Art of the Byzantine World. Individuality in Artistic Creativity. A Collection of Essays in Honour of Olga Popova, ed. by A. Zakharova, O. Ovcharova, I. Oretskaia – Moscow, State Institute for Art Studies, 2021
В сборник вошли статьи по материалам конференции «Искусство византийского мира. Индивидуальность ... more В сборник вошли статьи по материалам конференции «Искусство византийского мира. Индивидуальность в художественном творчестве», состоявшейся - ноября года и посвященной выдающемуся ученому Ольге Сигизмундовне Поповой (-). Работы российских и зарубежных специалистов по искусству Византии и соседних стран освещают круг проблем, связанных с понятием индивидуальности: роль художника и заказчика, творчество в рамках традиции, соотношение столичных и региональных тенденций. Издание предназначено для специалистов и широкого круга читателей, интересующихся византийской культурой. Art of the Byzantine World. Individuality in Artistic Creativity. A Collection of Essays in Honour of Olga Popova / Ed. by A. Zakharova, O. Ovcharova, I. Oretskaia-Moscow, State Institute for Art Studies, - p. The collection includes papers from the conference 'Art of the Byzantine World. Individuality in Artistic Creativity', which took place on - November and was dedicated to the prominent scholar Olga Popova (-). Essays by Russian and foreign specialists on the art of Byzantium and its neighbours investigate a range of problems connected with individuality: the roles of artists and donors, creativity and tradition, metropolitan and regional tendencies. This publication is intended for specialists and readers interested in various aspects of Byzantine culture.
Uploads
Books by Silvia Pedone
L’attenzione per gli studi pertinenti all’evoluzionismo l’hanno condotta a ri- levare aspetti determinanti della soggettività della visione e al variare della visione nel tempo. L’esame diretto di numerosi monumenti rappresentativi della civiltà bizantina le hanno consentito una serie di puntuali osservazioni sul rapporto fra architettura e decorazione parietale, scultura, mosaico, stucco, niello.
Una seconda parte è dedicata ai materiali e alle tecniche della policromia, accompagnata da un’attenta descrizione dei procedimenti di lavorazione e delle modalità di recupero, producendo anche interessanti forme di ricostruzione grafica nell’ambito delle decorazioni in cavo.
Di particolare rilievo risultano le indagini su contesti di grande importanza per l’architettura e la decorazione nel mondo bizantino, in particolare a Costanti- nopoli, dove Silvia Pedone ha lavorato nell’impegnativo progetto sviluppato nella Santa Sofia da un’equipe italiana; la permanenza ad Istanbul ha permesso all’au- trice una approfondita conoscenza dei monumenti della Capitale bizantina.
Tra i casi di studio Silvia Pedone presenta tre contesti di grande rilievo dell’A- natolia interna, in particolare della Frigia (Hierapolis, Sebaste ed Amorium); dalla sua partecipazione alle attività della Missione Archeologica Italiana a Hiera- polis deriva lo studio dello straordinario complesso santuariale sorto sulla tomba dell’Apostolo Filippo, del quale ella presenta, con un’analisi delle componenti tecniche e stilistiche, l’apparato decorativo in gran parte inedito.
In questi capitoli conclusivi l’autrice giunge a riconoscere, attraverso l’analisi dei materiali, singole tradizioni locali nel quadro di una più generale evoluzione della decorazione architettonica nelle province bizantine.
This (often unacknowledged) conflict between the lasting influence of mimesis and its critics underlies much of 20th-century history and art theory, but not only. Thus, it already can be found in the writings of, say, Saint Augustine or Lessing before, in the 20th century, it will be picked up by a group of very different authors ranging from Riegl and Fiedler to Goodman and Greenberg, up to the protagonists of the Iconic Turn. All of them reject figuration and mimesis because it puts at risk the supposed “epistemic” autonomy and purity of the visual arts. For that reason, the refusal of mimesis was hailed as a historical accomplishment, as emancipation and deliverance of the visual from its sister arts and any natural foundation that could not be reduced to cultural or historical relativism. Moreover, this celebration of the purity of the medium went along with the simultaneous discovery of the “power of images” and the “agency of art,” which freed images from their mimetic limitations and, instead, attributed to them the ability to create rather than re-produce reality.
The antimimetic attitude, thus, turns into an ideological position built on a shaky theoretical foundation. This monographic edition of Elephant and Castle will focus on the origins, reasons, and
consequences of what it calls mimetophobia. Our goal is not only to discuss the history and modes of iconoclasm; anthropological anxiety, ancient and modern, of images, above all of those ones which resemble “too much”. In addition, we are also interested in analyzing the more elusive anxiety of acknowledging the gnoseologic and cognitive presuppositions that are the condition of any kind of both iconoclasm and iconophilia. In the wake of important discussions of the fear of the Other and otherness, it seems as if the time has come to look at the “other half” of the problem, the anxiety of Like and likeness.
