The Oxford Handbook Of Byzantine Art And Architecture

Byzantine art has been an underappreciated field, often treated as an adjunct to the arts of the medieval West, if considered at all. In illustrating the richness and diversity of art in the Byzantine world, this handbook will help establish the subject as a distinct field worthy of serious inquiry. Essays consider Byzantine art as art made in the eastern Mediterranean world, including the Balkans, Russia, the Near East and north Africa, between the years 330 and 1453. Much of this art was made for religious purposes, created to enhance and beautify the Orthodox liturgy and worship space, as well as to serve in a royal or domestic context. Discussions in this volume will consider both aspects of this artistic creation, across a wide swath of geography and a long span of time. The volume marries older, object-based considerations of themes and monuments which form the backbone of art history, to considerations drawing on many different methodologies-sociology, semiotics, anthropology, archaeology, reception theory, deconstruction theory, and so on-in an up-to-date synthesis of scholarship on Byzantine art and architecture. The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Art and Architecture is a comprehensive overview of a particularly rich field of study, offering a window into the world of this fascinating and beautiful period of art.

The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies presents discussions by leading experts on all significant aspects of this diverse and fast-growing field. Byzantine Studies deals with the history and culture of the Byzantine Empire, the eastern half of the Late Roman Empire, from the fourth to the fourteenth century. Its centre was the city formerly known as Byzantium, refounded as Constantinople in 324 CE, the present-day Istanbul. Under its emperors, patriarchs, and all-pervasive bureaucracy Byzantium developed a distinctive society: Greek in language, Roman in legal system, and Christian in religion. Byzantium's impact in the European Middle Ages is hard to over-estimate, as a bulwark against invaders, as a meeting-point for trade from Asia and the Mediterranean, as a guardian of the classical literary and artistic heritage, and as a creator of its own magnificent artistic style.

This handbook explores key aspects of art and architecture in ancient Greece and Rome. Drawing on the perspectives of scholars of various generations, nationalities, and backgrounds, it discusses Greek and Roman ideas about art and architecture, as expressed in both texts and images, along with the production of art and architecture in the Greek and Roman world.

In twenty-five chapters by leading scholars, this volume propagates a nuanced understanding of Byzantine "literature", highlighting key problems, and presenting basic research tools for an audience of specialists and non-specialists.

The opulence of Byzantine art, with its extravagant use of gold and silver, is well known. Highly skilled artists created powerful representations reflecting and promoting this society and its values in icons, illuminated manuscripts, and mosaics and wallpaintings placed in domed churches and public buildings. This complete introduction to the whole period and range of Byzantine art combines immense breadth with interesting historical detail. Robin Cormack overturns the myth that Byzantine art remained constant from the inauguration of Constantinople, its artistic centre, in the year 330 until the fall of the city to the Ottomans in 1453. He shows how the many political and religious upheavals of this period produced a wide range of styles and developments in art. This updated, colour edition includes new discoveries, a revised bibliography, and, in a new epilogue, a rethinking of Byzantine Art for the present day.

"This handbook brings together work by leading scholars of the archaeology of early Christianity in the Mediterranean and surrounding regions. The 34 essays to this volume ground the history, culture, and society of the first seven centuries of Christianity in the latest currents of archaeological method, theory, and research."--

"A beautifully illustrated, new edition of the best single-volume guide to Byzantine art, providing an introduction to the whole period and range of styles."--

The study of Roman sculpture has been an essential part of the disciplines of Art History and Classics since the eighteenth century. Famous works like the Laoco?n, the Arch of Titus, and the colossal portrait of Constantine are familiar to millions. Again and again, scholars have returned to sculpture to answer questions about Roman art, society, and history. Indeed, the field of Roman sculptural studies encompasses not only the full chronological range of the Roman world but also its expansive geography, and a variety of artistic media, formats, sizes, and functions. Exciting new theories, methods, and approaches have transformed the specialized literature on the subject in recent decades. Rather than creating another chronological catalogue of representative examples from various periods, genres, and settings, The Oxford Handbook of Roman Sculpture synthesizes current best practices for studying this central medium of Roman art, situating it within the larger fields of Art History, Classical Archaeology, and Roman Studies. This comprehensive volume fills the gap between introductory textbooks and highly focused professional literature. The Oxford Handbook of Roman Sculpture conveniently presents new technical, scientific, literary, and theoretical approaches to the study of Roman sculpture in one reference volume while simultaneously complementing textbooks and other publications that present well-known works in the corpus. The contributors to this volume address metropolitan and provincial material from the early republican period through late antiquity in an engaging and fresh style. Authoritative, innovative, and up-to-date, The Oxford Handbook of Roman Sculpture will remain an invaluable resource for years to come.