Byzantine Sculpture from the 9th to the 15th Century. Context, Implementation, Decorations.
Picard| N° d'inventaire | 23259 |
| Format | 19 x 25 |
| Détails | 361 p., publisher's hardcover. |
| Publication | Paris, 2020 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782708410503 |
This richly illustrated manual offers an original and innovative synthesis of medieval Byzantine sculpture. Situated at the crossroads of art history and archaeology, this field has long remained unknown due to its singularity compared to the famous antique and Gothic sculptures in the round. This study is a work of rehabilitation and reveals true artistic treasures. It goes well beyond the stylistic and aesthetic analysis of a selection of sculpted works that characterized the only synthesis work published on the subject (André Grabar, 1976), and proposes a radically new approach to sculpture, seen as the expression of know-how but also as social production. Each sculpted work is examined as an archaeological object in all its facets: material (marble but also limestone, plaster, wood and reused materials), implementation (tools and techniques used), choice and meaning of abstract and figurative decorations, location in its architectural and liturgical environment, ideological and economic role of the sponsors, location and organization of the sculpting teams. This synthesis takes the reader into an unexpected series of questions and issues: taste for the insertion of colored materials, interactions with sumptuary arts but also with mosaics and frescoes of the decorated space, role of models and filiations, choice and symbolism of sculpted motifs, room for innovation... The reader will thus be able to better understand the specificities, renewals and originalities of this production, hitherto neglected in comparison with that characterizing other areas of medieval art.
This richly illustrated manual offers an original and innovative synthesis of medieval Byzantine sculpture. Situated at the crossroads of art history and archaeology, this field has long remained unknown due to its singularity compared to the famous antique and Gothic sculptures in the round. This study is a work of rehabilitation and reveals true artistic treasures. It goes well beyond the stylistic and aesthetic analysis of a selection of sculpted works that characterized the only synthesis work published on the subject (André Grabar, 1976), and proposes a radically new approach to sculpture, seen as the expression of know-how but also as social production. Each sculpted work is examined as an archaeological object in all its facets: material (marble but also limestone, plaster, wood and reused materials), implementation (tools and techniques used), choice and meaning of abstract and figurative decorations, location in its architectural and liturgical environment, ideological and economic role of the sponsors, location and organization of the sculpting teams. This synthesis takes the reader into an unexpected series of questions and issues: taste for the insertion of colored materials, interactions with sumptuary arts but also with mosaics and frescoes of the decorated space, role of models and filiations, choice and symbolism of sculpted motifs, room for innovation... The reader will thus be able to better understand the specificities, renewals and originalities of this production, hitherto neglected in comparison with that characterizing other areas of medieval art.