Subtle bodies : representing angels in Byzantium /
Explores the strategies used by Byzantine artists to represent the incorporeal forms of angels and the rationalizations in defence of their representations mustered by theologians in the face of iconoclastic opposition. These problems of representation provide a window on Late Antique thought.
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Licensed eBooks |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Berkeley :
University of California Press
©2001.
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| Series: | Transformation of the classical heritage ;
32. |
| Online Access: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pnv2w |
| Summary: | Explores the strategies used by Byzantine artists to represent the incorporeal forms of angels and the rationalizations in defence of their representations mustered by theologians in the face of iconoclastic opposition. These problems of representation provide a window on Late Antique thought. "Peers makes excellent use of primary sources in considering this intellectually challenging question. He looks at icons of angels, saints' lives, legends and hagiographic narratives of angelic apparitions, the writings of Greek church fathers, and other texts to show how strategies were devised to cope with these representational difficulties. Many of these sources have never been brought together into one account, and Peers elicits novel and striking connections across the texts, as well as between the texts and images." "Peers brings to bear modern approaches - including Michael Foucault's ideas concerning Rene Magritte - on questions of representation in Byzantium. In showing how this culture sought to represent the unrepresentable, Peers sheds much light on early Christian theology, aesthetics, and popular devotion as he unravels the complex interplay among biblical texts, theological thought, church doctrine, and artistic creativity."--BOOK JACKET. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xv, 235 pages) : illustrations |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-230) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780520925137 0520925130 1417523840 9781417523849 9780520224056 0520224051 1597349240 9781597349246 9786612356308 6612356308 1282356305 9781282356306 |