Living Images

The essays in this volume focus on the historical, institutional, and ritual context of a number of Japanese Buddhist paintings, sculptures, calligraphies, and relics?some celebrated, others long overlooked.

The haunting funerary paintings on wood coffins found in Roman Egypt still represent some of the most vivid images that come to us from the ancient world. These paintings were first discovered by Flinders Petrie, father of modern archaeology, in his excavations in the Egyptian Fayum during the 1880s and have rested at University College London for over 100 years. Now, the Petrie Museum is bringing this corpus of paintings to the public in a stunning catalog. Living Images is a beautiful and authoritative presentation of the restored collection that will be an essential reference for scholars and a fascinating read for general audiences. Central to the volume is a complete catalog of the mummy portraits uncovered by Petrie, including full color illustrations and descriptions of technical and stylistic features and iconographic characteristics. To add to the value of the volume, articles describe the process of finding the mummies, explain the place of funerary assemblages in the history of Egyptian burial customs, offer an introduction to Egyptian portrait painting, and explain the conservation issues presented by the coffins. Petrie’s own reflections on his finds are also included. The volume is dedicated to the memory of Egyptologist Barbara Adams and co-sponsored by the Petrie Museum.

An interdisciplinary study of the practice and purpose of early Christian baptism as it is depicted in pictorial art and as it was practiced in-built structures, this book integrates physical remains with literary evidence for the early Christian initiation rite.

The haunting funerary paintings on wood coffins found in Roman Egypt still represent some of the most vivid images that come to us from the ancient world. These paintings were first discovered by Flinders Petrie, father of modern archaeology, in his excavations in the Egyptian Fayum during the 1880s and have rested at University College London for over 100 years. Now, the Petrie Museum is bringing this corpus of paintings to the public in a stunning catalog. Living Images is a beautiful and authoritative presentation of the restored collection that will be an essential reference for scholars and a fascinating read for general audiences. Central to the volume is a complete catalog of the mummy portraits uncovered by Petrie, including full color illustrations and descriptions of technical and stylistic features and iconographic characteristics. To add to the value of the volume, articles describe the process of finding the mummies, explain the place of funerary assemblages in the history of Egyptian burial customs, offer an introduction to Egyptian portrait painting, and explain the conservation issues presented by the coffins. Petrie�s own reflections on his finds are also included. The volume is dedicated to the memory of Egyptologist Barbara Adams and co-sponsored by the Petrie Museum.

The book examines the process of symbolic and material alteration of religious images in antiquity, the middle ages and the modern period. The process by which the form and meaning of images are modified and adapted for a new context is defined by a large number of spiritual, religious, artistic, geographical or historical circumstances. This book provides a defined theoretical framework for these symbolic and material alterations based on the concept of iconotropy; that is, the way in which images change and/or alter their meaning. Iconotropy is a key concept in religious history, particularly for periods in which religious changes, often turbulent, took place. In addition, the iconotropic process of appropriating cult images brought with it changes in the materiality of those images. Numerous accounts from antiquity, the middle ages and the modern period detail how cult images were involved in such processes of misinterpretation, both symbolically and materially. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual culture and religious history.

Looks at nationalism as an unstable production, examining how, under what circumstances, and with what effects, the comcept of nation was produced and deployed in the Philippines.