Understanding Early Christian Art

Understanding Early Christian Art
Author: Robin M. Jensen
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2013-04-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135951772

Understanding Early Christian Art is designed for students of both religion and of art history. It makes the critical tools of art historians accessible to students of religion, to help them understand better the visual representations of Christianity. It will also aid art historians in comprehending the complex theology, history and context of Christian art. This interdisciplinary and boundary-breaking approach will enable students in several fields to further their understanding and knowledge of the art of the early Christian era. Understanding Early Christian Art contains over fifty images with parallel text.

The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art

The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art
Author: Robin M. Jensen
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 398
Release: 2018-05-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317514173

The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art surveys a broad spectrum of Christian art produced from the late second to the sixth centuries. The first part of the book opens with a general survey of the subject and then presents fifteen essays that discuss specific media of visual art—catacomb paintings, sculpture, mosaics, gold glass, gems, reliquaries, ceramics, icons, ivories, textiles, silver, and illuminated manuscripts. Each is written by a noted expert in the field. The second part of the book takes up themes relevant to the study of early Christian art. These seven chapters consider the ritual practices in decorated spaces, the emergence of images of Christ’s Passion and miracles, the functions of Christian secular portraits, the exemplary mosaics of Ravenna, the early modern history of Christian art and archaeology studies, and further reflection on this field called “early Christian art.” Each of the volume’s chapters includes photographs of many of the objects discussed, plus bibliographic notes and recommendations for further reading. The result is an invaluable introduction to and appraisal of the art that developed out of the spread of Christianity through the late antique world. Undergraduate and graduate students of late classical, early Christian, and Byzantine culture, religion, or art will find it an accessible and insightful orientation to the field. Additionally, professional academics, archivists, and curators working in these areas will also find it valuable as a resource for their own research, as well as a textbook or reference work for their students.

Picturing the Bible

Picturing the Bible
Author: Jeffrey Spier
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780300116830

Published on the occasion of the exhibition organized by the Kimbell Art Museum and shown there November 18, 2007 - March 30, 2008.

Rethinking Early Christian Identity

Rethinking Early Christian Identity
Author: Maia Kotrosits
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2015-02-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1451494262

Maia Kotrosits challenges the contemporary notion of “early Christian literature,” showing that a number of texts usually so described—including Hebrews, Acts, the Gospel of John, Colossians, 1 Peter, the letters of Ignatius, the Gospel of Truth, and the Secret Revelation of John—are “not particularly interested” in a distinctive Christian identity. By appealing to trauma studies and diaspora theory and giving careful attention to the dynamics within these texts, she shows that this sample of writings offers complex reckonings with chaotic diasporic conditions and the transgenerational trauma of colonial violence.

Early Christian & Byzantine Art

Early Christian & Byzantine Art
Author: John Lowden
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Total Pages: 458
Release: 1997-04-24
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780714831688

An authoritative account of early Christian and Byzantine art.

The Dawn of Christian Art in Panel Paintings and Icons

The Dawn of Christian Art in Panel Paintings and Icons
Author: Thomas F. Mathews
Publisher: Getty Publications
Total Pages: 59
Release: 2017-02-01
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1606065092

Staking out new territory in the history of art, this book presents a compelling argument for a lost link between the panel-painting tradition of Greek antiquity and Christian paintings of Byzantium and the Renaissance. While art historians place the origin of icons in the seventh century, Thomas F. Mathews finds strong evidence as early as the second century in the texts of Irenaeus and the Acts of John that describe private Christian worship. In closely studying an obscure set of sixty neglected panel paintings from Egypt in Roman times, the author explains how these paintings of the Egyptian gods offer the missing link in the long history of religious painting. Christian panel paintings and icons are for the first time placed in a continuum with the pagan paintings that preceded them, sharing elements of iconography, technology, and religious usages as votive offerings. Exciting discoveries punctuate the narrative: the technology of the triptych, enormously popular in Europe, traced by the authors to the construction of Egyptian portable shrines, such as the Isis and Serapis of the J. Paul Getty Museum; the discovery that the egg tempera painting medium, usually credited to Renaissance artist Cimabue, has been identified in Egyptian panels a millennium earlier; and the reconstruction of a ring of icons on the chancel of Saint Sophia in Istanbul. This book will be a vital addition to the fields of Egyptian, Graeco-Roman, and late-antique art history and, more generally, to the history of painting.

Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture

Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture
Author: Richard Krautheimer
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 566
Release: 1992-01-01
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780300052947

By now a classic, it presents in a single volume a coherent overall view of the history and the changing character of Early Christian and Byzantine architecture, from Rome and Milan to North Africa, from Constantinople to Greece and the Balkans, and from Egypt and Jerusalem to the villages and monasteries of Syria, Asia Minor, Armenia, and Mesopotamia.

The Apostles in Early Christian Art and Poetry

The Apostles in Early Christian Art and Poetry
Author: Roald Dijkstra
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 568
Release: 2016-01-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004309748

The Apostles in Early Christian Art and Poetry presents the first in-depth analysis of the origins of the representation of the apostles (the twelve disciples and Paul) in verse and image in the late antique Greco-Roman world (250-400). Especially in the West, the apostles are omnipresent, in particular on sarcophagi and in Biblical and martyr poetry. They primarily function as witnesses of Christ’s stay on earth, but Peter and Paul are also popular saints of their own. Occasionally, the other apostles come to the fore as individual figures. Direct influence from art on poetry or vice versa appears to be difficult to trace, but principal developments of late antique society are reflected in the representation of the apostles in both media.

The World's Oldest Church

The World's Oldest Church
Author: Michael Peppard
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2016-01-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0300216513

Michael Peppard provides a historical and theological reassessment of the oldest Christian building ever discovered, the third-century house-church at Dura-Europos. Contrary to commonly held assumptions about Christian initiation, Peppard contends that rituals here did not primarily embody notions of death and resurrection. Rather, he portrays the motifs of the church’s wall paintings as those of empowerment, healing, marriage, and incarnation, while boldly reidentifying the figure of a woman formerly believed to be a repentant sinner as the Virgin Mary. This richly illustrated volume is a breakthrough work that enhances our understanding of early Christianity at the nexus of Bible, art, and ritual.