The sensual icon epub book

Today we take the word icon to mean a sign or we equate it with portraits of Christ and the saints In The Sensual Icon Bissera Pentcheva demonstrates how icons originally manifested the presence of the Holy Spirit in matter Christ was the ideal icon emerging through the Incarnation so too were the bodies of the stylites column saints penetrated by the divine pneuma breath or spirit or the Eucharist or the Justinianic space of Hagia Sophia filled with the reverberations of chants and the smoke of incense Iconoclasm 726 843 challenged these Spirit centered definitions of the icon eventually restricting the word to mean only the lifeless imprint typos of Christ s visual characteristics on matter By the tenth century mixed media relief icons in gold repouss enamel and filigree offered a new paradigm The sun s rays or flickering candlelight stirred by drafts of air and human breath animated the rich surfaces of these objects changing shadows endowed their eyes with life The Byzantines called this spectacle of polymorphous appearance poikilia that is presence effects sensually experienced These icons enabled viewers in Constantinople to detect animation in phenomenal changes rather than in pictorial or sculptural naturalism Liveliness as the goal of the Byzantine mixed media relief icon thus challenges the Renaissance ideal of lifelikeness which dominated the Western artistic tradition before the arrival of the modern Through a close examination of works of art and primary texts and language associated with these objects and through her new photographs and film capturing their changing appearances Pentcheva uncovers the icons power to transform the viewer from observer to participant communing with the divine The Sensual Icon Space Ritual and the Senses in Byzantium