Images Of The Mother Of God

Fully illustrated in colour and black and white, Images of the Mother of God complements the successful exhibition catalogue of the 'Mother of God' exhibition at the Benaki Museum in Athens. It brings together the work of leading international authorities and younger scholars to provide a wide-ranging survey of how the Theotokos was perceived in the Byzantine world. It embraces the disciplines of art historians, archaeologists, traditional and feminist historians, as well as theologians, philologists and social anthropologists. Images of the Mother of God will appeal not just to those interested in Byzantine art and culture, but also to scholars of Western Europe in the Middle Ages who are looking for comparative materials in their own work.

This volume, on the cult of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) in Byzantium, focuses on textual and historical aspects of the subject, thus complementing previous work which has centered more on the cult of images of the Mother of God. This international cast of scholars, consider the development and transformation of the cult from approximately the fourth through the twelfth centuries. The aim of this volume is to build on recent work on the cult of the Virgin Mary in Byzantium and to explore new areas of study. The rationale is critical and historical, using literary, artistic, and archaeological sources to evaluate her role in the development of the Byzantine understanding of the ways in which God interacts with creation by means of icons, relics and the Theotokos.

Mother God introduces readers to a dozen images of God inspired by feminine descriptions from Scripture.

Images of Mary as a mother and saint provide an historical and cultural view of how artists have perceived the mother of Jesus and depicted her in wood carvings, mosaics, statues, and murals.

A sweeping, ambitious study of the Virgin Mary’s emergence and role throughout Western historyHow did the Virgin Mary, about whom very little is said in the Gospels, become one of the most powerful and complex religious figures in the world? To arrive at the answers to this far-reaching question, one of our foremost medieval historians, Miri Rubin, investigates the ideas, practices, and images that have developed around the figure of Mary from the earliest decades of Christianity to around the year 1600. Drawing on an extraordinarily wide range of sources—including music, poetry, theology, art, scripture, and miracle tales—Rubin reveals how Mary became so embedded in our culture that it is impossible to conceive of Western history without her.In her rise to global prominence, Mary was continually remade and reimagined by wave after wave of devotees. Rubin shows how early Christians endowed Mary with a fine ancestry; why in early medieval Europe her roles as mother, bride, and companion came to the fore; and how the focus later shifted to her humanity and unparalleled purity. She also explores how indigenous people in Central America, Africa, and Asia remade Mary and so fit her into their own cultures.Beautifully written and finely illustrated, this book is a triumph of sympathy and intelligence. It demonstrates Mary’s endless capacity to inspire and her profound presence in Christian cultures and beyond.

This volume, on the cult of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) in Byzantium, focuses on textual and historical aspects of the subject, thus complementing previous work which has centred more on the cult of images of the Mother of God. The papers presented here, by an international team of scholars, consider the development and transformation of the cult from approximately the fourth through the twelfth centuries. The volume opens with discussion of the origins of the cult, and its Near Eastern manifestations, including the archaeological site of the Kathisma church in Palestine, which represents the earliest Marian shrine in the Holy Land, and Syriac poetic treatment of the Virgin. The principal focus, however, is on the 8th and 9th centuries in Byzantium, as a critical period when Christian attitudes toward the Virgin and her veneration were transformed. The book re-examines the relationship between icons, relics and the Virgin, asking whether increasing devotion to these holy objects or figures was related in any way. Some contributions consider the location of relics and later, icons, in Constantinople and other centres of Marian devotion; others explore gender issues, such as the significance of the Virgin's feminine qualities, and whether women and men identified with her equally as a holy figure. The aim of this volume is to build on recent work on the cult of the Virgin Mary in Byzantium and to explore areas that have not yet been studied. The rationale is critical and historical, using literary, artistic, and archaeological sources to evaluate her role in the development of the Byzantine understanding of the ways in which God interacts with creation by means of icons, relics, and the Theotokos.

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By clothing the Word with her flesh, the Virgin Mary made God visible, manifesting Christ as a perfect “image” of the Father. By virtue of this archetypal “artistry” of Incarnation, Mary mediates the tradition of Christian image-making. This volume explores images of the Mother of God in early modern devotion, piety, and power. The book is divided into four sections, the first three of which link the subjects thematically and geographically in Europe, while the last one follows Mary’s legacy. Contributors include: Elliott D. Wise, Anna Dlabačová, James Clifton, Kim Butler Wingfield, Barbara Baert, Steven Ostrow, Barbara Haeger, Shelley Perlove, Cristina Cruz González, and Mehreen Chida-Razvi.