Artistic Evidence Research Articles

Why the Shroud of Turin is not a Medieval Work?

The Shroud of Turin is an old linen fabric imprinted with the image of a tortured man who lies prone with his hands crossed before him. Since for many it is related to Jesus of Nazareth, this cloth is among the most studied, controversial and enigmatic of all archaeological and religious objects. Since its radiocarbon dating at the end of the eighties of the last century, it is considered by many to be an object made in the Middle Ages. The controversy is due to the fact that there are other scientific and artistic evidences that place this object outside the medieval sphere. An argument map is a critical thinking way of representing the relationships between evidences and arguments, and is used here to represent the sequences of argumentation that defend that the Shroud of Turin is not a medieval object.

Voortrekker Pieter Mauritz Burg

The Voortrekkerperiod of Pietermaritzburg's development has received scant attention and inaccurate conclusions, based almost exclusively on incomplete archival records, have been drawn. A re-examination of the written record, with the use of artistic evidence, not totally sheds further light on the dorp's embryonic history; it also reveals that Pietermaritzburg is a repository of Voortrekker domestic architecture.

Interwoven Concepts of Ascetic, God, and Relic: An Iconographical Innovation During Pre-Modern Period in South India

AbstractThis research brings to light a paradoxical phenomenon of mummification and veneration of “whole-body relic” of the ascetic whose remains are enshrined in a vṛndāvana. The term vṛndāvana is normally attributed to the garden where Krsna and the gopis danced in eternal bliss. However, the relic of the ascetic head of a sectarian monastery is termed as vṛndāvana as well. There are numerous relic memorials in the sectarian Vedānta Vaisnava Dvaita monastery and its branches, where it is worshipped particularly in the state of Karnataka. This paper is an investigation into the rationale for the naming of the whole-body relic memorial as vṛndāvana. Such an attribution in term to a memorial and icon of an ascetic head and a transformation of its meaning is a conundrum. I argue that the rationale for such an adoption lies in the geographical, mythological, metaphysical, and philosophical connections between Krsna’s vṛndāvana and that of the ascetic. The sources that I have used in order to comprehend the traditional concepts and historical context include ancient Pūraṇas, archeological and artistic evidence, bhakti poetry, and discussions with living ascetics. This multidisciplinary exploration reveals the inventive genius of Dvaita monasteries and the sacred interchangeable concept-status and sacredness, dead and living between the ascetic and God.

The quality and equality of personal and professional development in teacher-artist partnerships

Partnership implies equality. However, while earlier iterations of Teacher-Artist Partnership (TAP) failed to acknowledge teacher professionalism in their structure and implementation, more recent TAP evaluations tend to focus exclusively on teacher professional development. There is little in the way of documented evidence of artists’ development in TAP, let alone efforts to describe it. Case studies of two Irish I-TAP-PD residencies are presented below to illuminate the nature of the learning both professionals experienced through the I-TAP-PD process. The premise is to generate dialogue about the quality and equality of learning in TAP for both artists and teachers and prompt further research into this important area of enquiry. The case studies indicate that ongoing dialogue and practice between partners of equal status are key in generating real insight into children’s learning through the arts. And such insights have much to contribute to evolving TAP practices for the betterment of our arts-in-education provision for children in our schools.

Discovery of art-based distillation: Doctoral inquiry of the one-canvas method

The one-canvas method is heavily oriented to the interplay of images that transform over a sustained period. Art-based inquiry that explored how compositions were created and transformed was led by two core assumptions of Shaun McNiff’s vision: art-making communicates differently from linear and logical comprehension and language, and an aesthetic focus generates unique ways of understanding and creating knowledge. This article reflects on the distillation of artistic evidence, an ongoing refining and discovery process through which outcomes emerge, that required a continual return to the one-canvas art and art-making as centres of discovery. Illuminating McNiff’s commitment to art as evidence, the primacy of the artist-self fostered empirical exploration that felt honest, alive and generative. McNiff’s curiosities about multiple perspectives with attention to whole-body multi-sensory observation, engagement as researcher-participant and reflection using digital media were integral to a research design that culminated in artistic essence as discovery.

