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Eleven - Three Questions Concerning Armenian and Byzantine Art

from II - Images, Objects, Archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2024

By
Christina Maranci
Edited by
Elizabeth S. Bolman ,
Scott Fitzgerald Johnson  and
Jack Tannous
Elizabeth S. Bolman
Affiliation:
Case Western Reserve University, Ohio
Scott Fitzgerald Johnson
Affiliation:
University of Oklahoma
Jack Tannous
Affiliation:
Princeton University, New Jersey
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Summary

If the Armenological scholarship of the past five decades is any indication, close and deep examination has tended to reveal shared concerns, broader cultural horizons, and a strong sense of Armenia’s connectedness to other traditions and places. This could be shown for virtually all periods of Armenian history, but this essay focuses on the seventh to tenth centuries. Exploring some points of convergence between Armenian and Byzantine artistic traditions, I ask three very specific questions: 1) Is there such a thing as an Armenian imperial image? 2) What if an Armenian church were constructed in the imperial palace at Constantinople? and 3) What if an early medieval Armenian icon panel was shown to have survived? These are all hypothetical scenarios, but they are not entirely fantastical; each finds at least some support in historical evidence. Moreover, all of them urge a broader, more complex, and more dynamic conceptualization of visual culture than most studies of Byzantine and Armenian art have allowed.

Keywords

Moses of NisibisCoptic Orthodox ChristianitySyriacOrthodoxSyriac inscriptionsSyriac
Type
Chapter
Information
Worlds of Byzantium
Religion, Culture, and Empire in the Medieval Near East
 , pp. 324 - 351
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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