Scrolls as Visual Communication: The Terracotta Sculptures of St John’s Church in Tartu
Scrolls as Visual Communication: The Terracotta Sculptures of St John’s Church in Tartu

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the terracotta sculpture programme of St John’s Church in Tartu with particular attention to the widespread use of scrolls. Rather than treating scrolls as carriers of lost or illegible texts, it approaches them as visual elements that structured communication within architectural space. Through repetition and spatial placement, scrolls indicate acts of authorised speaking and proclamation without depending on readable content. Within the urban and episcopal context of fourteenth-century Tartu, the scrolls placed authority and community in relation to one another within a shared horizon of judgement. The article demonstrates how scrolls contributed to this visual order by articulating relations of authority, address and reception within the sculptural programme, foregrounding visual presence over textual legibility as the primary condition of communication.

• Details
• Contents