"This volume consists of 15 articles published between 1991 and 2018. It falls into three sections, reflecting different areas of Liz James's interests. The first section is light and colour and mosaics, where four articles considering light and colour in mosaics and the making of mosaics, as well as the question of what it means to define mosaics as 'Byzantine' are reprinted. The second brings together four pieces on empresses: their relationships with female personifications and the Mother of God, their roles in founding and refounding buildings, and their employment as ciphers by some authors. Finally, seven papers cover a range of topics what monumental images of saints in churches might have been for; what the differences between relics and icons might have been; how captions to images can be misleading; why touch was an important sense; how words can sometimes 'just' be decorative rather than for reading; why the materiality of objects makes a difference. There is also a brief section of additionalnotes and comments which add to, update and reflect on each piece now in 2024. Mosaics, Empresses and Other Things in Byzantium will be of interest to scholars and students alike interested in material culture, the depiction of regal women, and the use of relics and icons in the Byzantine Empire"--
This volume consists of 15 articles published between 1991 and 2018. It falls into three sections, reflecting different areas of Liz Jamess interests.
This volume consists of 15 articles published between 1991 and 2018. It falls into three sections, reflecting different areas of Liz Jamess interests.
The first section deals with light and colour and mosaics: four articles considering light and colour in mosaics and the making of mosaics, as well as the question of what it means to define mosaics as Byzantine are reprinted. The second brings together four pieces on empresses: their relationships with female personifications and the Mother of God; their roles in founding and refounding buildings; and their employment as ciphers by some authors. Finally, seven papers cover a range of topics: what monumental images of saints in churches might have been for; what the differences between relics and icons might have been; how captions to images can be misleading; why touch was an important sense; how words can sometimes just be decorative rather than for reading; why the materiality of objects makes a difference. There is also a brief section of additional notes and comments which add to, update and reflect on each piece now in 2024.
Mosaics, Empresses and Other Things in Byzantium will be of interest to scholars and students alike interested in material culture, the depiction of regal women, and the use of relics and icons in the Byzantine Empire.
Part 1 Light, Colour and Mosaics
1 What Colours Were Byzantine mosaics?
Medieval mosaics: light, color, materials, eds. E. Borsook, F. Superbi, G.
Pagliarulo, (Harvard University Centre for Italian Renaissance Studies,
Florence, 2000), 3546
2 Mosaic Matters. Questions of Manufacturing and Mosaicists in the Mosaics of
San Marco, Venice
San Marco, Byzantium and the myths of Venice, eds. H. Maguire and R. S.
Nelson, (Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., 2010), 227243
3 Made in Byzantium? Mosaics After 1204
Cross-cultural interaction between Byzantium and the West, 12041669, ed. A.
Lymberopoulou, (Routledge, London, 2018), 258271
4 Matters of Materiality in Byzantium: The Archangel Gabriel in Hagia Sophia,
Constantinople
Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History 86, 3 (2017), special issue
on Matter and Materiality in the Study of Medieval Art, ed. L.Liepe
Part 2 Empresses
5 Good Luck and Good Fortune to the Queen of Cities: Empresses and Tyches in
Byzantium
Personification in the Greek world, eds. E. J. Stafford and J. Herrin,
(Ashgate, Aldershot, 2005), 293308
6 Making a Name: Reputation and Imperial Founding and Refounding in
Constantinople
Female founders in Byzantium and beyond, eds. L. Theis, M. Mullett and M.
Grünbart, Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 60/61 (2011/12), 6372
7 The Empress and the Virgin in Early Byzantium: Piety, Authority and
Devotion
Images of the Mother of God, ed. M. Vassilaki, (Ashgate, Aldershot, 2005),
145152
8 Ghosts in the Machine. The Lives and Deaths of Constantinian Imperial
Women
Questions of gender in Byzantine society, eds. B. Neil and L. Garland,
(Ashgate, Farnham, 2013), 93112
Part 3 Materiality, Senses and Other Things
9 Monks, Monastic Art, the Sanctoral Cycle and the Middle Byzantine Church
The Theotokos Evergetis and eleventh-century monasticism, Belfast Byzantine
Texts and Translations 6.1, eds. M. Mullett and A. Kirby, (Belfast Byzantine
Texts and Translations, Belfast, 1994),
162175.
10 Dry Bones and Painted Pictures: Relics and Icons in Byzantium
Eastern Christian relics, ed. A. Lidov, (Research Centre for Eastern
Christian Culture, Moscow, 2002), 4555
11 Art and Lies: Text, Image and Imagination in the Medieval World
Icon and word. The power of images in Byzantium, eds. A. Eastmond and L.
James (Ashgate, Aldershot 2003),
5972.
12 Seeing is Believing but Words Tell No Lies: Captions Versus Images in the
Libri Carolini and Byzantine Iconoclasm
Negating the image: case studies in iconoclasm, eds. A. L. McClanan and J.
Johnson, (Ashgate, Aldershot, 2005), 97112
13 And Shall These Mute Stones Speak? Text as Art
Art and text in Byzantium, ed. L. James, (Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 2007), 188206
14 Seeings Believing but Feelings the Truth: Touch and the Meaning of
Byzantine Art
Images of the Byzantine world: visions, messages and meanings, ed. A.
Lymberopoulou, (Ashgate, Farnham, 2011), 115
15 Things: Art and Experience in Byzantium
Experiencing Byzantium, eds. M. Jackson and C. Nesbitt, (Ashgate, Farnham,
2013), 1734
Additional Notes and Comments
Liz James is Professor of Art History at the University of Sussex. She is interested in all things to do with Byzantine art and especially, at the moment, mosaics. Her publications include Light and Colour in Byzantine Art (1996) and Empresses and Power in Early Byzantium (2001), as well as several edited books. Her most recent book is Mosaics in the Medieval World (2017), which contains some great pictures of mosaics.
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