De pictura and the Patristic Renaissance (original) (raw)
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Perceptions of transcendent space in Pre-Christian painting and in Christian orthodox iconography.
2024
The pictorial rendering of transcendental space is a theme that occupied the pre-Christian Greco-Roman world, as we see in the surviving pictorial representations, especially in the wall paintings of Pompeii. The way of rendering the transcendental space in pre-Christian painting was shaped by the Neoplatonic philosophical currents of the time, while it was passed on to early Christian painting. Subsequently, alongside the development of Christian orthodox theology, various ways of pictorial expression of the transcendental space were developed. The culmination of those ways is the golden depth which indicates the energetic presence of God as a immaterial light which fullfills everything and in which deified men rest.
Light as a visual source domain for the divine in the 17th century painting
Jezikoslovlje, 2019
The aim of this paper is to explain the motivation behind the creation of religious visual art in which light plays the role of the signifier of divine presence. We will endeavor to show that representations of light in paintings from a particular socio-cultural period and context are based on metaphorization. The meaning that arises from this metaphorization establishes a connection between depicted light and the basic conceptual metaphor KNOWING IS SEEING. Our aim is to show that the understanding of these kinds of representations by the viewer as the presence of the divine is based on the fundamental human capacity to conceptualize abstract notions through concrete ones. We propose that a visual representation of light would not be completely understandable if the viewer did not possess an inherent knowledge of basic conceptual metaphors of light. The visual material selected for this article comprises samples of 17th century religious paintings of the Western artistic tradition,...
Images-within-Images in Italian Painting (1250-1350): Reality and Reflexivity - Intro
Images-within-Images in Italian Painting (1250-1350): Reality and Reflexivity. Burlington: Ashgate, 2015
The rebirth of realistic representation in Italy around 1300 led to the materialization of a pictorial language, which dominated Western art until 1900, and it dominates global visual culture even today. Paralleling the development of mimesis, self-reflexive pictorial tendencies emerged as well. Images-within-images, visual commentaries of representations by representations, were essential to this trend. They facilitated the development of a critical pictorial attitude towards representation. This book offers the first comprehensive study of Italian meta-painting in the age of Giotto and sheds new light on the early modern and modern history of the phenomenon. By combining visual hermeneutics and iconography, it traces reflexivity in Italian mural and panel painting at the dawn of the Renaissance, and presents novel interpretations of several key works of Giotto di Bondone and the Lorenzetti brothers. The potential influence of the contemporary religious and social context on the program design is also examined situating the visual innovations within a broader historical horizon. The analysis of pictorial illusionism and reality effect together with the liturgical, narrative and typological role of images-within-images makes this work a pioneering contribution to visual studies and premodern Italian culture. ‘Reflexivity is the name of the game they say when it comes to modern and especially to postmodern art. This study tells a different story. Péter Bokody’s book goes back to where it all began: to Italian Trecento painting which marks the beginnings of the realistic mode. Realism means, among many other things, that one medium can embed another medium. If it does so it will enhance its realistic potential, strengthen the meaning of the whole scene and, finally, it makes a meta-statement: about the power of images, the different qualities of the artforms or even about stylistic options.’ Wolfgang Kemp, University of Hamburg 'Bokody’s book combines visual sensitivity, methodological variety, historical erudition and theoretical sophistication. His work encourages us to think with more precision and flexibility about the concepts of "realism" and reflexivity as applied to the achievements of Giotto and his contemporaries and in relation to subsequent generations of artists. Bokody provides fresh insights for all those who study, admire and teach this material.' Joanna Cannon, Courtauld Institute of Art, London 'Engagingly written, this study will add significantly to our understanding of Giotto and his circle (including Lorenzetti, Gaddi and Daddi) in the dynamically changing world of fourteenth century Italy. Although primarily concerned with images within images in panel and mural painting, the work goes beyond its initial parameters and looks at such concepts as realism, spatial relations, illusionism, meta-painting, self-reflexivity, time and reception in Italian art. It is a study which exposes the viewer to new ideas and details that could easily be passed and whose iconography is significant in understanding the work in its entirety.' Colum Hourihane, Independent Scholar, UK
Divine Visions: Image-Making and Imagination in Pictures of Saint Luke Painting the Virgin
Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz (Max-Planck-Institut) 61, no. 2, 2019
The early modern period saw the rise of a growing anxiety over the imagination of the artist and his problematic status as a mediator of the divine. This is nowhere more evident than in works made for the newly-established artists’ academies of Florence and Rome. The works of Giorgio Vasari and Passignano, and the altarpiece often attributed to Raphael that was installed by Federico Zuccaro in the Accademia di San Luca picture the well-known legend of Saint Luke painting the Virgin; yet neither the significance of their new formulation of the legend – portrayed as the artist’s vision, rather than a portrait sitting – nor the historical circumstances that would account for its collective emergence among painters belonging to Italy’s art theoretical and academic milieus have been examined. This essay shows that these works constitute a reflection on the medial nature of the artist’s imaginative vision at a moment when Catholic reformers sought to reign in this potentially threatening side of art-making, deemed too important to be entrusted to the ungovernable imagination, or fantasia, of the artist. Aware of the unruliness of the imagination, early modern academies of art defended and institutionalized the value of the aesthetic fiction as indispensable to the figuration of the invisible God. The artistic image could reveal divine truths under the condition that it was recognized for what it was: a fiction.
