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Can I read Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm on EtoBox?
Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm by Charles Barber is a nonfiction available to read on EtoBox.
What is Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm about?
Figure and Likeness presents a thought-provoking new account of Byzantine iconoclasm--the fundamental crisis in Christian visual representation during the eighth and ninth centuries that defined the terms of Christianity's relationship to the painted image. Charles Barber rejects the conventional means of analyzing this crisis, which seeks its origin in political and other social factors. Instead, he argues, iconoclasm is primarily a matter of theology and aesthetic theory. Working between the theological texts and the visual materials, Barber demonstrates that in challenging the validity of iconic representation, iconoclasts were asking: How can an image depict an incomprehensible God? In response, iconophile theologians gradually developed a notion of representation that distinguished the work of art from the subject it depicted. As such, Barber concludes, they were forced to move the language describing the icon beyond that of theology. This pivotal step allowed these theologians, of whom Patriarch Nikephoros and Theodore of Stoudios were the most important, to define and defend a specifically Christian art. In highlighting this outcome and also in offering a full and clearly re
Who reads Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm?
It is typically read by self-directed learners exploring a subject in depth.
Common subject areas: history, science, philosophy, social sciences.
- Author
- Charles Barber
- Publisher
- PrincetonUP
- Published
- 2002
- Language
- EN
- Category
- nonfiction