Hagia Sophia and the Byzantine Aesthetic Experience

Review\n"In Hagia Sophia and the Byzantine Aesthetic Experience, Nadine Schibille brings special skills to bear in an attempt to recapture the impact of this enormous building on sixth-century Christians. Schibille draws with great skill on contemporary Byzantine writings."-Peter Brown, The New York Review\n'Nadine Schibille provides analytical discussion of these texts, charting in detail their relationships to early Christian patristic literature, pre-Christian sources and even the physiology of visual percetion.' Art Newspaper\nParamount in the shaping of early Byzantine identity was the construction of the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (532-537 CE). This book examines the edifice from the perspective of aesthetics to define the concept of beauty and the meaning of art in early Byzantium. Byzantine aesthetic thought is re-evaluated against late antique Neoplatonism and the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius that offer fundamental paradigms for the late antique attitude towards art and beauty. These metaphysical concepts of aesthetics are ultimately grounded in experiences of sensation and perception, and reflect the ways in which the world and reality were perceived and grasped, signifying the cultural identity of early Byzantium. There are different types of aesthetic data, those present in the aesthetic object and those found in aesthetic responses to the object. This study looks at the aesthetic data embodied in the sixth-century architectural structure and interior decoration of Hagia Sophia as well as in literary responses (ekphrasis) to the building. The purpose of the Byzantine ekphrasis was to convey by verbal means the same effects that the artefact itself would have caused. A literary analysis of these rhetorical descriptions recaptures the Byzantine perception and expectations, and at the same time reveals the cognitive processes triggered by the Great Church. The central aesthetic feature that emerges from sixth-century ekphraseis of Hagia Sophia is that of light. Light is described as the decisive element in the experience of the sacred space and light is simultaneously associated with the notion of wisdom. It is argued that the concepts of light and wisdom are interwoven programmatic elements that underlie the unique architecture and non-figurative decoration of Hagia Sophia. A similar concern for the phenomenon of light and its epistemological dimension is reflected in other contemporary monuments, testifying to the pervasiveness of these aesthetic values in early Byzantium.

Schibille, Nadine

Reference

Routledge

Khirbet et-Tannur is a Nabataean site dating from the second century B.C. to the fourth to sixth centuries A.D. located on a hilltop above the Wadi el-Hasa near Khirbet edh-Dharih, 70 km north of Petra along the King's Highway. In 1937, Nelson Glueck excavated Khirbet et-Tannur on behalf of the American Schools of Oriental Research and the Department of Antiquities of Transjordan, but died before completing a final report. Now in two extensively illustrated volumes, the results of Glueck's excavations are finally published, based on previously unstudied excavation records and archaeological materials in the ASOR Nelson Glueck Archive at the Semitic Museum, Harvard University. Volume 1: Architecture and Religion Volume 2: Cultic Offerings, Vessels, and Other Specialist Reports Volume 1 is devoted to the architecture of the temple, the dating of its successive phases, its sculptural decoration and iconography, and to a discussion of Nabataean religion, including the evidence for its connections with the religion of Iron Age Edom and its continuation at the temple of Khirbet et-Tannur well into the Christian era, before the A.D. 363 earthquake brought an end to the site. The volume closes with observations about iconoclasm at Khirbet et-Tannur, Khirbet edh-Dharih and Petra.

The Nabataean Temple at Khirbet Et-Tannur, Jordan, Volume 1: Architecture and Religion. Final Report on Nelson Glueck's 1937 Excavation (Annual of Asor)

History

Alexander, Catherine S

Barrett, Deirdre G

Gilmour, Brian

Greene, Joseph a

McKenzie, Judith S

O'Hea, Margaret

Reyes, Andres T

Schmid, Stephan G

Wetterstrom, Wilma

Whitcher Kansa, Sara

Healey, John F.

Ancient Civilizations

American Society of Overseas Research

Khirbet et-Tannur is a Nabataean site dating from the second century B.C. to the fourth to sixth centuries A.D. located on a hilltop above the Wadi el-Hasa near Khirbet edh-Dharih, 70 km north of Petra along the King's Highway. In 1937, Nelson Glueck excavated Khirbet et-Tannur on behalf of the American Schools of Oriental Research and the Department of Antiquities of Transjordan, but died before completing a final report. Now in two extensively illustrated volumes, the results of Glueck's excavations are finally published, based on previously unstudied excavation records and archaeological materials in the ASOR Nelson Glueck Archive at the Semitic Museum, Harvard University. Volume 1: Architecture and Religion Volume 2: Cultic Offerings, Vessels, and Other Specialist Reports Volume 2 offers a systematic reorganization of Glueck's original excavation records and presents detailed specialist analyses of the Khirbet et-Tannur faunal and botanical remains, metal, glass, lamps and pottery collected by Glueck in 1937 and now preserved in Semitic Museum's ASOR Nelson Glueck Archive, along with fresh examinations of the Nabataean inscriptions and altars from the site.

The Nabataean Temple at Khirbet Et-Tannur, Jordan, Volume 2: Cultic Offerings, Vessels, and Other Specialist Reports. Final Report on Nelson Glueck's 1937 Excavation (Annual of Asor)

Paramount in the shaping of early Byzantine identity was the construction of the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (532-537 CE). This book examines the edifice from the perspective of aesthetics to define the concept of beauty and the meaning of art in early Byzantium. Byzantine aesthetic thought is re-evaluated against late antique Neoplatonism and the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius that offer fundamental paradigms for the late antique attitude towards art and beauty. These metaphysical concepts of aesthetics are ultimately grounded in experiences of sensation and perception, and reflect the ways in which the world and reality were perceived and grasped, signifying the cultural identity of early Byzantium. There are different types of aesthetic data, those present in the aesthetic object and those found in aesthetic responses to the object. This study looks at the aesthetic data embodied in the sixth-century architectural structure and interior decoration of Hagia Sophia as well as in literary responses (ekphrasis) to the building. The purpose of the Byzantine ekphrasis was to convey by verbal means the same effects that the artefact itself would have caused. A literary analysis of these rhetorical descriptions recaptures the Byzantine perception and expectations, and at the same time reveals the cognitive processes triggered by the Great Church. The central aesthetic feature that emerges from sixth-century ekphraseis of Hagia Sophia is that of light. Light is described as the decisive element in the experience of the sacred space and light is simultaneously associated with the notion of wisdom. It is argued that the concepts of light and wisdom are interwoven programmatic elements that underlie the unique architecture and non-figurative decoration of Hagia Sophia. A similar concern for the phenomenon of light and its epistemological dimension is reflected in other contemporary monuments, testifying to the pervasiveness of these aesthetic values in early Byzantium.

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