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Painting the Soul
Item No: 150:186189001X
Category: 24
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$24.95
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Description:
Icons, Death Masks and Shrouds
Author: Robin Cormack
ISBN: 186189001X
Publisher: Reaktion Books, October 1997
Size:19 x 234 x 158 mm (0.76 x 9.20 x 6.21 in.), 248 pages, 77 illustrations with 25 in full color, Trade Paperback.
Icons are among the must elusive subjects in the history of art, but at the same time their study constitutes possibly its fastest expanding field. Recent discoveries in Greece and the opening-up of the former Soviet Union have to led to many new objects being studied and exhibited. Painting the Soul explores both the creation and the development of the icon. After the early Christians--like the pages 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?
Appropriately Cormack's study ends with Venetian Crete, where the icon underwent its final development 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.
Painting the Soul explores both the creation and the development of the icon, and looks in detail at the Turin Shroud, Fayyum portraits from Egypt, and the early works of El Greco in Crete. Publication coincides with a major exhibition of Byzantine art at the Metropolitan in New York, from March to July 1997.
About the Author
Robin Cormack is professor in the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute, University of London. His books include Writing in Gold (1985) and The Byzantine Eye (1989).
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