Robin Cormack – författare

The opulence of Byzantine art, with its extravagant use of gold and silver, is well known. Highly skilled artists created powerful representations reflecting and promoting this society and its values in icons, illuminated manuscripts, and mosaics and wallpaintings placed in domed churches and public buildings. This complete introduction to the whole period and range of Byzantine art combines immense breadth with interesting historical detail. Robin Cormack overturns the myth that Byzantine art remained constant from the inauguration of Constantinople, its artistic centre, in the year 330 until the fall of the city to the Ottomans in 1453. He shows how the many political and religious upheavals of this period produced a wide range of styles and developments in art. This updated, colour edition includes new discoveries, a revised bibliography, and, in a new epilogue, a rethinking of Byzantine Art for the present day.

The opulence of Byzantine art, with its extravagant use of gold and silver, is well known. Highly skilled artists created powerful representations reflecting and promoting this society and its values in icons, illuminated manuscripts, and mosaics and wallpaintings placed in domed churches and public buildings. This complete introduction to the whole period and range of Byzantine art combines immense breadth with interesting historical detail. Robin Cormack overturns the myth that Byzantine art remained constant from the inauguration of Constantinople, its artistic centre, in the year 330 until the fall of the city to the Ottomans in 1453. He shows how the many political and religious upheavals of this period produced a wide range of styles and developments in art. This updated, colour edition includes new discoveries, a revised bibliography, and, in a new epilogue, a rethinking of Byzantine Art for the present day.

The opulence of Byzantine art, with its extravagant use of gold and silver, is well known. Highly skilled artists created powerful representations reflecting and promoting this society and its values in icons, illuminated manuscripts, and mosaics and wallpaintings placed in domed churches and public buildings. This complete introduction to the whole period and range of Byzantine art combines immense breadth with interesting historical detail. Robin Cormack overturns the myth that Byzantine art remained constant from the inauguration of Constantinople, its artistic centre, in the year 330 until the fall of the city to the Ottomans in 1453. He shows how the many political and religious upheavals of this period produced a wide range of styles and developments in art. This updated, colour edition includes new discoveries, a revised bibliography, and, in a new epilogue, a rethinking of Byzantine Art for the present day.

The papers in this volume derive from the 29th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies. This was held for the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies in the University of London in March 1995, in order to complement the British Museum exhibition 'Byzantium. Treasures of Byzantine Art and Culture'. The objective of the symposium was to explore the ways in which British scholars, travellers, novelists, architects, churchmen and critics came into contact with Byzantium, and how they perceived what they saw. The present volume sets out some of the results of this enquiry. Byzantium is treated both as a source of influence on British culture as well as an 'idea' which British culture constructed in different ways in different periods of history. To give some comparative context, attention is also paid to attitudes towards Byzantium in continental Europe. Papers deal, amongst other topics, with the collecting of objects representative of Byzantine culture and with the changing appreciation of Byzantine manuscripts. They also include a series of case studies of individual historians and Byzantinists, and two deal in particular with Ruskin, who emerges as a perceptive 19th-century critic of Byzantine culture. Through the Looking Glass is volume 7 in the series published by Ashgate/Variorum on behalf of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies.

The papers in this volume derive from the 29th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies. This was held for the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies in the University of London in March 1995, in order to complement the British Museum exhibition ''Byzantium. Treasures of Byzantine Art and Culture''. The objective of the symposium was to explore the ways in which British scholars, travellers, novelists, architects, churchmen and critics came into contact with Byzantium, and how they perceived what they saw. The present volume sets out some of the results of this enquiry. Byzantium is treated both as a source of influence on British culture as well as an ''idea'' which British culture constructed in different ways in different periods of history. To give some comparative context, attention is also paid to attitudes towards Byzantium in continental Europe. Papers deal, amongst other topics, with the collecting of objects representative of Byzantine culture and with the changing appreciation of Byzantine manuscripts. They also include a series of case studies of individual historians and Byzantinists, and two deal in particular with Ruskin, who emerges as a perceptive 19th-century critic of Byzantine culture. Through the Looking Glass is volume 7 in the series published by Ashgate/Variorum on behalf of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies.

The papers in this volume derive from the 29th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies. This was held for the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies in the University of London in March 1995, in order to complement the British Museum exhibition ''Byzantium. Treasures of Byzantine Art and Culture''. The objective of the symposium was to explore the ways in which British scholars, travellers, novelists, architects, churchmen and critics came into contact with Byzantium, and how they perceived what they saw. The present volume sets out some of the results of this enquiry. Byzantium is treated both as a source of influence on British culture as well as an ''idea'' which British culture constructed in different ways in different periods of history. To give some comparative context, attention is also paid to attitudes towards Byzantium in continental Europe. Papers deal, amongst other topics, with the collecting of objects representative of Byzantine culture and with the changing appreciation of Byzantine manuscripts. They also include a series of case studies of individual historians and Byzantinists, and two deal in particular with Ruskin, who emerges as a perceptive 19th-century critic of Byzantine culture. Through the Looking Glass is volume 7 in the series published by Ashgate/Variorum on behalf of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies.

Icons are among the most elusive subjects in the history of art, but at the same time their study constitutes possibly its fastest expanding field, and with the opening-up of the former Soviet Union many new objects are being discovered, studied and exhibited. In this book, Robin Cormack considers the icon as an integral document of society and gives us new insights into the nature of Byzantine art.Painting the Soul explores both the creation and the development of the icon. After the early Christians - like the pagans before them - had come to expect their god to be visually present among them, endless questions confronted both the artist and the Church. What did Christ look like? How should Christ be represented? Should Christ be represented (as he is for example on the Turin Shroud)?Appropriately, Cormack’s study ends with Venetian Crete, where the icon underwent its final development and transformation into the art of the Renaissance. Here, established Byzantine forms of religious art confronted developing Renaissance modes of expression: the first ‘icons’ of El Greco were painted in Crete.Painting the Soul is beautifully illustrated, featuring many little-known works of art. Even so, Cormack treats the icon not as a mere artistic product, but as the symbolic face of medieval Europe. He shows how this new field within the history of art - the study of the icon - will transform our understanding of European art and culture.