Pippin Michelli wrote:
>Oh, how could I resist such an invitation?
ummm.... jee, idonno....
Willpower?
>Why are we discussing Byzantine monks in Ireland?
C - was this your doing??
nomam, it warn't I, honest;
as Francine is my witness (thanks, F.!); was Pat Sloane did the deed.
Shucks, my thought of this supposed Irish/Eastern connection was based on
a fading memory of a not-so-hot survey class more decades ago than I care to
remember in mixed company;
and anyway, I've got a loose grip on a greasy pole on a slippery slope on the
way to understanding anything about it.
Something about which direction the Child was seated on the Virgin's lap
(which, I *do* remember, struck even ignerent me at the time as a bit dodgie
and tenuous, at best);
and the "connection" was, indeed Coptic, not "Byzantine" (thanks, Jim)--though
all those funny pictures looked pretty much alike to me, en ces halcion temps
la.
>iconography and style do not necessarily go together, particularly when
passing from a culture which accepts figurative imagery to one which evidently
did not until it was Christianized - and even then kept its images very
conceptual.
Agreed: a *profound* gulf exists between these particular stylistic peaks.
Though I hope you do not mean to imply that "Byzantine" figural imagery was
not conceptual--nor even any less conceptual than "Irish".
>We have to allow that these highly intellectual scribes were sophisticated
enough to take what they wanted from their models and no more.
Absolutely: no slavish copying, much cherry-picking; even more transformative
perceiving.
The question does come up of what the "models" might have "looked like"
to them--i.e., is the ability to "read" an image somehow innate, or is it
learned;
and learned in a rather remarkably complex fashion which may vary quite
profoundly from culture to culture?
>and as for the carpet pages, I will never forget my superviser long ago
bursting out with - "now, this is Nordenfalk going. off. his. rocker!"
an inside joke.
>but they clearly had minds and agendas of their own.
a masterful (or mistressful) bit of understatement, that.
Best to all from here,
Christopher
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