The Living Icon in Byzantium and Italy: The Vita Image, Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries

Hardback

Main Details

Title The Living Icon in Byzantium and Italy: The Vita Image, Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Paroma Chatterjee
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:297
Dimensions(mm): Height 262,Width 188
Category/GenreByzantine and medieval art c 500 CE to c 1400
ISBN/Barcode 9781107034969
ClassificationsDewey:709.02
Audience
Professional & Vocational
Illustrations 16 Plates, color; 34 Halftones, unspecified

Publishing Details

Publisher Cambridge University Press
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publication Date 17 March 2014
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

This is the first book to explore the emergence and function of a novel pictorial format in the Middle Ages, the vita icon, which displayed the magnified portrait of a saint framed by scenes from his or her life. The vita icon was used for depicting the most popular figures in the Orthodox calendar and, in the Latin West, was deployed most vigorously in the service of Francis of Assisi. This book offers a compelling account of how this type of image embodied and challenged the prevailing structures of vision, representation and sanctity in Byzantium and among the Franciscans in Italy between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Paroma Chatterjee uncovers the complexities of the philosophical and theological issues that had long engaged both the medieval East and West, such as the fraught relations between words and images, relics and icons, a representation and its subject, and the very nature of holy presence.

Author Biography

Paroma Chatterjee is Assistant Professor of the History of Art at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research has been supported by a Dumbarton Oaks Junior Fellowship, a Samuel H. Kress Travel Fellowship, a Mellon dissertation writing fellowship, a Penn Humanities Forum postdoctoral fellowship, and a post-doctoral fellowship at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America. Her work has appeared in, or is forthcoming from, the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Art History, Word and Image, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, the Oxford Art Journal and RES: The Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics.

Reviews

'Paroma Chatterjee's book presents a precise and intelligent study of the vita icons of saints produced in Italy and in Byzantium. Her readings of these distinctive works are informed by current discussions in the literature and by broader theoretical concerns. As such, this is a book that builds a scrupulous and articulate case for a fluid and dynamic understanding of the icon.' Charles Barber, Princeton University '... a thoughtful, nuanced, theoretically sophisticated, and provocative study that will challenge the reader.' Anne Derbes, Hood College