Walker Film Distributing. 1979. Film.Riviera. Dir. Neil Jordan. Sky Atlantic HD. 2017. Film.Storper, Michael, and Scott, Allen. "The Geographical Foundations and Social Regulation of Flexible Production Complexes". The Power of Geography: How Territory Shapes Social Life. Eds. Jennifer Wolch and Michael Dear. New York: Routledge, 1989. 21-40.

There is an old Danish fable that says that the Devil was watching when God created the earth, and that, as the creation progressed, he became increasingly agitated over the wondrous achievements he was made to witness. At the end of it all, the Devil turned to God, and said, ‘Now, watch this.’ He created Iceland. It’s a vision of the country that resembles my own. I have always thought of Iceland as the island apart. The place that came last in the earth’s construction, whoever the engineer, and so remains forever distant. Perhaps that’s because, for me, Iceland is a home far from home. It is the country that I am from, and the place to which I am always tending—in my reading, my travels, and my thoughts. But since we left when I was ten, I am only ever in Iceland for mere glimpses of the Devil’s work, and always leave wanting more, some kind of deeper involvement. Perhaps all of his temptations are like that. Iceland’s is an inverted landscape, stuck like a plug on the roof of the Earth, revealing all the violence and destruction of the layers beneath. The island expands as the tectonic plates beneath it move. It grows by ten centimetres a year, but in two different directions—one towards the States, and the other towards Europe. I have noticed something similar happening to me. Each year, the fissure is a little wider. I come to be more like a visitor, and less like the one returning to his birthplace. I last visited in February just gone, to see whether Iceland was still drifting away from me and, indeed, from the rest of the world. I was doing research in Germany, and set aside an extra week for Reykjavík, to visit friends and family, and to see whether things were really as bad as they appeared to be from Brisbane, where I have lived for most of my life. I had read countless bleak reports of financial ruin and social unrest, and yet I couldn’t suppress the thought that Iceland was probably just being Iceland. The same country that had fought three wars over cod; that offered asylum to Bobby Fischer when no-one else would take him; and that allowed Yoko Ono to occupy a small island near Reykjavík with a peace sculpture made of light. Wasn’t it always the country stuck out on its own, with a people who claimed their independent spirit, and self-reliance, as their most-prized values? No doubt, things were bad. But did Iceland really mean to tie itself closer to Europe as a way out of the economic crisis? And what would this mean for its much-cherished sense of apartness? I spent a week of clear, cold days talking to those who made up my Iceland. They all told me what I most wanted to hear—that nothing much had changed since the financial collapse in 2008. Yes, the value of the currency had halved, and this made it harder to travel abroad. Yes, there was some unemployment now, whereas before there had been none. And, certainly, those who had over-extended on their mortgages were struggling to keep their homes. But wasn’t this the case everywhere? If it wasn’t for Icesave, they said, no-one would spare a thought for Iceland. They were referring to the disastrous internet bank, a wing of the National Bank of Iceland, which had captured and then lost billions in British and Dutch savings. The result was an earthquake in the nation’s financial sector, which in recent years had come to challenge fishing and hot springs as the nation’s chief source of wealth. In a couple of months in late 2008, this sector all but disappeared, or was nationalised as part of the Icelandic government’s scrambling efforts to salvage the economy. Meanwhile, the British and Dutch governments insisted on their citizens’ interests, and issued such a wealth of abuse towards Iceland that the country must have wondered whether it wasn’t still seen, in some quarters, as the Devil’s work. At one point, the National Bank—my bank in Iceland—was even listed by the British as a terrorist organization. I asked whether people were angry with the entrepreneurs who caused all this trouble, the bankers behind Icesave, and so on. The reply was that they were all still in London. ‘They wouldn’t dare show their faces in Reykjavík.’ Well, that was new, I thought. It sounded like a different kind of anger, much more bitter than the usual, fisherman’s jealous awareness of his neighbours’ harvests. Different, too, from the gossip, a national addiction which nevertheless always struck me as being rather homely and forgiving. In Iceland, just about everyone is related, and the thirty or so bankers who have caused the nation’s bankruptcy are well-known to all. But somehow they have gone too far, and their exile is suspended only by their appearances in the newspapers, the law courts, or on the satirical T-shirts sold in main street Laugavegur. There, too, you saw the other side of the currency collapse. The place was buzzing with tourists, unusual at this dark time of year. Iceland was half-price, they had been told, and it was true—anything made locally was affordable, for so long unthinkable in Iceland. This was a country that had always prided itself on being hopelessly expensive. So perhaps what was being lost in the local value of the economy would be recouped through the waves of extra tourists? Certainly, the sudden cheapness of Iceland had affected my decision to come, and to stay in a hotel downtown rather than with friends. On my last full day, a Saturday, I joined my namesake Kári for a drive into the country. For a while, our conversation was taken up with the crisis: the President, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, had recently declined to sign a bill that ensured that Iceland repaid its debts to the British and Dutch governments. His refusal meant a referendum on the bill in the coming March. No-one doubted that the nation would say no. The terms were unfair. And yet it was felt that Iceland’s entry into the EU, and its adoption of the Euro in place of the failed krónur, were conditional on its acceptance of the blame apportioned by international investors, and Britain in particular. Britain, one recalled, was the enemy in the Cod Wars, when Iceland had last entered the international press. Iceland had won that war. Why not this one, as well? That Iceland should suddenly need the forgiveness and assistance of its neighbours was no surprise to them. The Danes and others had long been warning Icelandic bankers that the finance sector was massively over-leveraged and bound for failure at the first sign of trouble in the international economy. I remember being in Iceland at the time of these warnings, in May 2007. It was Eurovision Song Contest month, and there was great local consternation at Iceland’s dismal showing that year. Amid the outpouring of Eurovision grief, and accusations against the rest of Europe that it was block-voting small countries like Iceland out of the contest, the dire economic warnings from the Danes seemed small news. ‘They just didn’t like the útrásarvíkingar,’ said Kári. That is, the Danes were simply upset that their former colonial children had produced offspring of their own who were capable of taking over shops, football clubs, and even banks in main streets of Copenhagen, Amsterdam and London. With interests as glamorous as West Ham United, Hamleys, and Karen Millen, it is not surprising that the útrásarvíkingar, or ‘Viking raiders’, were fast attaining the status of national heroes. Today, it’s a term of abuse rather than pride. The entrepreneurs are exiled in the countries they once sought to raid, and the modern Viking achievement, rather like the one a thousand years before, is a victim of negative press. All that raiding suddenly seems vain and greedy, and the ships that bore the raiders—private jets that for a while were a common sight over the skies of Reykjavík—have found new homes in foreign lands. The Danes were right about the Icelandic economy, just as they’d been right about the Devil’s landscaping efforts. But hundreds of years of colonial rule and only six decades of independence made it difficult for the Icelanders to listen. To curtail the flight of the new Vikings went against the Icelandic project, which from the very beginning was about independence. A thousand years before, in the 870s, Iceland had been a refuge. The medieval stories—known collectively as the sagas—tell us that the island was settled by Norwegian chieftains who were driven out of the fjordlands of their ancestors by the ruthless King Harald the Fair-Haired, who demanded total control of Norway. They refused to humble themselves before the king, and instead took the risk of a new life on a remote, inhospitable island. Icelandic independence, which was lost in the 1260s, was only regained in full in 1944, after Denmark had fallen under German occupation. Ten years later, with the war over and Iceland in the full stride of its independence, Denmark began returning the medieval Icelandic manuscripts that it had acquired during the colonial era. At that point, says the common wisdom, Icelanders forgave the Danes for centuries of poor governance. Although the strict commercial laws of the colonial period had made it all but impossible for Icelanders to rise out of economic hardship, the Danes had, at least, given the sagas back. National sovereignty was returned, and so too the literature that dated back to the time the country had last stood on its own. But, most powerfully, being Icelandic meant being independent of one’s immediate neighbours. Halldór Laxness, the nation’s Nobel Laureate, would satirize this national characteristic in his most enduring masterpiece, Sjálfstætt fólk, or Independent People. It is also what the dominant political party of the independence period, Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn, The Independence Party, has long treasured as a political ideal. To be Icelandic means being free of interference. And in a country of independent people, who would want to stop the bankers on their raids into Europe? Or, for that matter, who was now going to admit that it was time to join Europe instead of emphasizing one’s apartness from it? Kári and I turned off the south road out of Reykjavík and climbed