Icons Images

What gives beauty such fascinating power? Why is beauty so easy to recognize but so hard to define? Across cultures and continents and over the centuries the standards of beauty have changed but the desire to portray beauty, to praise beauty, and to possess beauty has never diminished. Icons of Beauty offers an enthralling overview of the most revered icons of female beauty in world art from pre-history to the present. From images of Eve to Cindy Sherman's self-portraits, from Cleopatra to Madonna, from ancient goddesses to modern celebrities, this interdisciplinary set offers fresh insight as to how we can use perceptions of beauty to learn about world cultures, both past and present. Each chapter looks at an individual work of art to pose a question about the power of beauty. What makes beauty modern? What is the influence of celebrities? How do women portray their own beauty in a different manner than men? In-depth profiles of the icons reveal how specific ideas about beauty were developed and expressed, offering a full analysis of their history, cultural significance, and lasting influence. In addition to renowned works of art, Icons of Beauty also looks at icons in literature, film, politics, and contemporary entertainment. Interdisciplinary and multicultural in its approach, chapters inside this set also feature sidebars on provocative topics and issues, such as foot binding and body adornment; myths and practices; opinions and interpretations; and even related films, songs, and even comic book characters. Generously illustrated, this rich set encompasses history, politics, society, women's studies, and art history, making it an indispensable resource for high school and college students as well as general readers.

Byzantine and Russian Orthodox icons are perhaps the most enduring form of religious art ever developed--and one of the most mysterious. This book provides an accessible guide to their story and power. Illustrated mostly with Cretan, Greek, and Russian examples from the British Museum, which houses Britain's most important collection, the book examines icons in the context of the history of Christianity, as well as within the perspective of art history.

ÿ The experience of the divine has been referred to by many artists over the centuries, whether their subject was the human figure, landscape, still life or indeed religious or biblical themes. Art therefore requires a kind of openness; a willingness to mediate rather than to control. This sensitivity can best be described as humility, an obeisance to something we are part of. Therefore, to 'see' the 'unseen' in visual arts brings about awe and requires 'iconic viewing'. The spiritual realm, as portrayed by icons, has a healing quality in a world where the news and the arts are so full of tragedy and where the church's message so often sounds escapist or na‹ve.

This book argues that the extraordinary force of the image in contemporary life?the contemporary imaginary?can be traced back to the Byzantine iconoclastic controversy of the eighth and ninth centuries.

Isolated in the remote Egyptian desert, at the base of Mount Sinai, sits the oldest continuously inhabited monastery in the Christian world. The Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine at Sinai holds the most important collection of Byzantine icons remaining today. This catalogue, published in conjuction with the exhibition Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai, on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum from November 14, 2006, to March 4, 2007, features forty-three of the monastery's extremely rare--and rarely exhibited--icons and six manuscripts still little-known to the world at large. The exhibition and catalogue bring to life the central role of the icon in Byzantine religious practices. Themes include the icon's status as holy object, the ways in which the icon sanctified the place of worship, and the monks' quest for the holy. The Greek Orthodox monastery at Mount Sinai not only functioned as a major pilgrimage site for centuries but was also a cultural crossroads at the center of the shifting sands of ecclesiastical and secular politics. The accompanying essays explore how the monastery's contact with the outside world, through pilgrimage, resulted in aesthetic exchanges between the monastery and Coptic, Crusader, and Islamic art; and between the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic communities in Europe.

The function of images in the major illustrated English poetic works from the Anglo-Saxon period to the early fifteenth century is the primary concern of this book. Hilmo argues that the illustrations have not been sufficiently understood because modern judgments about their artistic merit and fidelity to the literary texts have got in the way of a historical understanding of their function. The author here proves that artists took their work seriously because images represented an invisible order of reality, that they were familiar with the vernacular poems, and that they were innovative in adapting existing iconographies to guide the ethical reading process of their audience. To provide a theoretical basis for the understanding of early monuments, artefacts, and texts, she examines patristic opinions on image-making, supported by the most authoritative modern sources. Fresh emphasis is given to the iconic nature of medieval images from the time of the iconoclastic debates of the 8th and 9th centuries to the renewed anxiety of image-making at the time of the Lollard attacks on images. She offers an important revision of the reading of the Ruthwell Cross, which changes radically the interpretation of the Cross as a whole. Among the manuscripts examined here are the Caedmon, Auchinleck, Vernon, and Pearl manuscripts. Hilmo's thesis is not confined to overtly religious texts and images, but deals also with historical writing, such as Layamon's Brut, and with poetry designed ostensibly for entertainment, such as the Canterbury Tales. This study convincingly demonstrates how the visual and the verbal interactively manifest the real "text" of each illustrated literary work. The artistic elements place vernacular works within a larger iconographic framework in which human composition is seen to relate to the activities of the divine Author and Artificer.Whether iconic or anti-iconic in stance, images, by their nature, were a potent means of influencing the way an English author's words, accessible in the vernacular, were thought about and understood within the context of the theology of the Incarnation that informed them and governed their aesthetic of spiritual function. This is the first study to cover the range of illustrated English poems from the Anglo-Saxon period to the early 15th century.

The essays in this volume focus on the historical, institutional, and ritual context of a number of Japanese Buddhist paintings, sculptures, calligraphies, and relics?some celebrated, others long overlooked.

Icons of Space: Advances in Hierotopy brings together important scholars of Byzantine religion, art, and architecture, to honour the work of renowned art historian Alexei Lidov. As well as his numerous publications, Lidov is well known for developing the concept of hierotopy, an innovative approach for studying the creation of sacred spaces. Hierotopy and the related concepts of ‘spatial icons’ and ‘image-paradigms’ emphasize fundamental questions about icons, including what defines them as structures, spaces, and experiences. Chapters in this volume engage with the overarching theme of icons of space by employing, contrasting, and complementing methods of hierotopy with more traditional approaches such as iconography. Examinations of icons have traditionally been positioned within strictly historical, theological, socio-economic, political, and art history domains, but this volume poses epistemological questions about the creation of sacred spaces that are instead inclusive of multi-layered iconic ideas and the lived experiences of the creators and beholders of such spaces. This book contributes to image theory and theories of architecture and sacred space. Simultaneously, it moves beyond colonial studies that predominantly focus on questions of religion and politics as expressions of privileged knowledge and power. This book will appeal to scholars and students of Byzantine history, as well as those interested in hierotopy and art history.

Global Icons considers how highly visible public figures such as Mother Theresa become global icons capable of galvanizing intense affect and sometimes even catalyzing social change.

This book, newly revised and updated, examines the Eastern Church's theology of icons chiefly on the basis of the acta of the Seventh Ecumenical Council of 787. The political circumstances leading to the outbreak of the iconclast controversy in the eighth century are discussed in detail, but the main emphasis is on the theological arguments and assumptions of the council participants. Major themes include the nature of tradition, the relationship between image and reality, and the place of christology. Ultimately the argument over icons was about the accessibility of the divine. Icons were held by the iconophiles to communicate a deifying grace which raised the believer to participation in the life of God.