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The short essay “Dream Kitsch” (“Traumkitsch”) is a controversial comment by Walter Benjamin on surrealism, which the author sees as the “last snapshot of the European intelligentsia”, as a crisis of art that aims to mobilize dreaming and thereby risks missing the essence of things and turning them into kitsch.
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This text deals with the dynamics and dialectics of the street as a special space of multifaceted impacts and transformations, which are in many cases of a borderline and ecstatic kind. From the viewpoint of the authors under consideration, the street is seen and experienced as a topos of crisis, of revelations, but also of secrets, of apocalyptic visions revealed primarily in the depths of affect, but also through morbid expressionistic reflection; visions that seem to come together and unite within hypnotic prophecies...
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The purpose of this contribution is to show how deep and valuable is the cultural heritage of a people and how dynamic, especially in difficult times. One basic concept used is the cultural style, which differs from the individual style in art. We shall mention the philosophical contribution of a Romanian philosopher of culture, Lucian Blaga, who, under the influence of Jung’s “collective unconsciousness” wrote about the cultural heritage and how it is transmitted from generation to generation through an unconscious structure called by Lucian Blaga “the stylistic matrix”. We shall apply this philosophical theory to some artistic productions of the Romanian art of the period 1960–1980. We will also use some specific mythological and ritual meanings connected to the vegetal world, especially to wheat, flour, paste, bread.
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The work is devoted to different forms of body art, where the author uses his own body as a material for making art. These art practices are related to questions about their ontological nature and the criteria for defining and distinguishing art and reality, object and subject, author and work of art. An Identification of different components of the art process - author, work, public, as well as the relationship biological–mechanical–virtual have also been considered.
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The purpose of the work is to reveal the essence of the process of introduction of corporate culture in the system of aesthetic orientation of professional training of TV presenters. The research methodology involves a comprehensive approach with the use of analytical, systematic, and comparative methods, which makes it clear that the ideal of art education needs a meaningful content, creating optimal conditions for corporate culture in the system of aesthetic life of students of higher education and arts. The scientific novelty of the work lies in updating the concept of corporate culture in the context and in connection with the formation of professional training of broadcasters. Conclusions. As a result of the conducted research it is established that in the conditions of creative higher education the implementation of the aesthetic orientation of professional training of students is carried out by forming the personality of the artist with harmoniously combined professional, moral and aesthetic, psychological qualities and is provided with purposeful educational activities. The most important aesthetic qualities in the process of forming the corporate component of the aesthetic preparation of future TV presenters are the following: respect for the history, culture, dignity, ethical ideals of each people; interest in the national language, customs, traditions, as well as feelings of mutual tolerance and delicacy as to the national "other" mentality, spiritual values, and carriers of another culture and opinions that do not coincide with one's own.
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This essay is dedicated to some methodological, terminological and geocultural problems related to the model – image interactions in Byzantine, Western and Premodern art on the Balkans, commenting some differences in Russian tradition as well. The author supports the supposition of Robin Cormack that the Orthodox icon painters before 15th century have memorized the images by constantly drawing and copying them, while the memorized models were a testimony about the process of training the visual memory. In conclusion the author states that on the Balkans religious images of known and of acquired canonical status monuments were used as models. Unlike the Russian tradition, model books in the full sense of the term did not exist, but there were preparatory sketches or collections of images that were used for ideas or sometimes for icon templates.
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The study deals with the visualization of the Old Testament episode of 2 Samuel 24 in Orthodox art in the Balkans. This is a scene that is extremely rare in the art from the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine period, appearing initially in manuscripts dating from the Middle Ages. Its depiction became more frequent in the period between 17th and the beginning of 18th c., when it was present as a plot on icons and in murals, mainly as part of the cycles of the Holy Archangels, or as part of a vita cycle of King David. Some possible factors for the actualization of this subject in art are explored. The Thesauros of Damaskinos Stouditis and its spread in the Balkans is considered as the most important among them, especially for the inclusion of the scene in the cycles of the Archangels. Probable influence of certain texts from the apocryphal literature for the appearing of this composition among the scenes of David’s vita cycle in murals is pointed out as well. In addition, some specific features of the historical conditions during the period are highlighted that shed light on the historical context of the creation of some of these images in the Balkans.
