Icon Cult And Context

This festschrift honors UCLA professor emerita Susan Downey and her meticulous scholarship on religious architecture and imagery in the Roman/Hellenistic world. The iconography of gods and goddesses, the analysis of sacred imagery in the context of ancient cult practices, and the design and decoration of sacred spaces are the main themes of the book. Authors examine such subjects as painting from Dura-Europos, Hellenistic sculpture at Saqqara in Egypt, Roman cameo glass, Pompeian fresco, and aspects of Venus in portrait sculpture. The essays on Dura-Europos are especially valuable in light of the present turmoil in the region. Professor Downey's influence shines through in these discussions, which echo her mentorship of several generations of art history and archaeology students and recognize her scholarly achievements. The broad temporal and geographic parameters of the volume are expansive, and the juxtaposition of images and analyses leads to surprising new conclusions.

This festschrift honors UCLA professor emerita Susan Downey and her meticulous scholarship on religious architecture and imagery in the Roman/Hellenistic world. The iconography of gods and goddesses, the analysis of sacred imagery in the context of ancient cult practices, and the design and decoration of sacred spaces are the main themes of the book. Authors examine such subjects as painting from Dura-Europos, Hellenistic sculpture at Saqqara in Egypt, Roman cameo glass, Pompeian fresco, and aspects of Venus in portrait sculpture. The essays on Dura-Europos are especially valuable in light of the present turmoil in the region. Professor Downey's influence shines through in these discussions, which echo her mentorship of several generations of art history and archaeology students and recognize her scholarly achievements. The broad temporal and geographic parameters of the volume are expansive, and the juxtaposition of images and analyses leads to surprising new conclusions.

Icon and Devotion offers the first extensive presentation in English of the making and meaning of Russian icons. The craft of icon-making is set into the context of forms of worship that emerged in the Russian Orthodox Church in the mid-seventeenth century. Oleg Tarasov shows how icons have held a special place in Russian consciousness because they represented idealized images of Holy Russia. He also looks closely at how and why icons were made. Wonder-working saints and the leaders of such religious schisms as the Old Believers appear in these pages, which are illustrated with miniature paintings, lithographs and engravings never before published in the English-speaking world. By tracing the artistic vocabulary, techniques and working methods of icon painters, Tarasov shows how icons have been integral to the history of Russian art, influenced by folk and mainstream currents alike. As well as articulating the specifically Russian piety they invoke, he analyzes the significance of icons in the cultural life of modern Russia in the context of popular prints and poster design.

This book explores the manner in which architectural settings and action contexts influenced the perception of decoration in the Roman world. Crucial to the relationship between ancient viewers and media was the concept of decor, a term employed by Vitruvius and other Roman authors to describe the appropriateness of particular decorative elements to the environment in which they were located. The papers in this volume examine a diverse range of decorated spaces, from press rooms to synagogues, through the lens of decor. In doing so, they shed new light on the decorative principles employed across Roman Italy and beyond.

"This book investigates rabbinic treatises relating to animals, humans, and other lifeforms. Through an original analysis of creaturely generation and species classification by late ancient Palestinian rabbis and other thinkers in the Roman empire, Rafael Rachel Neis shows how rabbis blurred the lines between the human and other beings. This they did even as they were intent on classifying creatures and delineating the contours of the human. Recognizing that life proliferates via multiple mechanisms beyond sexual copulation between two heterosexual 'male' and 'female' individuals of the same species, the rabbis produced intricate alternatives. This expansive view of generation included humans. Likewise, in parsing the variety of creatures, the rabbis attended to the overlaps and resemblances across seemingly distinct species, upsetting in turn unmitigated claims of human distinctiveness. Intervening in conversations in animal studies, queer theory, trans theory, and feminist science studies, When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven provincializes sacrosanct ideals of reproduction in favor of a broader range of generation, kinship, and species offering powerful historical alternatives to the paradigms associated with so-called traditional ideas"--

Icons of Space: Advances in Hierotopy brings together important scholars of Byzantine religion, art, and architecture, to honour the work of renowned art historian Alexei Lidov. As well as his numerous publications, Lidov is well known for developing the concept of hierotopy, an innovative approach for studying the creation of sacred spaces. Hierotopy and the related concepts of ‘spatial icons’ and ‘image-paradigms’ emphasize fundamental questions about icons, including what defines them as structures, spaces, and experiences. Chapters in this volume engage with the overarching theme of icons of space by employing, contrasting, and complementing methods of hierotopy with more traditional approaches such as iconography. Examinations of icons have traditionally been positioned within strictly historical, theological, socio-economic, political, and art history domains, but this volume poses epistemological questions about the creation of sacred spaces that are instead inclusive of multi-layered iconic ideas and the lived experiences of the creators and beholders of such spaces. This book contributes to image theory and theories of architecture and sacred space. Simultaneously, it moves beyond colonial studies that predominantly focus on questions of religion and politics as expressions of privileged knowledge and power. This book will appeal to scholars and students of Byzantine history, as well as those interested in hierotopy and art history.

Gods, deities, symbolism, deposition, cosmology and intentionality are all features of the study of early ritual and cult. Archaeology has great difficulties in providing satisfactory interpretation or recognition of these elusive but important parts of ancient society, and methodologies are often poorly equipped to explore the evidence. This collection of papers explores a wide range of prehistoric and early historic archaeological contexts from Britain, Europe and beyond, where monuments, architectural structures, megaliths, art, caves, ritual activity and symbolic remains offer exciting glimpses into ancient belief systems and cult behaviour. Different theoretical and practical approaches are demonstrated, offering both new directions and considered conclusions to the many problems of studying the archaeology of cult and ritual. Central to the volume is an exploration of early Malta and its intriguing Temple Culture, set in a broad perspective by the discussion and theoretical approaches presented in different geographical and chronological contexts.

Over the centuries, European debate about the nature and status of images of God and sacred figures has often upset the established order and shaken societies to their core. Out of this debate, an identifiable doctrine has emerged of the image in general and of the divine image in particular. This fascinating work concentrates on these historical arguments, from the period of Late Antiquity up to the great and classic defenses of images by St. John of Damascus and Theodore of Studion. Icon extends beyond the immediate concerns of religion, philosophy, aesthetics, history, and art, to engage them all.