Artistic Practice, Materiality, and Ideology in the Medieval East...

Artistic Practice, Materiality, and Ideology in the Medieval East Roman Empire and Neighboring Eastern Polities

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English | 2026 | ISBN: 1032750111 | 361 Pages | PDF | 37 MB

This anthology foregrounds the complex interplay of artistic production, material conditions, and political conjuncture in East Roman Empire and the wider Orthodox Commonwealth. While art-historical research has long been shaped by the “visual” and “spatial” turns, this volume insists that a decisive advance lies in engaging the “material turn” through a perspective that grounds artworks in their historically specific material conditions rather than as autonomous agents. By interrogating how artworks emerge within historically specific material realities, this book situates epigraphy, image, and monument within the lived economies, institutions, and belief systems of the medieval East Roman world.

The collection’s four sections map the many sites where matter and meaning intersect. Part I probes inscribed monuments in their urban settings, attending to staging, accessibility, and reception. Part II examines the construction of imperial, aristocratic, and ecclesiastical representation across diverse media. Part III turns to portrayals of imperial, lay, and churchwomen, exploring how gendered agency was mediated in sacred and secular spheres. Part IV expands the horizon to Armenia, Georgia, and Northern Mesopotamia, reframing center-periphery narratives through a transregional lens. An epilogue synthesizes these inquiries, showing how current approaches in art history theorize materiality.