Middle Byzantine Aesthetics Of Power And The Incomparability Of Islamic Art: The Architectural Ekphraseis Of Nikolaos Mesarites
The Palace Revolt of John Komnenos by Nikolaos Mesarites, an author of the middle Byzantine period , contains a passage that briefly describes an Islamic-style building, the Mouchroutas, which was part of the imperial palace complex in Constantinoples. Scholars typically treat the passage as a descriptive document upon which to base hypothetical reconstructions of the Mouchroutas. While the archaeological potentials of the ekphrasis are unusually rich, a focus on these aspects of the text has obscured other possible interpretations, in particular its significance as a record of the Byzantine reception of Islamic art. The building marks an intriguing instance of artistic emulation in the midst of a predominantly adversarial political relationship. The kiosk tiles are executed in mināʾī, a highly refined overglaze technique of polychrome painting more commonly found in ceramic vessels. Keywords: Byzantine aesthetics; ekphrasis; Islamic art; John Komnenos; Mouchroutas; Nikolaos Mesarites
Destroyed—Disappeared—Lost—Never Were
This volume assembles a kaleidoscopic array of reflections on works of art, artifacts, and monuments that are no longer extant, have disappeared from view, or perhaps never existed outside of language in the first place. Composed of short essays by specialists working on a diverse range of world cultures during the period from 500 to 1500 CE, the volume explores the formative presence of destruction, loss, obscu-rity, and existential uncertainty within the history of art and the study of historical material and visual cultures. visual even
Byron: Augustan and Romantic
The impact of Byron's writings - an evaluative approach, William St Clair "My brain is feminine" - Byron and the poetry of deception, Jerome J. McGann Byron and the romantic heroine, Malcolm Kelsall Byron and the Empire in the East, Marilyn Butler Byron Augustan - mutations of mock-heroic in "Don Juan" and Shelley's "Peter Bell the Third", Claude Rawson continuities and discontinuities of language and voice in Dryden, Pope, and Byron, Bernard Beatty Augustan satires and Panegyrics on London and Byron's image of the city, Michael Gassermeier Byron, Pope, and the Grand Tour, Michael G. Cooke Byron in Italy - the return of Augustus, Donald H. Reiman "Don Juan" transformed, Anne Barton Byron's "Wrong Revolutionary System" and romanticism, Hermann Fischer the quintessential Byron, Leslie A. Marchand.