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The manuscript MS Add. 43868, an illuminated sketchbook of Post-Byzantine painting, was the object of my research during my postgraduate studies at the Courtauld Institute of Art of the University of London. The illuminated sketchbook MS Add. 43868 first became known by two publications of the British Museum in 1935 and 1936. It was first presented in 1935 by Eric G. Millar at the British Museum and from 1945 onwards it forms part of the manuscript department of its Library. It measures 19.5x14.5 cm and its cover is lined with dark brown later leather. It consists of 63 folios of white paper foliated in the top right corner of the recto pages. The manuscript contains text and drawings in black ink. The texts consist of technical instructions on rendering an icon, therapeutic recipes, religious writings and notes. Most of the drawings depict saints, scenes from their lives, Christological and Theometoric episodes, angels and decorative motifs. Hence, the drawings as well as the texts that occupy the pages of the illuminated sketchbook must have been produced after 1784 and 1785.
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The recent study of the twenty-four working drawings and sketches (anthivola) of the Makris-Margaritis Collection proved particularly fruitful to explore the relationships and interactions between local ecclesiastical art workshops active during the 19th century in the southern Balkans. The comparative study of these working drawings on the one hand confirmed their origin from the Marinas family workshop from the village of Chioniades in Epirus and on the other hand highlighted that this archive also includes drawings of other contemporary renowned ateliers of the southern Balkans. However, most drawings are associated with Athonite artistic workshops, whose production reached wider area of the southern Balkans.
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A unique Vita icon of the Theotokos Dexiokratousa (1806) in Chrysopege monastery, Crete, is signed by Athonite painter Nikephoros from Karpenisi (+1816). The main subject, a reproduction of “St Luke’s icon” of the Mega Spelaion monastery, is surrounded by eleven scenes illustrating its legend. The composition is based on two late-18th – early 19th century engravings. The donor, hieromonk Kallinikos Megaspelaiotes, might have ordered it for one of the two metochia of the Peloponnesian monastery in Constantinople. He can be identified with the homonymous author of the Little Vespers, added to the office for the patron saints of Mega Spelaion (Athens, 1840).
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This contribution explores paper icon templates from the collection of the Museum of the Russian icon in Moscow. The selected examples are associated with the Moscow icon-painting circles of the 19th century and linked to people who professed the so-called Old Belief. All pieces were traced from 17th century icons produced in the Tsar’s workshops, in particular, from the artworks commonly related with the icon-painters working on the commission of the Stroganov family.
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W artykule omówione zostały dwa opracowania kantyku Magnificat powstałe w I połowie XVII wieku na potrzeby celebracji liturgicznej protestanckiego kościoła św. Marii Magdaleny we Wrocławiu. Autorem kompozycji jest Sebastian Lemle związany wówczas z tą wrocławską świątynią. Przedstawione kompozycje stanowią przykład recepcji polichóralnej twórczości na Śląsku. Jednocześnie są świadectwem zachowania kantyku Magnificat w celebracji wspólnot protestanckich, a także potwierdzają zasadę jego wykonywania zgodną z praktyką alternatim.
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The paper draws attention to some scenes of sea journeys, symbolic or actual, found on various kinds of Roman funerary monuments from the territory of Bulgaria. Herе will be discussed some images of members of the marine thiasos, considered companions in journeys over water. Analysis focuses on the funerary monuments from Odessos, Philippopolis, Novae and Nicopolis ad Istrum featuring the above mentioned depictions. The overview concludes with a monument from Odessos, referring to an actual sea voyage.
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This essay analyzes emotionally-charged descriptions of the Holy Land’s locations, composed by Byzantine and Slavic pilgrims, from the 12th to the 15th century. The author considers that such episodes were meant to assist the audience in their imaginary journey. By concentrating on curiosities, dangers, beauties of landscape, or physical efforts, the authors created a feeling of presence at the sites, here-and-now. On the other hand, the accounts of pious, bodily performances and the Erlebnisse of encounters with the Divine facilitated the audience’s access to the spiritual experiences and helped them to conduct the transformative journey mentally.