into the heath. From here, the wounds of the country’s geological past still dominated the surface of the land. Little wonder that Jules Verne claimed that the journey to the centre of the world began on Snæfellsnes, a peninsula of volcanoes, lava, and ice caps on a long arm of land that extends desperately from the west of the island, as if forever in hope of reaching America, or at the very least Greenland. It was from Snæfellsnes that Eirík the Red began his Viking voyages westwards, and from where his famous son Leif would reach Vínland, the Land of Vines, most probably Newfoundland. Eight hundred years later, during the worst of the nation’s hardships—when the famines and natural disasters of the late eighteenth century reduced the nation almost to extinction—thousands of Icelanders followed in Leif’s footsteps, across the ‘whale road’, as the Vikings called it, to Canada, and mainly Winnipeg, where they recreated Iceland in an environment arguably even more hostile than the one they’d left. At least there weren’t any volcanoes in Winnipeg. In Iceland, you could never escape the feeling that the world was still evolving, and that the Devil’s work was ongoing. Even the national Assembly was established on one of the island’s most visible outward signs of the deep rift beneath—where a lake had cracked off the heath around it, which now surrounded it as a scar-scape of broken rocks and torn cliffs. The Almannagjá, or People’s Gorge, which is the most dramatic part of the rift, stands, or rather falls apart, as the ultimate symbol of Icelandic national unity. That is Iceland, an island on the edge of Europe, and forever on the edge of itself, too, a place where unity is defined by constant points of separation, not only in the landscape as it crunches itself apart and pushes through at the weak points, but also in a persistently small social world—the population is only 320,000—that is so closely related that it has had little choice but to emphasise the differences that do exist. After a slow drive through the low hills near Thingvellir, we reached the national park, and followed the dirt roads down to the lake. It’s an exclusive place for summerhouses, many of which now seem to stand as reminders of the excesses of the past ten years: the haphazardly-constructed huts that once made the summerhouse experience a bit of an adventure were replaced by two-storey buildings with satellite dishes, spa baths, and the ubiquitous black Range Rovers parked outside—the latter are now known as ‘Game Overs’. Like so much that has been sold off to pay the debts, the luxury houses seem ‘very 2007,’ the local term for anything unsustainable. But even the opulent summerhouses of the Viking raiders don’t diminish the landscape of Thingvellir, and a lake that was frozen from the shore to about fifty metres out. At the shoreline, lapping water had crystallized into blue, translucent ice-waves that formed in lines of dark and light water. Then we left the black beach for the site of the old Assembly. It was a place that had witnessed many encounters, not least the love matches that were formed when young Icelanders returned from their Viking raids and visits to the courts of Scandinavia, Scotland, Ireland, and England. On this particular day, though, the site was occupied by only five Dutchmen in bright, orange coats. They were throwing stones into Öxará, the river that runs off the heath into the Thingvellir lake, and looked up guiltily as we passed. I’m not sure what they felt bad about—throwing stones in the river was surely the most natural thing to do. On my last night, I barely slept. The Saturday night street noise was too much, and my thoughts were taken with the ever-apart Iceland, and with the anticipation of my returning to Brisbane the next day. Reykjavík the party town certainly hadn’t changed with the financial crisis, and nor had my mixed feelings about living so far away. The broken glass and obscenities of a night out didn’t ease until 5am, when it was time for me to board the Flybus to Keflavík Airport. I made my way through the screams and drunken stumblers, and into the quiet of the dark bus, where, in the back, I could just make out the five Dutchmen who, the day before, Kári and I had seen at Thingvellir, and who were now fast asleep and emitting a perfume of vodka and tobacco smoke that made it all the way to the front. It had all seemed too familiar not to be true—the relentless Icelandic optimism around its independence, the sense that it would always be an up-and-down sort of a place anyway, and the jagged volcanoes and lava fields that formed the distant shadows of the half-hour drive to the airport. The people, like the landscape, were fixed on separation, and I doubted that the difficulties with Europe would force them in any other direction. And I, too, was on my way back, as uncertain as ever about Iceland and my place in it. I returned to the clinging heat and my own separation from home, which, as before, I also recognized as my homecoming to Brisbane. Isn’t that in the nature of split affinities, to always be nearly there but never quite there? In the weeks since my return, the Icelanders have voted by referendum to reject the deal made for the repayment of the Icesave debts, and a fresh round of negotiations with the British and Dutch governments begins. For the time being, Iceland retains its right to independence, at least as expressed by the right to sidestep the consequences of its unhappy raids into Europe. Pinning down the Devil, it seems, is just as hard as ever.

