Picture and text: on the “iconography” of sacred spaces in middle-Byzantine ekphraseis
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Beatrice Daskas
Abstract
The present contribution engages with two representative examples of middle-Byzantine ekphraseis, Photios’ description of the Virgin of the Pharos and Leo VI’s account of the church founded by Stylianos Zautzes. It aims at showing how these texts suggest modes of viewing the sacred space and decoration that pose, more than settle, questions about images and pictures, their intended function, significance and impact within their specific cultural frames of reference. Far from being neutral and disengaged, these verbal representations have a specific agenda, which inflects the audience’s perception and interpretation of the decorated church space. Comparisons with coeval monumental evidence are also offered, in order to analyze textual and visual developments in parallel.
© 2020 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Inhalt
- Siglenverzeichnis
- I. ABTEILUNG
- Style et idéologie. De la version longue à la version brève de la Vie de Jean l’Aumônier, due à Léonce de Néapolis
- Picture and text: on the “iconography” of sacred spaces in middle-Byzantine ekphraseis
- A lifetime with Proclus: Psellos as reader
- Bessarionea
- Herennius Philon’s progeny: Ps-Ammonius, Eustathius and the term συγγραφεῖς in postclassical times
- The rhetorical works of the school of Gaza
- New evidence regarding the early history of the Monastery of Vatopedi (Mt Athos): unpublished sigillographical material
- Un fantôme historique : «l’autre Theophane»
- Socrates the judge: a not-so-platonizing dialogue on the deposition of patriarch Nicholas IV Mouzalon
- II. ABTEILUNG
- The Petra Papyri V, besprochen von Theresia Schusser
- Byzantine poetry from Pisides to Geometres: texts and contexts, volume 2, besprochen von Baukje van den Berg
- Le Commentaire de Théodoret de Cyr sur l’Epître aux Romains, besprochen von Wolfram Kinzig
- Iberische Halbinsel und Marokko; Johannes G. Deckers, Guntram Koch. Konstantinopel, besprochen von Martin Dennert
- Ἰμπέριος καὶ Μαργαρώνα, besprochen von Carolina Cupane
- Византийский Понт и Грузия, besprochen von Rudolf Stefec
- Nachrichten
- Totentafel
- Nachruf Joachim Kramer (15. 5.1936–11. 9. 2018)
- Tafelanhang
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Inhalt
- Siglenverzeichnis
- I. ABTEILUNG
- Style et idéologie. De la version longue à la version brève de la Vie de Jean l’Aumônier, due à Léonce de Néapolis
- Picture and text: on the “iconography” of sacred spaces in middle-Byzantine ekphraseis
- A lifetime with Proclus: Psellos as reader
- Bessarionea
- Herennius Philon’s progeny: Ps-Ammonius, Eustathius and the term συγγραφεῖς in postclassical times
- The rhetorical works of the school of Gaza
- New evidence regarding the early history of the Monastery of Vatopedi (Mt Athos): unpublished sigillographical material
- Un fantôme historique : «l’autre Theophane»
- Socrates the judge: a not-so-platonizing dialogue on the deposition of patriarch Nicholas IV Mouzalon
- II. ABTEILUNG
- The Petra Papyri V, besprochen von Theresia Schusser
- Byzantine poetry from Pisides to Geometres: texts and contexts, volume 2, besprochen von Baukje van den Berg
- Le Commentaire de Théodoret de Cyr sur l’Epître aux Romains, besprochen von Wolfram Kinzig
- Iberische Halbinsel und Marokko; Johannes G. Deckers, Guntram Koch. Konstantinopel, besprochen von Martin Dennert
- Ἰμπέριος καὶ Μαργαρώνα, besprochen von Carolina Cupane
- Византийский Понт и Грузия, besprochen von Rudolf Stefec
- Nachrichten
- Totentafel
- Nachruf Joachim Kramer (15. 5.1936–11. 9. 2018)
- Tafelanhang