Vocational Interests and Teaching Preferences: Who Prefers Which Teaching Topic in the Nature-Human-Society Subject?

This study focuses on the vocational interests of trainee teachers for kindergarten and primary school, investigating whether the RIASEC-interest dimensions are related to teaching preferences in the Swiss subject of Nature-Human-Society, which is characterized by its multidisciplinarity. Interests are a source of individual differences in people and important to study since they influence intrinsic motivation, and thus, behavior, effort, and occupational decisions. The results of the conducted survey, composed of the Nature-Human-Society questionnaire and the general interest structure test (AIST-R), show, in a sample of 220 participants, that trainee teachers' vocational interests were partly related to their previous experiences in the specific content domains of Nature-Human-Society and slightly differed by gender. The RIASEC interest dimensions of social, investigative, realistic, and partly artistic evidence significant correlations with preferences in the teaching topics of the Nature-Human-Society subject. It became clear that trainee teachers with high realistic and investigative interests and low social and artistic interests tended to prefer thing-related teaching topics, while pronounced social and artistic interests with low realistic and investigative interests were associated with teaching preferences for people-related topics in the subject of Nature-Human-Society. The dominant role of Prediger's people- versus thing-related interest orientation could thus also be confirmed in the choice of favorite teaching topics, signaling that teachers feel comfortable with those topics that match their interest structure.

Discourse on Artistic Evidence and the Five Canons of Rhetoric in the 2022 National Education Day Speech

Communication is not only aimed at conveying messages, but providing information and persuasion to the other person. The ability to communicate is needed because it has an impact on strengthening the quality of the arguments presented. This study aims to: 1) describe the artistic evidence contained in National Education Day speeches, namely ethos, logos, and panthos., 2) describe the five canons of rhetoric in National Education Day speeches. This research is a qualitative descriptive study. The data collection technique used is the observation and note taking technique. The data used are utterances on National Education Day speeches which contain artistic evidence and the five canons of rhetoric. This study uses data analysis techniques, namely content analysis. The results of this study are that there is artistic evidence and the five canons of rhetoric in National Education Day speeches namely Inventio/Discovery, Dispositio/Arrangement, Style, Pronuntiatio/Delivery, and Memory.

Ancestral Dignity in Public Monuments

Ancestral Dignity in Public Monuments

Экзистенциальная терапия шумерско-аккадской цивилизации: чему учит опыт предков?

Therapy of existential distress of incurable patients is no less important task of palliative medicine than, in fact, relief ofphysical pain. At the same time, the unreliability of the means used in this field, noted by experts, forces us to pay attention to their al-ternative in the form of psychedelics-entheogens, whose therapeutic potential, judging by the content of world mythology, was well known to our distant ancestors. The research of this storehouse of information about the historical experience of mankind could explain a lot about the "historical amnesia" of society in relation to these substances, and perhaps change something in the current campaign for the benefit of the dying. Aim: to investigate the reason for the prohibition of the archaic practice of using entheogens and to find out the source of modern thanatophobia on the model of the first high civilization of Sumer and Akkad in human history.Methods: Analysis of literary sources, the historical method, a systematic approach.Results: The role of the use of entheogens in the therapy of thanatophobia is determined. The destructive influence on the produc-tion sphereof the archaic tradition of free access to these substances within the cult, which threatened the very existence of civilization, is proved.Conclusion: The proposed brief analysis of the well-known plot of Mesopotamian mythology "The Flight of Etana" allows us to see in it literary and artistic evidence of the effectiveness of the archaic tradition of using entheogens as a means of thanatophobia ther-apy. At the same time, the contradictory nature of the influence of this practice on the spiritual, psychological and socio-economic foundations of the Sumerian-Akkadian civilization is revealed, the reason for the objective-historical ban on the use of entheogens is explained, with an illustration of the existential consequences of this event for the population of the Mesopotamia.

Defining Conjunto Quantitatively: Classical and Modernist Styles in a Texas-Mexican Genre

Defining <i>Conjunto</i> Quantitatively: Classical and Modernist Styles in a Texas-Mexican Genre

Reclaiming the Classics for a Diverse and Global World Through OER

In the 2019–20 academic year, I redesigned a course on the classics to make both the texts and the context in which they were taught more accessible for and relevant to the predominantly female students of Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame. The course was re-centered on the dialogue between the ever-evolving and diverse cultures within Greece and the Roman empire and surrounding regions such as Egypt, Ethiopia, and Persia; issues caused by slavery and economic inequality; conceptions of gender roles and sexuality, race and ethnicity, and migration and citizenship; the troubling appropriation of classical motifs and texts by fascist groups in the twentieth century and some alt-right groups and sexual predators in the twenty-first century; and on recent initiatives meant to demonstrate the diversity of both Greek and Roman cultures through documentary, artistic, and archaeological evidence (particularly in the digital humanities and in museums and libraries). I also wanted to make the course close to zero cost for students and to shift to digital texts which lent themselves to interactivity and social scholarship. Our librarian, Catherine Pellegrino, obtained multi-user e-books for modern reinterpretations of classical works still in copyright. A LibreTexts grant enabled the co-authors of this article—the course instructor (and lead author) and two paid student researchers—and a team of summer-employed student collaborators to edit, footnote, and create critical introductions and student activities for various key texts for the course. Many of these texts are now hosted on the LibreTexts OER platform. Beta versions of enriched OER texts and activities were user tested in a synchronous hybrid virtual/physical classroom of twenty-five students, who were taking the course (HUST 292) in the fall semester of 2020.

Henry of Blois, New Interpretations ed. by William Kynan-Wilson and John Munns

Reviewed by: Henry of Blois, New Interpretations ed. by William Kynan-Wilson and John Munns Benjamin Bertrand William Kynan-Wilson and John Munns, eds., Henry of Blois, New Interpretations ( Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020), xvii + 289 pp., 60 ills. This new volume offers an exciting collection of interdisciplinary essays on a well-known but seldom-studied player in twelfth-century English history, Henry of Blois. By calling attention to the multifaceted career of this bishop, abbot, papal legate, and brother to King Stephen of England, the contributors hope to subvert long-standing historiographical biases about his life and blaze a trail for future research. As editors William Kynan-Wilson and John Munns make clear in their introduction, historians have often trivialized Henry of Blois as a corrupt opportunist, disregarding his place as a churchman of international importance and as a powerful patron of the arts. The book and its nine collected essays are [End Page 260] the result of a symposium on the eponymous bishop held at Fitzwilliam College in 2015, with contributors from the fields of history, archaeology, and art history. By reexamining various aspects of Henry of Blois's life through available written, archaeological, and artistic evidence, the book's editors and contributors hope to inject new life into discussions of the bishop. Kynan-Wilson and Munns are careful to define the scope of their project in their introduction. They describe the book not as a new biography of Henry of Blois but as an attempt to "offer new interpretations of specific aspects of Henry's life, personality, career and significance as they have drawn the interest of individual contributors." (3). They are particularly interested in breaking down older scholarly interpretations that sought to characterize Henry's career as either a success or a failure. The editors seek to integrate Henry into "the narrative of medieval European history" by understanding him in the context of his many continental connections (2). There is a commendable focus in their introduction on the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholars who embraced Henry as a symbol of a more "muscular Church" (14). Their historiographical survey speaks favorably of Lena Voss's Heinrich von Blois, Bischof von Winchester, the last major monograph published on Henry in 1932, and somewhat less so of David Knowles's discussion of the bishop in his writing. Knowles's rather negative portrait of Henry as an opportunist and lackluster churchman is much of what this volume hopes to reinterpret. The editors' limited scope for the volume is both realistic and commendable, positioning the reader for the nine essays that follow. While not organized into sections per se, the volume's essays seem to have been grouped thematically, with the first three addressing Henry's place in twelfth-century ecclesiastical politics. M. J. Franklin's article concerns Henry's attachments and loyalties to the monastery where he was raised, Cluny. He pores over the evidence for Henry's itinerary, noting his many visits to the abbey and the considerable time and resources he devoted to it. Franklin argues that scholars must recognize this commitment to his mother house in order to understand fully Henry's political motivations. Barbara Bombi analyzes another aspect of Henry's career by focusing on his tenure as England's papal legate from 1139–43. She reassesses Henry's legatine achievements to argue that, rather than wielding his power capriciously and corruptly, Henry primarily used his position to advance Church reform and papal interests. She argues for a re-contextualization not only of his career but also of legatine powers in the twelfth century, offering a fresh perspective on Henry's legatine activities. John Munns's contribution to the volume further reconsiders Henry's episcopacy by comparing him to his "episcopal colleagues" (69). He pushes back on scholars who have characterized Henry as uniquely nepotistic, militaristic, and opportunistic. On the contrary, Munns suggests that his behavior was in fact fairly typical of English bishops at this time. He argues that historians have been too quick to "substitute caricature for complexity" when analyzing figures such as Henry of Blois (92). Throughout this handful of essays, the authors do an admirable job of providing context for the bishop's...

Effects of Climate Change on the Future of Heritage Buildings: Case Study and Applied Methodology

Heritage buildings and the precious artworks contained therein, represent inestimable cultural and artistic evidence from the past that must be properly preserved for future generations. In the last decades, climate change has gained relevance and is becoming crucial to assess the building performance under such effect to provide timely mitigation actions to preserve our cultural heritage. In this regard, this paper outlines a method that combines different experimental activities and tools to forecast possible future risks due to climate change for the conservation of the artworks and provide its application in a relevant case study in Italy, the Duomo di Milano. In detail, the suggested method consists of the monitoring of the building indoor climate to validate a simulation model, defining possible future scenarios based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections, and evaluation of the future conservation risks of the main artworks. The results of the analysis carried out, show that for some artworks (e.g., stone sculptures, some organic materials, etc.), the conservation conditions will not worsen compared to the current situation, while for others (e.g., paintings, wooden objects, etc.) the risk of deterioration is expected to increase substantially. This study helps to understand how the future climate can affect the indoor environment of a huge masonry building and allow to plan targeted mitigation strategies aimed to reduce the future risks.

«Географические неожиданности» и не только: поэтика водлозерского дневника С.Н. Дурылина

The article analyses the poetics of S.N. Durylin’s unpublished North (Vodlozero) diary. The researcher of this diary has the following tasks: to study the text from a functional point of view, to consider the features of genre form and genre content, to try to recreate the image of the author based on the text of the diary. Functionally, Durylin’s Northern diary is interesting because it is a travel essay about the North, in which the author describes not only historically significant landscapes, but also customs of the northerners. The author reveals the intimate experience of what he saw in the North, while the text is distinguished by the objectification of the described, since the notes were supposed to be handed over to the Archaeological Institute. In this case, for understanding the content of the diary genre, it is very important that this is Durylin’s first diary, created on the basis of daily records in July — August 1917, the diary of the so-called formation period, which caused another of its functions — “spiritual chronograph”. Thus, Durylin’s Vodlozero diary recreates the process of spiritual formation of the writer’s personality, and is also a valuable artistic evidence of the Russian national picture of the world.

«Географические неожиданности» и не только: поэтика водлозерского дневника С.Н. Дурылина

The article analyses the poetics of S.N. Durylin’s unpublished North (Vodlozero) diary. The researcher of this diary has the following tasks: to study the text from a functional point of view, to consider the features of genre form and genre content, to try to recreate the image of the author based on the text of the diary. Functionally, Durylin’s Northern diary is interesting because it is a travel essay about the North, in which the author describes not only historically significant landscapes, but also customs of the northerners. The author reveals the intimate experience of what he saw in the North, while the text is distinguished by the objectification of the described, since the notes were supposed to be handed over to the Archaeological Institute. In this case, for understanding the content of the diary genre, it is very important that this is Durylin’s first diary, created on the basis of daily records in July — August 1917, the diary of the so-called formation period, which caused another of its functions — “spiritual chronograph”. Thus, Durylin’s Vodlozero diary recreates the process of spiritual formation of the writer’s personality, and is also a valuable artistic evidence of the Russian national picture of the world.

Mary and Early Christian Women: Hidden Leadership by Ally Kateusz

Reviewed by: Mary and Early Christian Women: Hidden Leadership by Ally Kateusz Michael Beshay Mary and Early Christian Women: Hidden Leadership Ally Kateusz Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave MacMillan, 2019. Pp. xvii + 295. ISBN: 978-3-030-11111-6 What did the Virgin Mary mean to ancient Christians? Many historians of the early church might say "very little," given the slim record of her significance in the New Testament and patristic sources prior to the Council of Ephesus in 431 ce. Accordingly, Mary's then-authorized status as "Mother of God" (theotokos) prompted the church to sponsor her veneration, elevating her status to something quasi-divine, while increasingly holding her up as a model of obedience, submission, and self-sacrifice. Over the last decades, however, new insights have emerged about the Virgin's prominence prior to Ephesus, thanks to the concerted efforts of Marian scholars like Ally Kateusz, who have highlight Mary's conspicuous roles in apocryphal and "heretical" sources. Contrary to patristic writings, extracanonical sources portray Mary as a liturgical and apostolic leader. Several of Kateusz's previously published articles on these topics were revised and expanded for the book under review. How ancient, widespread, and enduring were these views of the Virgin Mary's authority? Ironically, feminist scholarship most accustomed to investigating this question, as it has in the case of other Marys (most prominently the Magdelene, less so Martha's sister), has resisted including the Virgin among its cast of exemplars of women's leadership. As Kateusz observes, "modern Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic interpretation, not to mention layers of their associated gender theology" has conditioned scholars to deny the Virgin the same favorable treatment as other New Testament women, despite the abundance of extracanonical literary and artistic evidence of her leadership (13). Kateusz's goal is to recover this history, "hiding in plain sight," of Mary's authority as priest and bishop—roles which indicate a persistent "discipleship of equals" (as Elizabeth Shüssler Fiorenza described the Jesus movement), which ancient scribes, the church of the West, and modern researchers have occluded. The first three chapters establish the book's aims, methods, and scope. Chapter 1 (re)introduces readers to the Virgin Mary as a founding Abrahamic figure through a cursory survey of principal sources, such as the Proto-gospel of James and the Gospel of Bartholomew. Kateusz foregrounds redaction analysis in her methodology, a means to investigate the ancient church's ideological struggles over gender roles. Kateusz approaches iconographic artifacts in much the same way, treating outlying depictions of women's leadership in the early [End Page 540] record as evidence of wider patterns of female authority based on their unlikely survival through centuries of suppression. In Chapter 2, Kateusz challenges the standard of lectio brevior potior (preferring the shortest reading) by meticulously demonstrating the tendency of scribes to excise or shorten texts around the markers of female authority. She notes especially the offense scribes took to women exorcising demons and bearing censers and incense—activities attributed to Mary in the earliest layer of the dormition narratives and several iconographic remains associated with the Anastasis shrine in Jerusalem. Chapter 3 extends the analysis to the testimonies surrounding extracanonical women like Mariamne, Irene, Nino, and Thecla, whose narrative traditions likewise expose a scribal bias against women prophesying, preaching, and baptizing. The next three chapters explore various dimensions of Mary's authority as priest and bishop. Chapter 4 analyzes iconographic scenes depicting Mary with arms raised—a gesture of blessing which Kateusz links to the high priesthood of the temple—and donning the episcopal pallium—a cloth worn by bishops while officiating the eucharist. By studying them alongside literary evidence of women's leadership, Kateusz argues that these scenes of Mary both idealized and reinforced clerical offices for women. Chapter 5 investigates liturgical objects, like chalices and censers, that pair Mary and Jesus, much as the earliest layers of the Proto-gospel of James and the dormition narratives invite comparisons between the Virgin Mother and her Son. Kateusz argues that the conventional dating of these artifacts to 500 ce or later may be too conservative, for it partly rests on the fraught premise that the Council of Ephesus...

Computer art in Italia negli anni Ottanta Tecnologia, matematica e immaginario scientifico

In the 1980s, the spread of personal computers gave impetus to the birth of a varied computer-based art scene. While traditional techniques prevail in the art system, computer art represents an experimental field in which the image is the product of mathematical formulas and algorithms. Artists, critics and art historians have described it as a new type of art, the latest encounter between humanistic and scientific culture. Moreover, since the computer is a scientific research machine – from astronomy to geometry, from medicine to physics – digital images stand between artistic invention and scientific evidence.

Composition, Comparison, and Concept

Abstract While recent discussions of music archaeology have emphasised the importance of context for the study of the art and archaeology of ancient music, there has not been much theoretical engagement with the objects themselves. This paper takes recent arguments concerning two objects identified as strobiloi to propose an object-based framework for the study of ancient art and archaeology in relation to ancient music. Contexts are not infallible. Being mindful of composition, comparisons, and concepts (the three core elements of the proposed framework), I argue that there is, as yet, no certain artistic or archaeological evidence for interpreting objects identified as strobiloi as musical devices, and that the Asteas Phrynis vase cannot be used as a reliable source for organological detail.

Settlement, Identity, and Memory in the Latin East: An Examination of the Term ‘Crusader States’

Abstract In a recent article, Christopher MacEvitt posited that historians should eschew the term ‘crusader states’ to describe the four polities formed in the Levant and Syria as a result of the First Crusade (the kingdom of Jerusalem, the principality of Antioch, and the counties of Edessa and Tripoli), arguing that crusading and its remembrance had little influence in the east, and so these states should not be viewed as extensions of the west. This paper seeks to offer a critical response to this by making use of the methodological approaches which have recently traced the emergence, influence and definitions of crusading in the Latin West and have re-situated the movement within broader patterns of elite behaviours and cultural identities. The aim, therefore, is to examine the processes of identity formation among Latin settlers in the east, the active remembrance and memorialisation of the First Crusade, and, most especially, what influence the latter had over the nature of inter-cultural contact. It does so by adopting an interdisciplinary approach, which incorporates textual, literary, vernacular, documentary, material and artistic evidence. It will be argued that, although the term ‘crusader state’ cannot be used in a monolithic sense, it nevertheless remains a crucial medium through which to understand the complex social and cultural history of the Latin polities of Outremer, as well as their impact on the Near East. Examination of this concept not only contributes to modern understanding of these states, it also lends greater depth to historiographical discussions on the nature of the crusading movement as a whole.

A Pequena Idade do Gelo: evidências históricas e geológicas de mudança climática

Currently, basic school teachers are challenged to address climate control factors by means of an essentially interdisciplinary approach. This goes beyond developing an ability to manipulate scientific information from different sources; it requires an understanding of the deep implications of scientific knowledge. This research has gathered evidence about the “Litlle Ice Age”, which occurred between the 16th and 19th centuries, when there was great cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, and other worldwide effects. The database retrieved by the survey is divided as historical, geological, biological, geomorphological and artistic evidence, including knowledge about dating methods of the Quaternary ancient climates. The records help building a systemic understanding of the processes determining Holocene climatic variations. Ice ages can also be related to eustatic (sea level) variations. The results reveal the availability of different paleoclimatic models, thus enhancing the implications of such extreme events for the societies. The models allow to identify some tendencies of climatic change, not perfectly convergent. Keywords: Paleoclimatology, Quaternary, Climate change, Environment, Geosciences.