This paper is part of a larger project exploring Australian literary responses to the Great War of 1914-1918. It draws on theories of embodiment, mourning, ritual and the recuperative potential of writing, together with a brief discussion of selected exemplars, to suggest that literary works of the period contain and lay bare a suite of creative, corporeal and social impulses, including resurrection, placation or stilling of ghosts, and formation of an empathic and duty-bound community. In Negotiating with the Dead, Margaret Atwood hypothesises that “all writing of the narrative kind, and perhaps all writing, is motivated, deep down, by a fear of and a fascination with mortality—by a desire to make the risky trip to the Underworld, and to bring something or someone back from the dead” (156). She asks an attendant question: “why should it be writing, over and above any other art or medium,” that functions this way? It is not only that writing acquires the appearance of permanence, by surviving “its own performance,” but also that some arts are transient, like dance, while others, like painting and sculpture and music, do “not survive as voice.” For Atwood, writing is a “score for voice,” and what the voice does mostly is tell stories, whether in prose or poetry: “Something unfurls, something reveals itself” (158). Writing, by this view, conjures, materialises or embodies the absent or dead, or is at least laden with this potential. Of course, as Katherine Sutherland observes, “representation is always the purview of the living, even when the order it constructs contains the dead” (202). She argues that all writing about death “might be regarded as epitaph or memorial; such writing is likely to contain the signs of ritual but also of ambiguity and forgetting” (204). Arguably writing can be regarded as participation in a ritual that “affirms membership of the collectivity, and through symbolic manipulation places the life of an individual within a much broader, sometimes cosmic, interpretive framework” (Seale 29), which may assist healing in relation to loss, even if some non-therapeutic purposes, such as restoration of social and political order, also lie behind both rites and writing. In a critical orthodoxy dating back to the 1920s, it has become accepted wisdom that the Australian literary response to the war was essentially nationalistic, “big-noting” ephemera, and thus of little worth (see Gerster and Caesar, for example). Consequently, as Bruce Clunies Ross points out, most Australian literary output of the period has “dropped into oblivion.” In his view, neglect of writings by First World War combatants is not due to its quality, “for this is not the only, or even the essential, condition” for consideration; rather, it is attributable to a “disjunction between the ideals enshrined in the Anzac legend and the experiences recorded or depicted” (170). The silence, we argue, also encompasses literary responses by non-combatants, many of whom were women, though limited space precludes consideration here of their particular contributions.Although poetry and fiction by those of middling or little literary reputation is not normally subject to critical scrutiny, it is patently not the case that there is no body of literature from the war period worthy of scholarly consideration, or that most works are merely patriotic, jingoistic, sentimental and in service of recruitment, even though these elements are certainly present. Our different proposition is that the “lost literatures” deserve attention for various reasons, including the ways they embody conflicting aims and emotions, as well as overt negotiations with the dead, during a period of unprecedented anguish. This is borne out by our substantial collection of creative writing provoked by the war, much of which was published by newspapers, magazines and journals. As Joy Damousi points out in The Labour of Loss, newspapers were the primary form of communication during the war, and never before or since have they dominated to such a degree; readers formed collective support groups through shared reading and actual or anticipated mourning, and some women commiserated with each other in person and in letters after reading casualty lists and death notices (21). The war produced the largest body count in the history of humanity to that time, including 60,000 Australians: none was returned to Australia for burial. They were placed in makeshift graves close to where they died, where possible marked by wooden crosses. At the end of the war, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) was charged with the responsibility of exhuming and reinterring bodily remains in immaculately curated cemeteries across Europe, at Gallipoli and in the Middle East, as if the peace demanded it. As many as one third of the customary headstones were inscribed with “known unto God,” the euphemism for bodies that could not be identified. The CWGC received