Glory&EmotionInByzManuscriptIllumin(6th-11th centuries) (CHST 7115)
Term: Academic Year 2023-2024 Spring
Description
This course explores the role that the visual manifestation of glory and emotion plays in the illuminations of Byzantine Manuscripts during the sixth to the eleventh centuries. Glory in art is reflected in luminous artistic mediums and techniques, whereas emotion can be communicated through noetic images, facial expressions, and gestures. Through analyses of word, and image we carve new pathways of understanding the relationship between miniatures, icons, architecture, and liturgy. Thus, we examine how each aesthetic phenomenon is mobilized in its historical, sociological, religious, and geopolitical context. We study closely key manuscripts from Sinai, Constantinople, and Rome from major archival collections such as the Stanford University Special Collections, the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in Rome, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Gennadios Library in Athens, The Sinai Collection in Egypt, the Patmos Library in Greece, and the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, et