The Role of Painting in the Definition of Spaces in Medieval Art
Following Forms, Following Functions: Practices and Disciplines in Dialogue, 2018
Mural paintings play a fundamental role in the definition of the architectural spaces. Far from being a mere a container/contained kind of relationship, they deeply interact with the architecture by simulating spaces not existing in the physical reality and by suggesting mental and spiritual spaces thanks to the allusive function of the images. In a well-known article published in 1979, the scientists S. J. Gould and R. C. Lewontin, used the images in the spandrels in St. Mark in Venice as a starting point for a criticism to the evolutionist and adaptationist theories: in their interpretation, the spandrels became a metaphor of biological characters which were originally born for other functions ¬¬- or which had no function at all ¬- and that only subsequently were used in an adaptationist way. Starting from this article and as part of an attempt to find an objectual function of mural painting, we will present some case-studies from many geographical areas and centuries, aiming to show how Medieval mural painting did not limited to an “exaptive” function, forcing itself into the dimensions of the architectural container, but it will be shown how it could even “manipulate” the form of the spaces housing it.
This dissertation is an exploration of the context surrounding the creation of a single painting, now in the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. I will begin with a general introduction to the painting, which I will refer to as the Edinburgh Madonna, including previous theories regarding the extraordinary trompe l’oeil frame. Following that, I have divided the context into two spheres, the devotional and the artistic. Leading with the devotional context, I will introduce the methods of piety as practiced in the fifteenth century, then discuss the specific penitential and ascetic tenor of devotion in Ferrara. Many of the unique artistic decisions made by the painter of the Edinburgh Madonna can be understood as responding to the demands of Ferrarese piety. Following contemplation of the Edinburgh Madonna as a devotional object, I will consider it as a painting produced in the context Ferrarese artistic production. First, introducing another painting that, I will provide justification for believing, is by the artist of the Edinburgh Madonna, then by comparing specific aspects of the Edinburgh Madonna to other Ferrarese panel paintings. Finally I will consider the extraordinary conceptualisation of space in relation to manuscript illumination. In concord, these comparisons will provide an overall understanding of the decisions made by the painter in the creation of this extraordinary painting.
Illusionism in sacred monumental painting of the baroque era, optics of perception
Linguistics and Culture Review, 2021
The investigation of the mechanisms of dual influence in a pair “work of art – viewer” opens up important opportunities for the worldview, cultural, aesthetic intentions laid down by the author(s), outlines the ways of transmitting the message to the recipient and assesses the effectiveness. The authors of this article analyse the practices of applying the mechanisms and principles of neuroaesthetics in the perception of baroque monumental paintings and the effects caused by the conscious use of illusory techniques in the duality of relationships. The authors of the article aim to find out the principles of the formation of cognitive and aesthetic connections expressed in specific formal principles-approaches, in the processes of perception of illusionistic baroque painting by the primary addressee-a person of the Baroque era – from the point of view of neuroaesthetics. The methodology refers to the implementing a multidisciplinary approach, based on the synthesis of cultural, anthr...
Abstract: As far as the intersections between word and image are concerned, the motif of Noli me tangere implies a complex interplay between the three issues of telling, thinking and experiencing images. In this essay, I seek to understand Noli me tangere exactly within this interplay. The first part consists of a short overview of the various interpretations of Noli me tangere. The second part proposes a visual reading and interpretation of the motif in the light of the transposition from text to image. This method remains close to the specific features of the narrative on the one hand, and of the visual medium on the other. The last part deals with some early modern paintings in Florence as an iconological test case.