Antonio pio di Cosmo The Ultra-Life of the Description Formulas of the Eastern Roman Power and the Episodes of the Norman Monarchy of Sicily. A Case Self-Representation Strategies of Success, INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ART READINGS 2019 OLD ART MODULE April 5th – 7th (original) (raw)
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The authors reflect on methodological and terminological problems connected with the critical fields of Byzantine and so-called Post-Byzantine Art in the Balkans. Departing from the traditional, frequently controversial, issues of continuity and identity, this chapter proposes a more effective conceptual framework, which favours the ideas of multiculturality, hybridity, and horizontal exchange. The present essay also addresses the questions of cultural history, and, especially, of Western influences in Orthodox painting after the 15th century, and it urges that art of any period should be measured against the standards of its own time. More generally, it suggests that the reception of Orthodox Christian art in the Balkans ought also to be considered to fall within the purview of scholars of the Western Renaissance, as well as of Ottoman Studies, so as to ensure fruitful academic dialogue across disciplines.
Through the discussion of two practical "case studies'; the authors deal with a classical theme of iconographicaI studies, thatis the complex relationship between text and image. The two examples explain in particular how the"intention"of the artist or patron, and so the deeper meaning of the pictures, are not revealed by the exact correspondences between text and image, but emerge mainly from the recognition of the differences. Often this gap between text and image can be originated from the liturgy or can be explained by the links with ritual practices, in which the pictures are involved. Catholic prelates from Kotor were able to commission such artists who could paint the fresco programmes of town churches mostly based on models found in Byzantine art because such solutions offered them possibilities of forming their own programme based on the liturgy of the Catholic Church. In the case of the Olivuccio di Ceccarello's Dormitio, from Sirolo, the semi-liturgical rituality of the assault on the properties of the Jews, accepted by the Church, justifies the scars on the image of Jews and clarifies the reason of the selection of episodes made by the painter on the basis of the Legenda aurea, with the intention to highlight the negative role of the Jews, as opposed to the positive one played by the incredulous Apostle Thomas.