This paper examines how English medieval painting became the focus of a new kind of scholarly scrutiny, through the analysis of a series of articles written by W.R. Lethaby (1857-1931) for The ...Burlington Magazine between 1916 and 1918. Lethaby's writings are interpreted here as an exercise intended to re-position English medieval painting as a subject worthy of connoisseurial attention. Contemporary exhibitionary practice was also crucial in illustrating the new status of English medieval painting and in defining its English character. The exhibition British Primitives, held at the Royal Academy in 1923, is examined here to evaluate how this re-presenting of medieval art to reflect contemporary scholarship also made it vulnerable to contemporary modes of consumption, as witnessed in the increased value (both cultural and monetary) of medieval art on the international art market.
This article discusses the events that took place in the year 1486, in a small town in northern Italy, Lonigo and the subsequent birth of a Marian devotion. According to some direct and indirect ...evidence, after a crime was committed, the image of the Virgin painted on the wall of a ruined chapel changed her position to defend herself from the sacrilegious attack of a murderer. A few days after the event, many miraculous healings strengthened and enhanced the faith in the Madonna di Lonigo, as evidenced by a rich collection of votive offerings. The new devotion led to changes in the architecture of the church of Lonigo and in the popular consideration of the nature of the image, as shown by numerous reproductions, which finally resulted in the loss of the originalmeaning of the painting in question.
En el exterior de la nave central de la Catedral de Teruel, en el alero del tejado, se descubrió, y se ha restaurado, un gran conjunto de representaciones pictóricas medievales que habían pasado ...desapercibidas para la historiografía.
In hierdie artikel word 'n vergelyking getref tussen die skildery Die geveg tussen Karnaval en Lent van Pieter Bruegel de Oude en T.T. Cloete se bundel Karnaval en Lent is een gedig. Die vergelykende ...ontleding word gedoen met aandag aan die uitbeelding van die tydgenootlike mens in sy toestand van swakheid en verval, aan die ooreenkomste en verskille ten opsigte van die gebruik van simboliek en aan vraatsug as simptoom van 'n ongebalanseerde, skeefgetrekte samelewing. Daar word geredeneer dat, hoewel beide kunstenaars sterk op kategoriese opposisies fokus, die tema van beide werke eintlik die ambivalensie is wat die menslike kondisie kenmerk. Die kunswerke dien as spieël vir die mens sodat hy sy eie dwaasheid kan erken en dié insig hom tot selfkennis kan lei.
In hierdie artikel word 'n vergelyking getref tussen die skildery Die geveg tussen Karnaval en Lent van Pieter Bruegel de Oude en T.T. Cloete se bundel Karnaval en Lent is een gedig. Die vergelykende ...ontleding word gedoen met aandag aan die uitbeelding van die tydgenootlike mens in sy toestand van swakheid en verval, aan die ooreenkomste en verskille ten opsigte van die gebruik van simboliek en aan vraatsug as simptoom van 'n ongebalanseerde, skeefgetrekte samelewing. Daar word geredeneer dat, hoewel beide kunstenaars sterk op kategoriese opposisies fokus, die tema van beide werke eintlik die ambivalensie is wat die menslike kondisie kenmerk. Die kunswerke dien as spieël vir die mens sodat hy sy eie dwaasheid kan erken en dié insig hom tot selfkennis kan lei. "What is man that Thou hast endowed him with such grace?" : the representation of the battle between Carnival and Lent by Bruegel and T.T. Cloete The aim of this article is to compare certain similarities and differences in Peter Breugel the Elder's painting "The battle between Carnival and Lent" and T.T. Cloete's most recent volume of poetry, "Karnaval en Lent is een gedig" ("Carnival and Lent are one poem"). The central theme of the volume of poetry is based on the painting by Bruegel which was painted in 1559. Because both works of art function by means of collective transcendents, thereby activating archetypal matter, it is possible to make such a comparison. The implication intended by this statement is that basic human nature, which is depicted in both works of art, does not change with time. Thus it is possible that, 450 years after Bruegel's painting was made, we can still identify with his representation of the human condition, which is, to some extent, depicted in a modern version in Cloete's work. It will be argued that, in both works of art, the emphasis