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The big canvasses called “Jerusalem icons” (Jerusalimija) by the Eastern Orthodox Slavs were at first topographic depictions of Jerusalem and the sacred places around it being sites of worship, sometimes with the inscription: Η ΑΓΙΑ ΠΟΛΙΣ ΙΕΡΟΥΣΑΛΗΜ ΚΑΙ ΤΑ ΠΕΡΙΧΩΡΑ ΑΥΤΗ. In the late 18th c. some new elements appeared in the complex composition which point out to other sacred places in the Eastern Mediterranean: the miraculous icon of the Holy Mother of God from the Kykkos Monastery in Cyprus, the Holy Mother of God of the Life-Giving Spring from Constantinople, the Mount Athos monasteries, Mount Sinai. There are relatively few similar examples that can be defined as total proskynetaria and they probably appeared made to special order of pilgrims. The Jerusalem icons in Bulgarian collections with depictions of St. John of Rila and his monastery and of St. St. Cyril and Methodius as well as the appearance of St. Sava of Serbia in canvases ordered by Serbian pilgrims are also interesting. The very road of pilgrims is marked by the port of Jaffa and the caravan of camels heading to the holy city of Jerusalem.
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The work of Theodor Anton Ippen (1861–1935), Orientalist and Consul of the Habsburg Empire in Scutari, presents a special interest for the Christian topography of north and central Albania. This article is a short critical approach on Ippen’s reports on six churches, with emphasis on their fresco decoration (Byzantine, Late Gothic, and Post-Byzantine one). Ippen’s contribution is still valuable, as it brings out documentation on previously unnoticed monuments and frescoes of medieval Albania, some of which have not even survived.
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The image from the prothesis niche of the St. George Church in Arbanassi, which has reached us thanks to archival photographs, is an illustration of a troparion from the first song of the canon of Holy Saturday “Up on the Throne and Down in the Grave”. The composition of the church in Arbanassi follows a non-traditional iconographic model, which is relatively rare in wall paintings of the 16th?17th centuries. As a selection of its elements, the image is closest to the visualization of the troparion in the Piva Monastery (1603-1605) in Montenegro. On the other hand, an iconographic detail ? the posture of the Virgin embracing Christ in the composition Christ in the grave, brings together the example of the Arbanassi church with monuments from the region of Epirus during the 17th century. The frescoes in this part of the altar of the St. George Church are not dated by a donor inscription or other information. I hope that this article, as well as further research, will contribute to a more accurate placing of the frescoes in the Balkan art from the Post-Byzantine period.
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This text examines the depictions of patron saints and saints protectors of monasteries placed onto the reliquaries of itinerant monks and attempts to interpret them in the context of pilgrimage practice in the period 18th–19th century in the Bulgarian lands.
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This article deals with the existing assumptions about the occurrence and the layers of murals and construction works at the Chapel of the Holy Archangels in the Monastery of Bachkovo. Two Greek inscriptions found while carrying out restoration work are published for the first time: one above the window in the south wall, and the second inscribed on the basement of the drum on which the dome rests. The former is a donor’s inscription and the author deems it to have contained the name of the founder along with that of the painter, while the latter is hymnographical/liturgical and though surviving and uncovered fragmentarily until mid-2020, its content refers to the Archangels. Both inscriptions are palaeographically dated to the fourteenth century and are associated with the donation activities of King Ivan Alexander in the cloister. The deciphered inscriptions confirm the correctness of the assumption of some researchers that by the mid-fourteenth century the church was dedicated to the Archangels. The author inevitably addresses the question of the function of the chapel in the medieval period and how it correlates with the lower floor, the catholicon and the old gates. Here once again he argues that the Chapel of the Holy Archangels was not a mortuary one. In addition to the overall argumentation, Emmanuel Moutafov draws a number of parallels from the historical, theological, philosophical and artistic contexts of the age.
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