numerous requests from families for the crosses, which might embody their loved one and link his sacrificial death with resurrection and immortality. For allegedly logistical reasons, however, all crosses were destroyed on site. Benedict Anderson suggested the importance to nationalism of the print media, which enables private reading of ephemera to generate a sense of communion with thousands or millions of anonymous people understood to be doing likewise. Furthermore, Judith Herman demonstrates in Trauma and Recovery that sharing traumatic experience with others is a “precondition for the restitution of a sense of a meaningful world” (70). Need of community and restitution extends to the dead. The practices of burying the dead together and of returning the dead to their homeland when they die abroad speak to this need, for “in establishing a society of the dead, the society of the living regularly recreates itself” (Hertz qtd. in Searle 66). For Australians, the society of the dead existed elsewhere, in unfamiliar terrain, accentuating the absence inherent in all death. The society of the dead and missing—and thus of the living and wounded—was created and recreated throughout the war via available means, including literature. Writers of war-related poems and fiction helped create and sustain imagined communities. Dominant use of conventional, sometimes archaic, literary forms, devices, language and imagery indicates desire for broadly accessible and purposeful communication; much writing invokes shared grief, resolve, gratitude, and sympathy. Yet, in many stories and poems, there is also ambivalence in relation to sacrifice and the community of the dead.Speaking in the voice of the other is a fundamental task of the creative writer, and the ultimate other, the dead, gaze upon and speak to or about the living in a number of poems. For example, they might vocalise displeasure and plead for reinforcements, as, for example, in Ella M’Fadyen’s poem “The Wardens,” published in the Sydney Mail in 1918, which includes the lines: “Can’t you hear them calling in the night-time’s lonely spaces […] Can’t you see them passing […] Those that strove full strongly, and have laid their lives away?” The speaker hears and conveys the pleading of those who have given their breath in order to make explicit the reader’s responsibility to both the dead and the Allied cause: “‘Thus and thus we battled, we were faithful in endeavour;/Still it lies unfinished—will ye make the deed in vain?’” M’Fadyen focusses on soldierly sacrifice and “drafts that never came,” whereas a poem entitled “Your Country’s Call,” published in the same paper in 1915 by “An Australian Mother, Shirley, Queensland,” refers to maternal sacrifice and the joys and difficulties of birthing and raising her son only to find the country’s claims on him outweigh her own. She grapples with patriotism and resistance: “he must go/forth./Where? Why? Don’t think. Just smother/up the pain./Give him up quickly, for his country’s gain.” The War Precautions Act of October 1914 made it “illegal to publish any material likely to discourage recruiting or undermine the Allied effort” (Damousi 21), which undoubtedly meant that, to achieve publication, critical, depressing or negative views would need to be repressed or cast as inducement to enlist, though evidently many writers also sought to convince themselves as well as others that the cause was noble and the cost redeemable. “Your Country’s Call” concludes uncertainly, “Give him up proudly./You have done your share./There may be recompense—somewhere.”Sociologist Clive Seal argues that “social and cultural life involves turning away from the inevitability of death, which is contained in the fact of our embodiment, and towards life” (1). He contends that “grief for embodiment” is pervasive and perpetual and “extends beyond the obvious manifestations of loss by the dying and bereaved, to incorporate the rituals of everyday interaction” (200), and he goes so far as to suggest that if we recognise that our bodies “give to us both our lives and our deaths” then we can understand that “social and cultural life can, in the last analysis, be understood as a human construction in the face of death” (210). To deal with the grief that comes with “realisation of embodiment,” Searle finds that we engage in various “resurrective practices designed to transform an orientation towards death into one that points towards life” (8). He includes narrative reconstruction as well as funeral lament and everyday conversation as rituals associated with maintenance of the social bond, which is “the most crucial human motive” (Scheff qtd. in Searle 30). Although Seale does not discuss the acts of writing or of reading specifically, his argument can be extended, we believe, to include both as important resurrective practices that contain desire for self-repair and reorientation as well as for inclusion in and creation of an empathic moral community, though this does not imply that such desires can ever be satisfied. In “Reading,” Virginia Woolf reminds that “somewhere, everywhere, now hidden, now apparent in whatever is written down is the form of a human being” (28-29), but her very reminder assumes that this knowledge of embodiment