falls on the representation of Carnival and Lent as symbols of the good and the evil nature of man, but also that the liminal zone, where no categorical oppositions are possible, is the focus point of both artists. It is clear that Bruegel neither sides with the "bad behaviour" (of the Lutherans) that is depicted on the left part of the painting, nor with the "good behaviour" (of the Roman Catholics) portrayed on the right. In his painting the accent clearly falls on the folly of man, who will, notwithstanding his religious denomination, always be prone to human folly and sin. In Cloete's poetry the accent falls on the Janus-faced man and the inherent duality which is characteristic of human nature: man is both body and mind, holy and evil, egotistic and part of the O/other. His purpose - after the manner of Desiderius Erasmus - is to emphasise oppositions in order to reconcile the antitheses which are an inherent feature of man's nature as such. Bruegel and Cloete regard the human condition - the condition of the unthinking, anonymous masses - as folly and depravity. In this regard, both works of art have a somewhat moralistic character, although not in a restrictive sense. Both artworks focus on the symbolic significance of eating as a metaphor of the decadent and debased human society in which the artists live. Bruegel paints the diseased, disfigured and disabled human being as a mirror in which human society should see itself. The same underlying principle marks several of Cloete's poems, works in which he refers to those who deform themselves by overeating and other excesses and by gross overutilization of that which we have received through the grace of God. However, Cloete's characters are neither sick, nor disabled or mutilated - they are unsightly as a result of their unhealthy lifestyles. On the other hand, whenever Cloete uses disabled characters throughout his body of work they mostly symbolise either the author himself, or (and!) the creative artist (for instance the crippled Hefaistos who manufactures the shield of Achilles). Thus it would appear that both Bruegel and Cloete aim to confront human society with a metaphorical mirror in order to facilitate a process of reflection which might lead to self-knowledge. An important part of this process is that which Bakhtin calls "carnavalesque laughter": the liberating laughter at the foolishness of humanity in which everybody joins in, an ambivalent laughter, at the same time mocking and triumphant, and full of joy. In essence this kind of reflection is a collective process which takes place in the liminal space of the Carnival, as well as in the space in which the fool looks at his reflection in the mirror which the artist holds up in front of him, i.e. in order for him to perceive his own foolishness.
Durante el siglo XX se lleva a cabo una revalorización de la pintura del medioevo heleno, ignorada durante todo el clasicismo europeo. AAnte la constatación de que el espacio representado en la ...pintura bizantina no reproduce el espacio natural se llega a la conclusión de que las operaciones pictóricas aplicadas por los pintores bizantinos tienen como objeto simbolizar un espacio sobrenatural. En las siguientes líneas intentaremos abrir la problemática del espacio en la pintura bizantina a una interpretación plástica, es decir, intentaremos presentar una lectura de las operaciones pictóricas en cuanto tales siguiendo los planteamientos de Georgos Kordis, profesor de la cátedra Eikonografia de la Facultad de Teología de la Universidad de Atenas y destacado pintor griego. Nuestro objetivo es plantear algunas directrices para introducirnos en la problemática pictórica de la representación del espacio en la pintura bizantina.During the twentieth century is carried out a revaluation of the Hellenic medieval painting, ignored during the European classicism. Given the finding that the space represented in Byzantine painting does not reproduce the natural space leads to the conclusion that painting operations implemented by the Byzantine painters are intended to symbolize a supernatural space. The following lines try to open the question of space in painting plastic Byzantine interpretation, ie to try to present a reading of the painting operations as such, following the approach of Georges Kordis, chair professor of the Faculty Eikonografia Theology of the University of Athens and prominent Greek painter. Our goal is to propose some guidelines for introducing us to the problem of pictorial representation of space in the Byzantine painting.
