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OverviewToday we take the word icon to mean a sign, or we equate it with portraits of Christ and the saints. In The Sensual Icon, Bissera Pentcheva demonstrates how icons originally manifested the presence of the Holy Spirit in matter. Christ was the ideal icon, emerging through the Incarnation; so, too, were the bodies of the stylites (column-saints) penetrated by the divine pneuma (breath or spirit), or the Eucharist, or the Justinianic space of Hagia Sophia filled with the reverberations of chants and the smoke of incense. Iconoclasm (726-843) challenged these Spirit-centered definitions of the icon, eventually restricting the word to mean only the lifeless imprint (typos) of Christ's visual characteristics on matter. By the tenth century, mixed-media relief icons in gold, repousse, enamel, and filigree offered a new paradigm. The sun's rays or flickering candlelight, stirred by drafts of air and human breath, animated the rich surfaces of these objects; changing shadows endowed their eyes with life. The Byzantines called this spectacle of polymorphous appearance poikilia, that is, presence effects sensually experienced. These icons enabled viewers in Constantinople to detect animation in phenomenal changes rather than in pictorial or sculptural naturalism. Liveliness, as the goal of the Byzantine mixed-media relief icon, thus challenges the Renaissance ideal of lifelikeness, which dominated the Western artistic tradition before the arrival of the modern. Through a close examination of works of art and primary texts and language associated with these objects, and through her new photographs and film capturing their changing appearances, Pentcheva uncovers the icons' power to transform the viewer from observer to participant, communing with the divine. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Bissera V. Pentcheva (Associate Professor, Stanford University)Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press Imprint: Pennsylvania State University Press Dimensions: Width: 19.10cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 25.40cm Weight: 1.134kg ISBN: 9780271035833ISBN 10: 0271035838 Pages: 320 Publication Date: 15 December 2013 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: To order  Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us. Table of ContentsContents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Imprinted Images: Eulogiai, Magic, and Incense 2. Icons of Sound: Hagia Sophia and the Byzantine Choros 3. Eikon and Identity: The Rise of the Relief Icon in Iconophile Thought 4. The Imprint of Life: Enamel in Byzantium 5. Transformative Vision: Allegory, Poikilia, and Pathema 6. The Icon's Circular Poetics: The Charis of Choros 7. Inspirited Icons, Animated Statues, and Komnenian Iconoclasm Epilogue: The Future of the Past Appendix 1: The Icons in the Monastic Inventories of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries Appendix 2: Byzantine Enamel Icons and the West, Eleventh-Twelfth Centuries Notes Bibliography IndexReviewsThe Sensual Icon is a dazzling book, rich in content, brilliant in argumentation, and impressively original. Tracing cross-currents of production, perception, and thinking about the sacred icon within a firm historical context, it proposes a radical reconceptualization of the major form of Byzantine artistic expression. A work of flawless scholarship and spirited imagination, The Sensual Icon animates a remarkable artistic legacy and the historical and theological forces that engendered it. Like Hans Belting s Likeness and Presence, it is destined to guide a whole generation s view of medieval art. Herbert L. Kessler, The Johns Hopkins University Author InformationBissera V. Pentcheva is Associate Professor of Art History at Stanford University. She is the author of Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium (Penn State, 2006). Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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