tends to be forgotten or repressed. Writing, by its aura of permanence and resurrective potential, points towards life and connection, even as it signifies absence and disconnection. Christian Riegel explains that the “literary work of mourning,” whether poetry, fiction or nonfiction, often has both a psychic and social function, “partaking of the processes of mourning while simultaneously being a product for public reception.” Such a text is indicative of ways that societies shape and control responses to death, making it “an inherently socio-historical construct” (xviii). Jacques Derrida’s passionate and uneasy enactment of this labour in The Work of Mourning suggests that writing often responds to the death of a known person or their oeuvre, where each death changes and reduces the world, so that the world as one knew it “sinks into an abyss” (115). Of course, writing also wrestles with anonymous, large-scale loss which is similarly capable of shattering our sense of “ontological security” (Riegel xx). Sandra Gilbert proposes that some traumatic events cause “death’s door” to swing “so publicly and dramatically open that we can’t look away” (xxii). Derrida’s work of mourning entails imaginative revival of those he has lost and is a struggle with representation and fidelity, whereas critical silence in respect of the body of literature of the First World War might imply repeated turning from “grief for embodiment” towards myths of immortality and indebtedness. Commemorating the war dead might be regarded as a resurrective practice that forges and fortifies communities of the living, while addressing the imagined demands of those who die for their nation.Riegel observes that in its multiplicity of motivations and functions, the literary work of mourning is always “an attempt to make present that which is irrefutably lost, and within that paradoxical tension lies a central tenet of all writerly endeavour that deals with the representation of death” (xix). The literary work of mourning must remain incomplete: it is “always a limiting attempt at revival and at representation,” because words inevitably “fail to replace a lost one.” Even so, they can assist in the attempt to “work through and understand” loss (xix). But the reader or mourner is caught in a strange situation, for he or she inevitably scrutinises words not the body, a corpus not a corpse, and while this is a form of evasion it is also the only possibility open to us. Even so, Derrida might say that it is “as if, by reading, by observing the signs on the drawn sheet of paper, [readers are] trying to forget, repress, deny, or conjure away death—and the anxiety before death.” But he also concedes (after Sarah Kofman), that this process might involve “a cunning affirmation of life, its irrepressible movement to survive, to live on” (176), which supports Seale’s contention in relation to resurrective practices generally. Atwood points out that the dead have always made demands on the living, but, because there is a risk in negotiating with the dead, there needs to be good reason or reward for doing so. Our reading of war literature written by noncombatants suggests that in many instances writers seek to appease the unsettled dead whose death was meant to mean something for the future: the living owe the dead a debt that can only be paid by changing the way they live. The living, in other words, must not only remember the fallen, but also heed them by their conduct. It becomes the poet’s task to remind people of this, that is, to turn them from death towards life.Arthur H Adams’s 1918 poem “When the Anzac Dead Came Home,” published in the Bulletin, is based on this premise: the souls of the dead— the “failed” and “fallen”—drift uncertainly over their homeland, observing the world to which they cannot return, with its “cheerful throng,” “fair women swathed in fripperies,” and “sweet girls” that cling “round windows like bees on honeycomb.” One soul recognises a soldier, Steve, from his former battalion, a mate who kept his life but lost his arm and, after hovering for a while, again “wafts far”; his homecoming creates a “strange” stabbing pain, an ache in his pal’s “old scar.” In this uncanny scene, irreconcilable and traumatic knowledge expresses itself somatically. The poet conveys the viewpoint of the dead Anzac rather than the returned one. The living soldier, whose body is a site of partial loss, does not explicitly conjure or mourn his dead friend but, rather, is a living extension of his loss. In fact, the empathic connection construed by the poet is not figured as spectral orchestration or as mindful on the part of man or community; rather, it occurs despite bodily death or everyday living and forgetting; it persists as hysterical pain or embodied knowledge. Freud and Breuer’s influential Studies on Hysteria, published in 1895, raised the issue of mind/body relations, given its theory that the hysteric’s body expresses psychic trauma that she or he may not recollect: repressed “memories of aetiological significance” result in “morbid symptoms” (56). They posited that experience leaves traces which, like disinterred archaeological artefacts, inform on the past (57). However, such a theory depends on what Rousseau and