Byzantium/Modernism
The Byzantine as Method in Modernity
Series: - Visualising the Middle Ages, Volume: 12
Byzantium/Modernism features contributions by fourteen international scholars and brings together a diverse range of interdisciplinary essays on art, architecture, theatre, film, literature, and philosophy, which examine how and why Byzantine art and image theory can contribute to our understanding of modern and contemporary visual culture. Particular attention is given to intercultural dialogues between the former dominions of the Byzantine Empire, with a special focus on Greece, Turkey, and Russia, and the artistic production of Western Europe and America. Together, these essays invite the reader to think critically and theoretically about the dialogic interchange between Byzantium and modernism and to consider this cross-temporal encounter as an ongoing and historically deep narrative, rather than an ephemeral or localized trend.
Contributors are Tulay Atak, Charles Barber, Elena Boeck, Anthony Cutler, Rico Franses, Dimitra Kotoula, Marie-José Mondzain, Myroslava M. Mudrak, Robert S. Nelson, Robert Ousterhout, Stratis Papaioannou, Glenn Peers, Jane A. Sharp and Devin Singh.
Contributors are Tulay Atak, Charles Barber, Elena Boeck, Anthony Cutler, Rico Franses, Dimitra Kotoula, Marie-José Mondzain, Myroslava M. Mudrak, Robert S. Nelson, Robert Ousterhout, Stratis Papaioannou, Glenn Peers, Jane A. Sharp and Devin Singh.
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Roland Betancourt, Ph.D. (2014), Yale University, is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of California, Irvine. He has published articles and essays on the intersection of Byzantine art, liturgy, and image theory, as well as on contemporary media and visual culture. His work and methodology focus on both Byzantine and contemporary discourses on the ontological valences of the image and its temporality.
Maria Taroutina, Ph.D. (2013), Yale University, is Assistant Professor of Art History at Yale–NUS College in Singapore. She has published a number of articles and essays on the art and architecture of Imperial and early Soviet Russia and is currently working on the book, From the Tessera to the Square: Russian Modernism and the Russo-Byzantine Revival.
Maria Taroutina, Ph.D. (2013), Yale University, is Assistant Professor of Art History at Yale–NUS College in Singapore. She has published a number of articles and essays on the art and architecture of Imperial and early Soviet Russia and is currently working on the book, From the Tessera to the Square: Russian Modernism and the Russo-Byzantine Revival.
"[This book] offer[s] a multi-disciplinary view of subjects as varied as historiography, art history, architecture, stage design, psychoanalytic thought and theology."
Joseph Masheck and Edmund Ryder, Art and Christianity, No. 88, Winter 2016
'' A remarkable and remarkably wide-ranging collection, then, and one that will provide at least some food for thought for anyone with an interest in the continuing contemporary cultural dialogue with Byzantium. In addition, it provides an essential springboard for further reflection on the themes it addresses, and its methdological breadth is encouraging, if at times disconcerting; but to be disconcerted is often valuable for stimulating thought, and that is one objective that this book accomplishes triumphantly''.
Ivan Moody, in Journal of International Society for Orthodox Music vol.2 (2016).
Joseph Masheck and Edmund Ryder, Art and Christianity, No. 88, Winter 2016
'' A remarkable and remarkably wide-ranging collection, then, and one that will provide at least some food for thought for anyone with an interest in the continuing contemporary cultural dialogue with Byzantium. In addition, it provides an essential springboard for further reflection on the themes it addresses, and its methdological breadth is encouraging, if at times disconcerting; but to be disconcerted is often valuable for stimulating thought, and that is one objective that this book accomplishes triumphantly''.
Ivan Moody, in Journal of International Society for Orthodox Music vol.2 (2016).
