Degree Date
2022
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
History of Art
Abstract
Representations of body language add a vital layer of meaning to middle Byzantine figural art, and they deserve systematic scholarly attention. My dissertation offers a method for unpicking the meanings of individual movements, and, more importantly, it explores the underlying cultural concerns that shaped the form of the body in middle Byzantine art. I argue that Byzantine images of body language are intentionally schematic and programmatic. By combining a restricted vocabulary of motion with pared-down renderings of physical forms, Byzantine artists engaged the vital force of embodied expression, while also transfiguring the body into a metaphoric representation of disembodied ideas and ideals. Individual images of body language may communicate on their own. However, their most powerful, subtle, and unexpected meanings emerge when we read them within and across wider image programs.
My dissertation centers on three case studies, and each explores an individual manuscript or a small group of manuscripts. These books all contain lavish, narrative illustrations, and so they are an ideal context in which to study the forms and meanings of figural programs. The three chapters deal, in turn, with posture, gesture, and repeated iconic compositions. In each one, I explore a different bodily iconography, and I show how its meaning develops over the space of the book. The first chapter deals directly with the spiritualization of the body, by arguing that speech gestures were tied to a notion of the divine Logos. However, the second chapter moves into the realm of individual identity and court intrigue. I propose that a tenth-century Byzantine courtier used an idiosyncratic bowing posture in his own donor portrait to mark his power and connection to sacred history. Finally, the third chapter analyzes a manuscript containing repeated, iconic figural compositions. I contend that even icons, the most static and formulaic Byzantine figural images, could be intensely animated by schematic forms that are connection to a larger visual program and to a space of performance.
My dissertation thinks about images, but also about the spaces between images. It reimagines Byzantine bodies as sites of expression and repression, caught in a constant tension between the physical and the spiritual and between the demands of individual and collective meaning.
Citation
Streiter, N. 2022. "Schemata: The Language of the Body in Middle Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts." PhD Diss., Bryn Mawr College.