![]() ![]() The scholarly disciplines drawn on here are likewise eclectic, ranging from art history to biblical studies to book history to historical studies of Christianity and Judaism. The scope is deliberately eclectic: medieval manuscripts, printed Bibles from the 16th century to the present, children’s Bibles, and Bibles retold in graphic novels and comic books. Each of these perspectives is illustrated by examples, both Jewish and Christian, from various time periods. Each section explores a different analytic lens: the relationship between illustration and text, the interplay between images and the artist’s social context, the connection between illustrations of biblical texts and written exegesis, and so forth. This article was written with scholars of religion and the Bible in mind and surveys different methods and approaches for thinking about how decorated and illustrated Bibles convey meaning. In this article the term “illustrated Bible” is used but, as is shown, images do not merely illustrate the text like a mirror. Medievalists refer to stand-alone images in manuscripts as “miniatures,” and manuscripts that have miniatures, gilding, or other extensive decoration as “illuminated.” 1 Scholars of print Bibles typically use the term “illustrated Bible” to refer to any Bible that includes images of biblical narratives or characters. The term “decorated” also mediates between the terminology of different fields. Here the deliberately imprecise term “decorated Bible” refers to any manuscript or printed Bible that includes nontextual visual elements, or in which the written word serves as a visual element beyond mere signifier. Since at least the 5th century, biblical manuscripts have included illustrations depicting narratives and persons both biblical and extrabiblical decorations such as geometric patterns, flora and fauna, and textile designs visual–verbal interplays such as historiated initials and micrography maps, diagrams, and other visualizations of information and the use of elaborate color and gold leaf. Finally, a wide range of nonillustrative features of Bibles create meaning: ornament, word-image interplays, and symbols. Images also serve a wide range of functions: to teach, to accompany preaching, to facilitate memorization of text, and to instill moral and spiritual virtues. Further, decorated and illustrated Bibles often reflect the events of their time, including images of kingship, ecclesiastical concerns, ideologies of gender and ethnicity, and polemics within and between religious communities. Traditions of visualizing biblical texts also respond to previous artistic representations of that scene or character, as well as textual exegesis indeed, visual exegesis parallels its textual counterpart in complex ways. ![]() Most obviously, biblical illustrations always involve interpretive decisions about biblical narratives. The study of this large corpus suggests a wide range of ways in which decorations, images, and other kinds of nontextual visualizations in Bibles generate meaning. The earliest extant illustrated biblical manuscripts date to the 5th century, and their descendants continued through the medieval era and into the era of print, including children’s bibles, artists’ books, and comics. The Complexities of Word–Image Relationships and Ornament.Visual Representations of Biblical Hermeneutics and Authority.Images and Viewers: The Liturgical, Didactic, and Formative Functions of Biblical Decoration and Illustration.Ideological Issues: Gender, Colonialism.Polemics between and within Religious Traditions.The Iconography of Kingship, Biblical and Medieval.Images as Windows into Political, Ecclesiastical, and Ideological Concerns. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |