Christian Iconography Research Articles

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Angels, incorruptible beings of incorporeal matter, according to the teaching of Christianity are the first and most perfect God’s creatures, members of the Church whose Head is Christ. God’s messengers, guardians and heavenly warriors, or belonging to other ranks which were later defined and classified by theologians as found in the different texts of the Old and New Testaments, they do not have a clearly defined appearance and attributes, with the notable exception of Cherubim and Seraphim. Very rarely are flying angels even vaguely mentioned in Biblical texts, still less – winged angels. Rather, the angel – God’s herald, ascends and descends on Jacob’s ladder (Gen 28:12), or rides on a red horse in Prophet Zechariah’s vision (Zech 1:8). According to Jewish understanding, the angel was not able to fly as he needed a ladder in order to ascend or a horse in order to travel. Thus, the angel seems to have been thought of by the Jews in rather material terms, and it was only later that his incorruptible nature was specified. However, the winged Greco-Roman deities (such as Nike, Eros etc) and the very ancient images of angels in Zoroastrianism, also winged, apparently influenced Jewish and Christian iconography. So, it was as early as the 5th century that Christian iconography gradually adopted the angel’s appearance as a personage with human features (with the exception of Cherubim and Seraphim) supplied with wings, and this form of representation was applied to all ranks of angelic powers, regardless of style development. Thus, under the influence of ancient Greco-Roman ideas, the angel is depicted as a winged, flying creature. He has been adopted in this form universally by Christian doctrine, regardless of the lack of sufficient official texts. It is only in certain apocryphal texts that occasionally winged angels are specifically mentioned. This Christian as well as Jewish practice – at least during the early centuries of the Christian Era, adopted the type of the winged angel, and wings have become an invariable attribute of angels even when it is a matter of interpreting texts in which the angel as a God’s herald is not mentioned as a winged creature at all.

Phoenix and Delphinus Salvator: The History of the Forgotten Images of Early Christian Iconography

Art in the 3rd and 4th centuries underwent transformations and adapted cer­tain representations which were typical of ancient iconography to the new needs and tasks of Christian art. Among the abundant examples of this pro­cess, many continue to be popular and recognizable, such as the representation of Hermes Kriophoros, which evolved to become Christ the Good Shepherd, or the sleeping Endymion, which became part of the “Jonah cycle.” The adaptation of patterns from antiquity for the purposes of Christian iconography was both popular and quite common, but only a fraction of the representations developed in that period survive today. This paper discusses the representa­tions that have been forgotten. Relying on the examples of the phoenix and the dolphin-rescuer, the paper analyzes factors that affected the partial (phoenix) or complete (delphinus salvator) disappearance of images which were typical of early Christian art and which relied on ancient imagery.

Late Medieval English Embroidered Conventional Flowers

This article concerns surviving examples of late medieval embroidered conventional flowers. The flowers are classified in terms of their structure. Photographs of typical examples are included. The count of surviving examples shows that four of the surviving types occur more frequently than the others. Of these four, two have clear Christian iconography, while the other two derive from classical devices. The distribution of variations within the types raises questions about how the variation in the designs arose, and how the embroidered flowers were traded.

"Parsimonious / Presentations": Mina Loy's Crisis of [Christian] Representation

Abstract: For poet Mina Loy, Christian visual culture posed unique and critical complications to the "crisis of representation" that she and her modernist peers attempted to negotiate. In poems featuring Christian iconography, Loy engages directly with high modernist theory, most prominently with Ezra Pound's injunction in "A Retrospect" to employ "Direct treatment of the thing." This paper situates two of Loy's poems, "The Prototype" and "Christ's Regrettable Reticence," as problematizing Pound's "direct treatment" in order to render spaces for Christian representations that remain accessible yet do not elide the distance she deems necessary between humanity and the divine.

Influences of the East on Early Christian Iconography

Influences of the East on Early Christian Iconography

Made by Migrants: Southeast Asian Ivories for Local and Global Markets, ca. 1590–1640

Investigation of the early development of ivory carving and trade centered around colonial Manila from the late sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries reveals that the production of ivories depicting Christian subjects in the Spanish Philippines was inextricably linked to three interlocking developments in Southeast Asia: maritime trade, migration, and competition. Ivory carvers in Southeast Asia supplied the quickly rising ivory market on a regional and transoceanic scale with visually impactful sculptures of Christian iconography, which claimed authoritative status as preferred religious objects in the colonial Spanish territories.

One Danger and Eleven Types of Academic Disquiet Whilst Hunting for Cinematic Christ-figures

Christ-figures increasingly permeate the popular cinema, but hunting for them is not necessarily a benign or unproblematic activity. Following a selective review of the film and religion literature, and a preliminary scan of the popular cinema utilizing textually-based humanist film criticism as the guiding analytical lens, one danger and eleven types of academic disquiet were explicated herein. Namely: (1) When Factual Minimalism Equals Certainty: Holy Hope, (2) Misidentification: When Something Supposedly “Christian” Was Something Else, (3) When Nothing Equals Something: Creatio Ex Nihilo, (4) Spiritually Negating Christian Iconography: Form Versus Substance, (5) Some Problems with the Secular-is-Sacred Argument, (6) Film is Not a Substitute for Faith, Religion, or God, (7) Rewriting the Film: Aesthetic Violence?, (8) Tenuous Links, Strained Associations, and Uncertain Correspondences, (9) Rejecting Overt Religion for Covert Religion: Distorting Theology and Misdirecting Faith?, (10) From Symbolism Fatigue to Symbolism Cynicism, and (11) Pattern Appeasement: From Being Uncritical to Narrative Insights. It was concluded that being cognizant of the inherent dangers and sources of academic disquiet is a valuable means of expanding one’s visual and intellectual imagination, and also useful for the postmodern church. Further research into the subtextual sub-genre of the religion-and-film field was encouraged, warmly recommended, and is already long overdue.

Composing ‘the artistic projection of the future’: the religious life model slide sets of Maison de la Bonne Presse

ABSTRACT With its sequences of projected images, accompanied by narration and often by music, the optical lantern as a communication medium proved to be effective for Christian evangelism, especially through life model slides. The religious life model slide sets or ‘scenes d’après nature’, produced by the Catholic publisher Maison de la Bonne Presse from 1908, hold a particular place in the cultural and media history of France and other Francophone countries. Through these slides, the staff of the projection service at Maison de la Bonne Presse sought to unite religiosity and artistry, truth and beauty. Based on primary sources and materials such as paintings, photographs and collages, not used in any previous study, I examine the different phases of the distinctive production process of the majority of these artistic life model slides, so as to more fully interpret their aesthetic and expressive qualities. Building on a media archaeological approach, I demonstrate how pictorial, photographic, and theatrical techniques were combined to create realistic visual representations of Christian stories for religious propaganda. Not only were these life model slide sets exceptional in their manner of production, combining contemporary techniques of photomontage with traditional Christian iconography, but their material history provides a remarkable illustration of the versatility and the richness of the optical lantern medium.

Gendering Jesus the Jew

Abstract Gendering Jesus has been a matter of divergent interpretations, ranging from emphasis on typical features of masculine power to ‘unmanly’ character by ancient elite standards. This article explores anew Jesus’ Jewish masculinity. It revisits a recent study of the question what Jesus looked like, by mutually reconsidering ancient literary and rhetorical traditions of description, literary data about Jesus’ physical and social appearance, major aspects in the literary record about Jesus the Jew in comparison with Jewish tradition including the Dead Sea Scrolls, and recent findings in iconography. Jesus the Jew comes off as an unconventional challenger of male power at the time, whose appearance would neither have adhered to elite standards of physical and social apparel nor to late antique adaptations through the Romanization of Christian iconography.

THE EAST AND “THE LAST JUDGMENT” IN THE BULGARIAN ORTHODOX ART

e paper deals with two similar symbols – “The Judgment of the Soul” in the art of Ancient Egypt and “Weighing the Souls” from the scene “The Last Judgment” in the Bulgarian Orthodox art. They are part of the eschatological understanding of the afterlife. These symbols were analyzed and the paths of their movement were traced. The visual image of the supreme check of every deceased is the weighing of the heart and the judgment of God Osiris. It is related to spell 125 of the Book of the Dead. The article analyzes the iconography of this scene, which was widely used during the New Kingdom in Ancient Egypt. The “Judgment of the soul” of Ancient Egypt was probably transmitted by the Jews in Asia, and later entered the Christian iconography of the composition “The Last Judgment”. The formation of the iconographic image type in Byzantine and Western European art was traced. During the Bulgarian Renaissance, “Weighing of Souls” became a major motif and was interpreted by a number of painters in Southwestern Bulgaria. Images in the temples of Blagoevgrad, Rila, Bistritsa, Selishte, Dobarsko, Teshovo, Zlatolist, Dolen and others have been preserved. The analysis of the iconographic images makes it possible to summarize the results which show a number of similar elements in the two scenes. Such are the holy characters God Anubis and Archangel Michael, the two exits for the soul of man - eternal life or eternal torment. The long life of the symbol under consideration leads to the conclusion about the continuity of the moral evaluation of human earthly affairs.

Religious Motifs in Polish Contemporary Art Using the Crucifixion: An Outline of the Problem

Sacred motifs have a long tradition in art and ample figurative representation. They have been present in the visual arts for numerous reasons, from the need to identify faith to artistic expression based on commonly-known truths and stories saturated with meaning. In the art of the twentieth century, Christian motifs were often an excuse to speak about the world, its threats and fears, and the human condition. Polish artists frequently availed themselves of religious symbols and systems in the post-war era, and during the political transforma­tion of the 1980s, they became a way to articulate uncertainty, expectation, and hope for change. Today, the religious trope is a pretext for artistic commentary on religion, social problems, and internal issues of the creators themselves. The article explores the causes and the nature of artistic practice rooted in Christian iconography in Polish contemporary art, with a particular emphasis on the motif of the crucifixion.

The Chthonic Roots of Leonardo da Vinci’s Youthful Iconography

Background: Leonardo da Vinci painted some of the most iconic works of the High Renaissance, and yet some of their iconographic features remain largely unexamined, as do the relevant large-scale conventions of Christian iconography and the Etruscan roots of the Humanist tradition of the period.Problem statement: An unusual feature that is found in most of Leonardo da Vinci’s depictions of the Virgin Mary is a striking yellow or golden sash around her waist. Such a feature is not found in prior depictions of this central figure of Christian iconography, and in only a few of the works of his immediate pupils, and is thus largely unique to Leonardo. As such, it calls for an analytic appraisal of its derivation as a symbolic trope in his youthful works.Proposition: An association with the myth of Persephone is developed on the basis of several features of his ‘Virgin of the Rocks’ in particular, in which a yellow sash is a central motif. This mythic identification in turn helps to account for the substantial deviation of this work from the specification of its original commission into an extreme version of the mountainous setting that is common to most of Leonardo’s established works. The roots of this symbolism are then considered in relation to the Etruscan resonances of the Florentine milieu in which Leonardo matured.

Jesuit Visual Culture and the Song nianzhu guicheng. The Annunciation as a Spiritual Meditation on the Redemptive Incarnation of Christ

This paper examines the set of fifteen prints included in the seventeenth-century Chinese text Song nianzhu guicheng. This catechism was translated by Portuguese Jesuits serving in the China mission and consists of instructions for spiritual meditation on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary. The processes of visual acculturation of Christian art will be examined in the context of the transmission of doctrine and instructions for spiritual meditation. The paper discusses the Chinese visual experience and the particular circumstances of the Catholic missions in China during and after the Nanjing persecutions. This paper demonstrates that although the illustrations of the Song nianzhu guicheng were executed and adapted by Chinese artists, the ontological principles of European Renaissance art and the precepts of Christian iconography are still a structural component in the Jesuit methods of teaching and preaching.

On Christian Iconography: Selections from The Art of Painting (1649) by Francisco Pacheco

Reviewed by: On Christian Iconography: Selections from The Art of Painting (1649) by Francisco Pacheco Tanya J. Tiffany On Christian Iconography: Selections from The Art of Painting (1649). By Francisco Pacheco. With an introduction and the Spanish text translated by Jeremy Roe with Carles Gutiérrez Sanfeliu; Latin text translated by José Solís de los Santos. [Early Modern Catholicism and the Visual Arts, Volume 16.] (Philadelphia: Saint Joseph University Press. 2017. Pp. xxv, 340. $75.00. ISBN 978-0-91610-189-3.) In 1638, at age seventy-four, the learned Sevillian painter Francisco Pacheco completed his life's work, the Arte de la Pintura (Art of Painting), a treatise published posthumously in 1644. A monumental text, the Arte consists of three books on the nobility, theory, and practice of painting, with a particular emphasis on sacred images. Scholars have long valued the Arte for the light it sheds on intellectual life in early modern Seville and especially on the career of Pacheco's most illustrious pupil, Diego Velázquez. Until now, however, only fragments of the Arte have been available in English. The translation under review is therefore most welcome for making Pacheco's treatise more widely accessible to students and scholars of early modern art history. As indicated by the book's title, Jeremy Roe and Carles Gutiérrez Sanfeliu have chosen to focus on the ample sections of the Arte devoted to decorum in religious painting. This decision follows the precepts of Pacheco himself, who affirmed that it was by representing Christian subjects with both "majesty" and historical accuracy that painters fulfilled their ultimate purpose: to create images that "serve[d] as truthful books" for the faithful (p. 46). In his introduction, Roe provides a nuanced perspective on the relationship between Pacheco's artistic theory and his practice as a painter of sacred subjects. Building upon Bonaventura Bassegoda's critical edition of the Arte (1990), he highlights Pacheco's close engagement with writings by Sevillian churchmen and by post-Tridentine figures of international renown, among them Gabriele Paleotti [End Page 145] and Johannes Molanus. He also emphasizes Pacheco's commitment to establishing new sacred iconographies, as illustrated by the artist's paintings and codified in his text. Like other Catholic Reformers, Pacheco opposed the invention of novel religious iconography for its own sake, but at the same time he sought to abandon pictorial conventions that failed to adhere to the letter of scriptural truth. In an example well known to specialists, Pacheco thus used historical evidence to affirm that Christ's crucifixion should be depicted with four nails, rather than the usual three. He also sought to correct the "improprieties" seen in versions of the Last Judgment by Michelangelo and others (p. 56); according to a cleric quoted in the Arte, Pacheco rejected images of a "terrible and fearful" Christ and, in his own Last Judgment, instead depicted the Lord as "merciful and joyful," in keeping with biblical evidence of God's "delight" in saving the just (p. 66). Yet as Roe contends, Pacheco's portrayal of a gentle Christ benignly delivering judgment means that his painting lacks the very narrative clarity and emotional impact that he and other post-Tridentine painters sought to achieve. Roe also explores how this painstaking search for historical precision distinguished Pacheco from other artists of the day, among them his rival in Madrid, the Florentine-born Vicente Carducho, who ridiculed ongoing "disputes over … how Christ our Lord was crucified" and affirmed that pious painters should simply focus on representing "the essential" aspects of sacred history (quoted on pp. 28–29). For the translation itself, Roe and Gutiérrez have included chapters from the Arte dealing with "Order, Decency, and Decorum" and the Last Judgment (chapters 2–4 of Book Two) as well as Pacheco's lengthy appendix on the iconography of various Christian themes, the Adiciones a algunas imágenes (Further matters raised by a number of images; appendix to Book Three). They have rendered Pacheco's often unwieldy Spanish prose into lucid English, and have included English translations by José Solís de los Santos of Pacheco's quotations from Latin. Accompanying the text are 123 reproductions of works either...

Emblems in Scotland: Motifs and Meanings by Michael Bath

Reviewed by: Emblems in Scotland: Motifs and Meanings by Michael Bath Janet Hadley-Williams Bath, Michael, Emblems in Scotland: Motifs and Meanings, Leiden/Boston, Brill Rodopi, 2018; hardback; pp. xxviii, 346; 191 colour figures; R.R.P. €125.00, US$150.00; ISBN 9789004364059. From its Latin and Greek roots, the sense of ‘emblem’ was ‘inlaid work’; by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was ‘symbol’, ‘type’. In that linguistic evolution, as Michael Bath notes in his Preface, Alciato’s Emblematum liber (1531)—its use of a woodcut illustration of moral, proverbial or political ideas, with a Latin motto above, and a verse epigram below—was crucial as the model for the many later emblem books (Whitney, Montenay, Batilly, Farley, and Quarles). The foundation of Bath’s study is the magnificent Stirling Maxwell Collection of emblem books at Glasgow University Library. His eight chronologically arranged essays reflect this Scottish context, especially in architectural example. In their explorations of the use and transmission of emblems, however, the essays range widely across different terrains, including cultural and political relations, Christian iconography, court ceremonies, and Modernist garden design. Translations throughout, of the Latin, Greek, and French inscriptions and distichs quoted in the text, notes, and captions, are of great assistance, as are the numerous well-placed illustrations. [End Page 177] The first chapter examines the meaning of a fool’s-capped man, who lurks behind King Herod’s shoulder, within the fifteenth-century Crucifixion scene painted on the rood screen at St Marnock’s Church, Fowlis Easter, Angus. Bath’s many European examples of similar figures are contextualizing. In his discussion of the ‘Jester Figure’ (pp. 7–22) switching between the word ‘jester’ (a professional fool) and ‘fool’ (simpleton or, biblically, an impious person), both twists and informs the argument. The emblematic links between three women, Christine de Pisan, Georgette de Montenay, and Esther Inglis, are the matter of Chapter 2. Bath draws on the previous work of Alison Saunders, Alison Adams, and Marie-Claude Tucker, adding to it, notably on portraiture (pp. 31–34); and with Susan Groag Bell’s innovative research on the City of Dames tapestries, his observations usefully confirming hers. In Chapter 3, Bath identifies Guillaume de la Perrière’s Morosophie (‘The Wisdom of Folly’, 1553) as the hitherto unknown source of a motto over the now-demolished fireplace at Castle Ruthven (Huntingtower). The accompanying woodcut introduces a wider discussion (acknowledging Saxl and Iwaki) of the topic Veritas filia temporis. There are valuable Scottish examples here, and in the related study of the more doctrinally difficult emblem, In utrumque paratus, including Skelmorlie’s funerary ceiling (1636), and Rossend Castle’s painted ceiling. Chapter 4 examines ceremonies associated with royal baptisms (James VI, 1566; Henry, 1594), the first through its illustration of the phrase Anglici caudati (‘all Englishmen have tails’), the second via William Fowler’s True Reportarie. There is confusion at p. 87. Bath cites a letter of 1517, from James V—or, since James was then five, Governor Albany—to Pope Leo. It refers to matters relating to the previous Pope, Julius, who died in 1513, and to the king’s older half-brother, Alexander Stewart, killed at Flodden in 1513, thus not alive in 1517 as Bath assumes. The country house built at Pinkie in 1613 by Alexander Seton, Earl of Dunfermline, and its relationship to its historic site (where the 1547 battle repudiated the Treaty of Greenwich and union with England), is the subject of Chapter 5. Attempting to understand the man and his villa, Bath has identified Seton’s books (Vredeman, Du Cerceau, Vaenius, Blaise de Vignière, Lebey de Batilly and others) and studied the villa’s external inscriptions and the Long Gallery’s painted Neostoic emblems. Chapter 6 begins with a rare contemporary (1618) response to the use of emblems: the account of how Church of Scotland minister, Patrick Simson, was encouraged on his deathbed by his brother to remember those emblems decorating the walls of his manse (Holy Rude Kirk, Stirling). His recollections included their source, ‘Pierus’, Pierio Valeriano’s 1556 Hieroglyphica (an expansion of Horapollo’s Egyptian lexicon to incorporate the major Christian iconologies). Bath shows how the (reformed) climate...

The Art of the Slender Line

Abstract: This article examines aspects of Dr. Françoise Henry’s work on early Irish Christian art, particularly abstractive qualities found in illuminated manuscripts of the 5th to 7th centuries, which she claimed were a key in revealing knowledge of contemporary medieval Ireland, that the fusion of cultures between the existing indigenous people of Ireland and the incoming Christians was revealed through connections with other intellectual artforms, including music and literature. However, the relationship between Christian iconography and liturgy has not yet been fully explored. Work by recent scholars is widening discussion on these manuscripts not simply to ascertain their contemporary religious meaning but also to analyse their place in early medieval society as a whole, and to incorporate the modern viewer as an integral part of interpretation.

From the Editor

Next article FreeFrom the EditorStephanie L. BudinStephanie L. Budin Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreHello, Readers!Welcome to the December issue of Near Eastern Archaeology, which comes at the tail end of the New Year’s season. It turns out that New Year’s is, in fact, its own season. It begins in September with Rosh Hashanah (Shanah Tovah, my friends!) and continues in October with the Celtic New Year that begins at sundown on October 31st (Samhain Sona, my friends!). We then finish it all up with the calendrical New Year’s on January first, which rounds out the season. (Obviously, I’m leaving out the July 1st fiscal New Year). I first noticed the seasonal quality of New Year’s when I realized I always started my New Year’s resolutions in October, apparently prioritizing my Jewish and Celtic heritage. At least come January 1 all the groundwork has already been set.This end of the New Year’s season seemed to be a good time to consider changes and developments in NEA over the course of 2019. The most significant was that we changed our peer-review process to a double blind system to keep in line with best current practice throughout the industry. In this way, author identities are unknown to peer reviewers, just as the reviewer’s identities are unknown to the authors. Such practice has been shown to lead to greater parity in publication, both in terms of gender and matters of academic seniority. While it is too soon yet to know how the change will affect NEA in this regard, one clearly noticeable development has been that those invited to review articles but must decline very frequently suggest the (unknown) author of a the article as the best possible alternative suggestion. This has encouraged our assistant editor Julia Hsieh to learn to bang her head against a wall very gently. You would also be amazed how often reviewers now suggest that authors cite their own works in articles…A second change has been to limit the number of Special Topics issues to only one out of every three or (more likely) four issues. While NEA will continue to focus some issues on really interesting topics—of which we have a plethora in the ANE—and will continue to host guest editors for such issues, there was an expressed desire for greater diversity in subject matter (considering that plethora). We look forward to what developments might come…Speaking of that plethora of interesting materials, this issue once again reminds us of the amazing chronological depth of Near Eastern archaeology. Here we go back into the Palaeolithic with Biglari and Shidrang’s article on rescue archaeology in the Kurdish Zagros region. Jumping forward, we see the remarkable mixing of cultures that characterized Bronze Age Hala Sultan Tekke in Cyprus, thanks to Peter Fischer, while John Gaudet gives a light, interesting, and extremely informative look at the role of papyrus in ancient Egypt and, from there, the world. If you read codices, books, or journals (and I know you do): Thank an ancient papyrus farmer! Turning the bend into the Common Era, we have three articles from the Negev, Egyptian Thebes, and Nubia. The first, by Gil Gambash and colleagues, considers the unexpected role of the Judean desert in the acquisition and trade of the Red Sea parrotfish in Roman times (including a recipe for those still looking for something truly different for Christmas Eve dinner, although please do not use actual parrotfish: They’re endangered!). Speaking of Christmas, we then turn to water-jar holders from Thebes, which display some of the earliest Christian iconography in Byzantine Egypt—thanks to Benjamin Durand. Finally, to the south, we have an excellent article by Solange Ashby on funerary offerings of milk libations in Nubia. As I was originally writing this introduction on Hallowe’en (aka: New Year’s), this reminder of the role of the dead in the lives of the living struck an oddly modern chord.Happy Midwinter Festival of Light to one and all! Light the fires on the Menorah or tree (remembering safety first!), and get through the dark times. And for those readers in the southern hemisphere, remember: Winter is coming. Next article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Near Eastern Archaeology Volume 82, Number 4December 2019 A journal of ASOR Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/707454 © 2019 by American Schools of Oriental Research. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The “Arabic” Stole of Vatopediou Monastery: Traces of Islamic Material Culture in Late Byzantium

Abstract In the collection of Vatopediou Monastery (Mount Athos) there is a Late Byzantine vestment called by the monks the “Arabic stole” (arabikon ōmophorion). This quite unique vestment probably owes its name to two bands of embroidered Arabic inscriptions on the lower part of each end. It is one of the very few known Byzantine religious objects to feature legible Arabic inscriptions, a visible symbol of Islamic otherness juxtaposed with the standard Christian iconography. Apart from bringing into the spotlight a medieval vestment that has been overlooked by scholars, this article traces possible sources of artistic transfer through a discussion of texts and extant objects. Finally, it aims at expanding our understanding of the reception of Islamic art in Late Byzantium, a time of both political decline and cultural renewal.

Gospel Evangelist Portraits: Exemplars of an Enduring Christian Motif

The Bible’s Gospel books offer accounts of the life of Jesus Christ and consequently they have been considered among the most important texts from antiquity onward. This essay uses iconographic methodology and historical contextualization to analyze a selective group of portraits and depictions of the Bible’s four Gospel Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Art historical literature has addressed Evangelist portraits, but has tended to focus on formal characteristics. This essay presents these visual relics in new contexts. The chosen Evangelist portraits come from a variety of sources: thousand-year-old Byzantine lectionaries, medieval illuminated manuscripts produced in the scriptoria of the Abbeys of Cluney and Helmarshausen, and Italian and French missals and books of hours. The essay also examines Northern Renaissance and Symbolist print cycles portraying the martyrdom of the Evangelist John and visions he described in his Apocalypse, or book of Revelation. This brief examination of select exemplars demonstrates the enduring significance of Evangelist portraits in Christian iconography and western art history, and suggests the variety of messages Evangelist portraits can convey. This essay’s findings and conclusions may lead to further, related research concerning the ways theologians and artists have used biblical portraits to comment both on religious and secular issues.

Review: From the Desert to the City: The Journey of Late Ancient Textiles and From the Desert to the City: The Journey of Late Ancient Textiles. Selections from the Rose Choron textile collection with related objects, edited by Warren Woodfin

“From the Desert to the City: The Journey of Late Ancient Textiles,” Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Queens College, Flushing, New York (September 13, 2018–January 17, 2019) [http://gtmuseum.org/?page_id=128]. Warren Woodfin, ed., From the Desert to the City: The Journey of Late Ancient Textiles. Selections from the Rose Choron textile collection with related objects . New York: Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Queens College, CUNY, 2018. ISBN: 978-0-9832641-8-7. 93 pages, 92 color and 2 black-and-white illustrations, $40.00. “From the Desert to the City: The Journey of Late Ancient Textiles” celebrates the recent donation of 85 late antique Egyptian textile fragments to the Godwin-Ternbach Museum at Queens College, CUNY.1 Curated by Warren Woodfin (Associate Professor, Art Department, Queens College), Elizabeth Hoy, and Brita Helgesen (Co-Directors of the Godwin-Ternbach), the exhibition and accompanying catalog integrate these newly acquired objects with ancient, late antique, and modern works from the Godwin-Ternbach permanent collection as well as with loans from the Brooklyn Museum, Metropolitan Opera Archives, and several private collectors. In addition, large-scale paintings and fiber works by two contemporary New York artists are interspersed throughout the show. The result is an exciting, dynamic presentation that effectively positions late antique Egyptian textiles in their original social and functional contexts while animating these ancient objects through a rich consideration of their afterlives in the modern and contemporary eras.2 All the late antique textiles on display were woven from linen and wool—not the more luxurious material of silk—and thus they attest to the kinds of everyday fiber objects that dressed the bodies and homes of average people. These commonplace things represent a class of artifact found in institutional collections throughout Europe and North America. Despite their ordinary character, they show an impressive array of vibrantly colored, engaging motifs, from pagan mythological figures (Fig. 1) to patterns of plants and animals (Fig. 2) to busts of women, who might represent personifications of wealth and good fortune or portraits of actual people whose identities have been lost to the passage of time (Fig. 3). A small number of textiles show Christian iconography, including crosses and holy figures (Fig. 4). Together they offer compelling evidence for the visual and material environment of daily life in late antique Egypt. FIG. 1. Black roundel with a riding nereid, Egypt, …