Papers by Silvia Pedone
L’attenzione per gli studi pertinenti all’evoluzionismo l’hanno condotta a ri- levare aspetti determinanti della soggettività della visione e al variare della visione nel tempo. L’esame diretto di numerosi monumenti rappresentativi della civiltà bizantina le hanno consentito una serie di puntuali osservazioni sul rapporto fra architettura e decorazione parietale, scultura, mosaico, stucco, niello.
Una seconda parte è dedicata ai materiali e alle tecniche della policromia, accompagnata da un’attenta descrizione dei procedimenti di lavorazione e delle modalità di recupero, producendo anche interessanti forme di ricostruzione grafica nell’ambito delle decorazioni in cavo.
Di particolare rilievo risultano le indagini su contesti di grande importanza per l’architettura e la decorazione nel mondo bizantino, in particolare a Costanti- nopoli, dove Silvia Pedone ha lavorato nell’impegnativo progetto sviluppato nella Santa Sofia da un’equipe italiana; la permanenza ad Istanbul ha permesso all’au- trice una approfondita conoscenza dei monumenti della Capitale bizantina.
Tra i casi di studio Silvia Pedone presenta tre contesti di grande rilievo dell’A- natolia interna, in particolare della Frigia (Hierapolis, Sebaste ed Amorium); dalla sua partecipazione alle attività della Missione Archeologica Italiana a Hiera- polis deriva lo studio dello straordinario complesso santuariale sorto sulla tomba dell’Apostolo Filippo, del quale ella presenta, con un’analisi delle componenti tecniche e stilistiche, l’apparato decorativo in gran parte inedito.
In questi capitoli conclusivi l’autrice giunge a riconoscere, attraverso l’analisi dei materiali, singole tradizioni locali nel quadro di una più generale evoluzione della decorazione architettonica nelle province bizantine.
This (often unacknowledged) conflict between the lasting influence of mimesis and its critics underlies much of 20th-century history and art theory, but not only. Thus, it already can be found in the writings of, say, Saint Augustine or Lessing before, in the 20th century, it will be picked up by a group of very different authors ranging from Riegl and Fiedler to Goodman and Greenberg, up to the protagonists of the Iconic Turn. All of them reject figuration and mimesis because it puts at risk the supposed “epistemic” autonomy and purity of the visual arts. For that reason, the refusal of mimesis was hailed as a historical accomplishment, as emancipation and deliverance of the visual from its sister arts and any natural foundation that could not be reduced to cultural or historical relativism. Moreover, this celebration of the purity of the medium went along with the simultaneous discovery of the “power of images” and the “agency of art,” which freed images from their mimetic limitations and, instead, attributed to them the ability to create rather than re-produce reality.
The antimimetic attitude, thus, turns into an ideological position built on a shaky theoretical foundation. This monographic edition of Elephant and Castle will focus on the origins, reasons, and
consequences of what it calls mimetophobia. Our goal is not only to discuss the history and modes of iconoclasm; anthropological anxiety, ancient and modern, of images, above all of those ones which resemble “too much”. In addition, we are also interested in analyzing the more elusive anxiety of acknowledging the gnoseologic and cognitive presuppositions that are the condition of any kind of both iconoclasm and iconophilia. In the wake of important discussions of the fear of the Other and otherness, it seems as if the time has come to look at the “other half” of the problem, the anxiety of Like and likeness.
His voyage, very long in time and space (three and a half years, between 1271 and 1275, and a distance of some 12,000 kilometres), crosses mythical lands, of different cultures and religions, from Venice to Xanadu (China): through Armenia, the Iranian plateau and the mountains of the Hindu Kush, passing by the territories of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea; between fertile lands, steppes and the inhospitable deserts of the Taklamakan and the Gobi. If the outward journey was almost entirely by land, the return to Venice (24 years after departure) will be mainly by sea: through the South China Sea, the Strait of Malacca, the Bay of Bengal, Ceylon, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf.
Marco Polo with his accounts arouses curiosity, great wonder. Although he is a typical western man and Christian educated, he observes facts and situations without too many prejudices and cultural blocks, even if there is a certain hostility towards Muslims, probably to be found in a historical-political context characterised by the Crusades.
Marco's voyage, with his father Niccolò and his uncle Matteo Polo, becomes much more than a simple and never-ending commercial voyage: it is an epic in which various actors join in, often by small strokes, including religious and ecclesiastical figures, an expression of the Pope of Rome's desire to understand the real extent of those 'borders of the world', towards which the missionary mandate of evangelical memory was oriented.
Undoubtedly, members of the Order of the Black Friars (Dominican Preachers), already well present in Marco Polo’s Venice, were among these ecclesiastical avant-garde wished by the pontiff. However, Fra Francesco Pipino, a Dominican friar who translated Marco Polo’s Il Milione into Latin between 1302 and 1315, partly condensing it and providing it with a new prologue, was not Venetian. Pippin, for this translation, perhaps the best known of all, did not however use the original text, but had recourse to a Venetian vulgarization. There was probably another Dominican Latin version of Il Milione, as can be deduced from archive documents showing links between the Venetian traveller and the Dominicans of the Serenissima. Members of the Order of Preachers, they advocated the spreading of the text in their preaching and teaching, not only in Italy, but also in France and England, combining approaches based on codicology, diplomatics, history, philology, religion and art history.