Blood and Milk in Medieval ImageryThe wall painting Plague Image (also named the Image of Scourge, Mater omnium, The Virgin of Mercy, Our Lady of Protection, Mary the Mediatrix, Double Intercession, ...Combined Intercession, Our Lady’s Intercession etc.) in the Church of St. Primus in #rna near Kamnik in Slovenia, executed in 1504, at the end of the Middle Ages and at the dawn of the Renaissance in Central Europe, reflects well the passage between the two worlds of imagination and their visual representation. The triangular composition – with God the Father, the universal entity, at its apex, and lower with Christ exposing his wounds (Man of Sorrows, Imago pietatis) on the left, and Virgin Mary on the right, with her bosom bare – determines the believer’s perception. The scene combines the notions of birth, symbolized by the charity of Mary offering her milk, and death, symbolized by the cruelty of blood shed by Christ and the menacing sword of God the Father. At the time of their realization, the figures of Christ and Mary were meant to be spiritual, imaging the mysteries of the Eucharist and the Incarnation. The present text examines the question as to what extent the believers of the past connected, in their imagination, Christ’s nakedness and Mary’s bosom with parts of the body of a common human. The masked eroticism of the two figures put a stamp on this suggestive image which in the course of history provoced various reactions...
Le Liber diversarum artium, seconde copie d'un traité de technologie artistique vraisemblablement écrit dans les années 1350, est conservé à la Bibliothèque inter-universitaire de Médecine de ...Montpellier, dans un manuscrit du XVe siècle, le Ms H277 (vers 1470). Ce texte, par sa structure novatrice, les sources connues antérieures aux années 1300 qui l'alimentent, et leur diffusion, nous a autorisé à le mettre en regard d'œuvres peintes sur bois et sur mur des XIIe et XIIIe siècles conservées en Catalogne, comme nous aurions pu le faire avec n'importe quel autre corpus cohérent. Par le territoire « historique » qu'elle recouvre au Moyen Âge, par le nombre d'œuvres conservées et par leur grande variété esthétique et technique, la Catalogne répondait à cette cohérence. Les peintures retenues ont été envisagées du point de vue leur matérialité. La méthodologie développée pour l'aborder s'est articulée dans une dialectique constante entre le savoir écrit, théorique, du Liber ou d'autres traités, et le savoir pratique mis en œuvre par les peintres en Catalogne aux âges romans. L'observation macroscopique des œuvres, ainsi que la collecte de données physico-chimiques concernant certaines d'entre elles, ou encore notre propre expérience, nous a donné une matière propice à la compréhension du métier de peintre. De cette confrontation est née une lecture singulière, mettant au cœur de notre réflexion le peintre dans l'apprentissage et l'exercice de son métier.
The Liber diversarum artium, second copy of a treatise on artistic technology probably written in the 1350s, is held at the Inter-university Library of Medicine of Montpellier, in a fifteenth century manuscript, Ms H277 (1470). The innovative structure of this text, the pre-1300s sources it draws on, and their dissemination, enabled us to compare it with works painted on wood and walls in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries preserved in Catalonia, as with any other coherent corpus. By virtue of the "historical" territory it covers in the Middle Ages, the number of works conserved and their wide aesthetic and technical variety, Catalonia provided this coherence. The selected paintings were considered from the perspective of materiality. The methodology developed for the task was structured as a constant dialectic between written and theoretical knowledge contained in the Liber or other treatises, and the practical knowledge applied by painters in Catalonia in the Romanesque period. Macroscopic observation of the works, the collection of physicochemical data concerning some of them, and our own experience, provided us with material that was conducive to understanding the painter's craft. This comparison produced a singular reading, in which thinking is focused on the painter in the learning and the exercise of his craft.
The paper deals with liturgical vestments represented on fragmentarily preserved figures on the walls of the so-called Byzantine basilica found in the archaeological excavations under Dubrovnik ...Cathedral, and the saints depicted in two churches on the Elaphiti Islands in Dubrovnik aquatorium: St John’s in Šilovo Selo on Šipan and St Nicholas’ on Koločep.
An iconographic analysis shows that the vestments in question belong to the Eastern type of liturgical dress, and the elaboration on their origin, meaning and development provides some additional information for interpretation and dating of the paintings. Given conclusions are then observed in specific historical context of eleventh and twelfth century Dubrovnik, its traditions, dynamic relations with Byzantium and Rome, but also in the context of already recognized cultural contacts with the southern regions of the Apennine peninsula. Finally it is pointed to some further directions for re-addressing the problem of “Adrio-Byzantinism” in eleventh and twelfth century art and architecture of southern Dalmatia, but also to the need for examining the validity of the concept, its possible aspects, meanings and manifestations, in a wider socio-cultural context; which, after all, defines the underlying ideas of the visual imagery employed.
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