Contents
Acknowledgments IX
Preface XI
List of Illustrations XV
List of Contributors XIX
Explanation of the Cover XXIII
Part 1
Byzantium and Modernism
Introduction: Byzantium and Modernism 1
Maria Taroutina
Section 1
The Avant-Gardes and Their Counter Movements
1 Modernism’s Byzantium Byzantium’s Modernism 15
Robert S. Nelson
2 Kazimir Malevich and the Liturgical Tradition of Eastern
Christianity 37
Myroslava M. Mudrak
Section 2
Modernism’s Precursors
3 Arts and Crafts and the ‘Byzantine’: The Greek Connection 75
Dimitra Kotoula
4 Archaeology of Decadence: Uncovering Byzantium in Victorien
Sardou’s Theodora 102
Elena N. Boeck
Section 3
Byzantine Tactics, Modernist Strategies in Architectural Discourse
5 Abstraction’s Economy: Hagia Sophia in the Imaginary of
Modern Architecture 135
Tulay Atak
6 Byzantine Architecture: A Moving Target? 163
Robert Ousterhout
Part 2
The Slash as Method
Introduction: The Slash as Method 179
Roland Betancourt
Section 4
Reading across Time: Modern Subjects, Byzantine Objects
7 Byzantium and the Modernist Subject: The Case of Autobiographical
Literature 195
Stratis Papaioannou
8 One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish: Byzantine Visual Structures in
the Light of Twentieth-Century Practice and Theory 212
Anthony Cutler
Section 5
Byzantine New Media: The Photographic and Filmic Icon
9 Iconicity of the Photographic Image: Theodore of Stoudios and Andre
Bazin 237
Devin Singh
10 Tarkovsky: Embodying the Screen 254
Marie-José Mondzain
Section 6
Presence, Representation, and the Gaze: The Byzantine at the Ends
of Modernity
11 ‘Action-Paradise’ and ‘Readymade Reliquaries’: Eccentric Histories in/
of Recent Russian Art 271
Jane A. Sharp
12 Lacan and Byzantine Art: In the Beginning was the Image 311
Rico Franses
13 Beyond Representation/The Gift of Sight 330
Charles Barber
CODA
14 We Have Never been Byzantine: On Analogy 349
Glenn Peers
Select Bibliography 361
Index 367
Acknowledgments IX
Preface XI
List of Illustrations XV
List of Contributors XIX
Explanation of the Cover XXIII
Part 1
Byzantium and Modernism
Introduction: Byzantium and Modernism 1
Maria Taroutina
Section 1
The Avant-Gardes and Their Counter Movements
1 Modernism’s Byzantium Byzantium’s Modernism 15
Robert S. Nelson
2 Kazimir Malevich and the Liturgical Tradition of Eastern
Christianity 37
Myroslava M. Mudrak
Section 2
Modernism’s Precursors
3 Arts and Crafts and the ‘Byzantine’: The Greek Connection 75
Dimitra Kotoula
4 Archaeology of Decadence: Uncovering Byzantium in Victorien
Sardou’s Theodora 102
Elena N. Boeck
Section 3
Byzantine Tactics, Modernist Strategies in Architectural Discourse
5 Abstraction’s Economy: Hagia Sophia in the Imaginary of
Modern Architecture 135
Tulay Atak
6 Byzantine Architecture: A Moving Target? 163
Robert Ousterhout
Part 2
The Slash as Method
Introduction: The Slash as Method 179
Roland Betancourt
Section 4
Reading across Time: Modern Subjects, Byzantine Objects
7 Byzantium and the Modernist Subject: The Case of Autobiographical
Literature 195
Stratis Papaioannou
8 One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish: Byzantine Visual Structures in
the Light of Twentieth-Century Practice and Theory 212
Anthony Cutler
Section 5
Byzantine New Media: The Photographic and Filmic Icon
9 Iconicity of the Photographic Image: Theodore of Stoudios and Andre
Bazin 237
Devin Singh
10 Tarkovsky: Embodying the Screen 254
Marie-José Mondzain
Section 6
Presence, Representation, and the Gaze: The Byzantine at the Ends
of Modernity
11 ‘Action-Paradise’ and ‘Readymade Reliquaries’: Eccentric Histories in/
of Recent Russian Art 271
Jane A. Sharp
12 Lacan and Byzantine Art: In the Beginning was the Image 311
Rico Franses
13 Beyond Representation/The Gift of Sight 330
Charles Barber
CODA
14 We Have Never been Byzantine: On Analogy 349
Glenn Peers
Select Bibliography 361
Index 367
All interested in Byzantine, modern and contemporary art, and anyone concerned with image theory, historiography, and the philosophy of iconic representation.