La nostra call è quindi aperta a quei contributi che vogliano affrontare il tema da punti di vista diversi, e che siano interessati a trattarne gli aspetti teorici, critici e metodologici più generali o anche una casistica più specificamente circoscritta, nell’ambito degli studi storico-artistici e dei visual studies, ma pure in una prospettiva largamente multidisciplinare.
Le proposte di contributo dovranno essere inviate dagli interessati entro il 15 giugno 2020 ai seguenti indirizzi e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] corredate da titolo e abstract (max 1000 battute), e breve bio-bibliografia dell’autore (max 500 battute). Sono ammessi testi in lingua italiana, inglese, francese e tedesca. I risultati della selezione verrano comunicati entro il mese successivo, con il contestuale invio delle norme per la redazione dei testi.
La pubblicazione del numero monografico è prevista per 21 settembre 2020.
Sitoweb: https://cav.unibg.it/elephant_castle/web/it_IT/call_for_papers
Norme editoriali: https://cav.unibg.it/elephant_castle/web/uploads/newsletter/e&c_norme.pdf
______________________________________________________________________________
Mimetophobia. Who’s afraid of resemblance?
a cura di Michele Di Monte, Benjamin Paul, Silvia Pedone
According to Plato, “God is always bringing like to like, and makes them acquainted.” And yet, the same philosopher also warned us that this is only “half” the truth. Plato’s ambiguity about resemblance carried into modern critical thinking, in which it probably is an even more controversial category. In fact, the very definition of modernity – for instance, in Michel Foucault’s famous account – depends on the opening-up of an epistemological divide, in which resemblance and likeness are “relegated” to a Renaissance episteme in order to neutralize it as an “archaeological” and thus outdated form of knowledge. It is telling, however, that not even Foucault was able to initiate his reconstruction work without acknowledging at least the possibility of there being some kind of recursiveness or similarities, a series of analogies and resemblances within a setting, a time period, or episteme of some kind. At the same time, however, what would the alternative scenario look like of those who remain unconvinced by Foucault’s relegating resemblance into a distant past, other than simply acknowledging the empirical evidence of these “correspondences”? What is the theoretical basis for the historical evidence of the continuing prevalence of the episteme “resemblance” in the visual arts? , which, instead, stubbornly resists those desperate to turn it into a thing of the past.
This (often unacknowledged) conflict between the lasting influence of mimesis and its critics underlies much of 20th-century history and art theory, but not only. Thus, it already can be found in the writings of, say, Saint Augustine or Lessing before, in the 20th century, it will be picked up by a group of very different authors ranging from Riegl and Fiedler to Goodman and Greenberg, up to the protagonists of the Iconic Turn. All of them reject figuration and mimesis because it puts at risk the supposed “epistemic” autonomy and purity of the visual arts. For that reason, the refusal of mimesis was hailed as a historical accomplishment, as emancipation and deliverance of the visual from its sister arts and any natural foundation that could not be reduced to cultural or historical relativism. Moreover, this celebration of the purity of the medium went along with the simultaneous discovery of the “power of images” and the “agency of art,” which freed images from their mimetic limitations and, instead, attributed to them the ability to create rather than re-produce reality.
The antimimetic attitude, thus, turns into an ideological position built on a shaky theoretical foundation. This monographic edition of Elephant and Castle will focus on the origins, reasons, and consequences of what it calls mimetophobia. Our goal is not only to discuss the history and modes of iconoclasm; anthropological anxiety, ancient and modern, of images, above all of those ones which resemble “too much”. In addition, we are also interested in analyzing the more elusive anxiety of acknowledging the gnoseologic and cognitive presuppositions that are the condition of any kind of both iconoclasm and iconophilia. In the wake of important discussions of the fear of the Other and otherness, it seems as if the time has come to look at the “other half” of the problem, the anxiety of Like and likeness.
Our call for papers, therefore, welcomes a variety of takes on the subject, including theoretical, critical, and methodological approaches in addition to focused case studies. It is not limited to any period or culture and invites interdisciplinary studies.
We ask for abstracts that do not exceed 1000 letters and a short biography (max 5000 letters), both of which have to be submitted by June 15th, 2020 to the following e-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected].
You can expect a response from the editors within a month or so as the publication of the monographic edition of Elephant and Castle is scheduled for September 21st, 2020. Contributions may be in Italian, English, French, and German.
Sitoweb: https://cav.unibg.it/elephant_castle/web/it_IT/call_for_papers
Editorial Guidelines: https://cav.unibg.it/elephant_castle/web/uploads/newsletter/e&c_norme.pdf