Porter refer to as an “almost mystical collaboration between mind and body” (vii), wherein painful or perverse or unspeakable “reminiscences” are converted into symptoms, or “mnemic symbols,” which is to envisage the body as penetrable text. But how can memory return unbidden and in such effective disguise that the conscious mind does not recognise it as memory? How can the body express pain without one remembering or acknowledging its origin? Do these kinds of questions suggest that the Cartesian mind/body split has continued valency despite the challenge that hysteria itself presents to such a theory? Is it possible, rather, that the body itself remembers—and not just its own replete form, as suggested by those who feel the presence of a limb after its removal—but the suffering body of “the other”? In Adam’s poem, as in M’Fadyen’s, intersubjective knowledge subsists between embodied and disembodied subjects, creating an imagined community of sensation.Adams’s poem envisions mourning as embodied knowledge that allows one man to experience another’s pain—or soul—as both “old” and “strange” in the midst of living. He suggests that the dead gaze at us even as they are present “in us” (Derrida). Derrida reminds that ghosts occupy an ambiguous space, “neither life nor death, but the haunting of the one by the other” (41). Human mutability, the possibility of exchanging places in a kind of Socratic cycle of life and death, is posited by Adams, whose next stanzas depict the souls of the war dead reclaiming Australia and displacing the thankless living: blown to land, they murmur to each other, “’Tis we who are the living: this continent is dead.” A significant imputation is that the dead must be reckoned with, deserve better, and will not rest unless the living pay their moral dues. The disillusioned tone and intent of this 1918 poem contrasts with a poem Adams published in the Bulletin in 1915 entitled “The Trojan War,” which suggests even “Great Agamemnon” would “lift his hand” to honour “plain Private Bill,” the heroic, fallen Anzac who ventured forth to save “Some Mother-Helen sad at home. Some obscure Helen on a farm.” The act of war is envisaged as an act of birthing the nation, anticipating the Anzac legend, but simultaneously as its epitaph: “Upon the ancient Dardanelles New peoples write—in blood—their name.” Such a poem arguably invokes, though in ambiguous form, what Derrida (after Lyotard) refers to as the “beautiful death,” which is an attempt to lift death up, make it meaningful, and thereby foreclose or limit mourning, so that what threatens disorder and despair might instead reassure and restore “the body politic,” providing “explicit models of virtue” (Nass 82-83) that guarantee its defence and survival. Adams’ later poem, in constructing Steve as “a living fellow-ghost” of the dead Anzac, casts stern judgement on the society that fails to notice what has been lost even as it profits by it. Ideological and propagandist language is also denounced: “Big word-warriors still played the Party game;/They nobly planned campaigns of words, and deemed/their speeches deeds,/And fought fierce offensives for strange old creeds.” This complaint recalls Ezra Pound’s lines in Hugh Selwyn Mauberley about the dead who “walked eye-deep in hell/believing in old men’s lies, then unbelieving/came home, home to a lie/home to many deceits,/home to old lies and new infamy;/usury age-old and age-thick/and liars in public places,” and it would seem that this is the kind of disillusion and bitterness that Clunies Ross considers to be “incompatible with the Anzac tradition” (178) and thus ignored. The Anzac tradition, though quieted for a time, possibly due to the 1930s Depression, Second World War, Vietnam War and other disabling events has, since the 1980s, been greatly revived, with Anzac Day commemorations in Australia and at Gallipoli growing exponentially, possibly making maintenance of this sacrificial national mythology, or beautiful death, among Australia’s most capacious and costly creative industries. As we approach the centenary of the war and of Gallipoli, this industry will only increase.Elaine Scarry proposes that the imagination invents mechanisms for “transforming the condition of absence into presence” (163). It does not escape us that in turning towards lost literatures we are ourselves engaging in a form of resurrective practice and that this paper, like other forms of social and cultural practice, might be understood as one more human construction motivated by grief for embodiment.Note: An archive and annotated bibliography of the “Lost Literatures of the First World War,” which comprises over 2,000 items, is expected to be published online in 2015.References Adams, Arthur H. “When the Anzac Dead Came Home.” Bulletin 21 Mar. 1918.---. “The Trojan War.” Bulletin 20 May 1915.An Australian Mother. “Your Country’s Call.” Sydney Mail 19 May 1915.Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. 2nd ed. London: Verso, 1991.Atwood, Margaret. Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing. New York: Random House, 2002.Caesar, Adrian. “National Myths of Manhood: Anzac and Others.” The Oxford Literary History of Australia. Eds. 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