Devotion Practice and Performative Expression in the Religious Art of Medieval Europe
A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 October 2024 | Viewed by 5369
Special Issue Editors
Interests: image and text in Greek manuscripts; Byzantine iconoclasm; theories of visuality; East–West relations; biblical and patristic topics; the interdisciplinary study of Psalms; Dura Europos
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
European identity is deeply embedded in the production of religious art, broadly conceived as any form of material expression of faith. Considering recent research on the senses in the Middle Ages, materiality, and emotions, this Special Issue of Religions turns to an examination of the relation between performative devotions and art by considering the beholder as a faithful subject as well as an ordinary person whose real life situations bring them into contact with a spiritual need. On the one hand, one can consider the ‘museification’ of churches constructed as spaces in which artists’ (and architects’) works contributed to enhancing the encounter of the visitor with the divine. The parallels between such churches and modern art galleries bring out the potential for ‘speaking’ to viewers through art as a means of initiating a spiritual dialogue. On the other hand, medieval images also conveyed the performative devotional experience of the congregation. This aspect may be understood quite literally as memorializing through painting local feasts and special devotions, as well as miraculous events at the fringes of such experiences. The framework for the current exploration is set by the two iconoclasms, the eighth-century Byzantine/Carolingian and the sixteenth-century Reformation. What, in medieval artistic practice, was considered dangerous or objectionable is not merely what was theologically motivated, but also what idea of religion transpired both in using churches as places for artistic mediation to the divine, and in allowing art to witness the devotional performative practices which themselves came under attack as legitimate avenues to the experience of God’s living presence.
Dr. Barbara Crostini
Dr. Vlad Bedros
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- medieval art
- materiality
- performance
- devotion
- museum studies
- iconoclasm
- Byzantium
Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Title: Art, Prayer, and Tears in Roman Catacombs
Abstract: This paper examines the connection of art, prayer, and tears in Roman catacomb painting, from the mid- to later third-century Donna velata (catacomb of Priscilla) to the painting supposedly seen by Prudentius over the tomb of Hippolytus on the via Tiburtina (ca. 400). The earliest catacomb painting is dominated by images of prayer. The standard pose: gaze upward, arms raised, palms open, mirrored the pose of the viewers who came to pray for the deceased. Women had a special role in this kind of prayer, which may be reflected in the Donna velata. After the legitimization of Christianity in 313 commemorative gatherings increasingly were held above ground, and prayer in the catacombs took on a different form: proskynesis before the graves of martyrs. Proskynesis was a pose of supplication, typically accompanied by weeping, and it was appropriate for prayer requesting the martyr’s assistance in obtaining God’s grace. In his much-discussed poem, Prudentius describes himself prostrate before the tomb under a painting of the martyr’s grisly death. Against the opinion that the painting inspired his emotional response, I argue that the painting was likely a fiction, and it was the tomb itself that moved the poet to grovel and lament his miserable state.
