Bissera V. Pentcheva

(Stanford University/Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin)

Icons of Sound: The Living Image, Its Music, and Its Sacred Space in the Middle Ages

Since the Renaissance, Western culture has promoted the ability of the painter or sculptor to imitate nature and produce a lifelike image. By contrast, the Middle Ages privileged the liveliness of artworks, stemming from the changing appearance of materials like gold, enamel, and gems. They came to life through the changing reflections of daylight and shadows across their complex surfaces, or by the glitter stirred by the flicker of candles. Sacred images were moreover enveloped in the sound of chant and in rituals, which – through the positions and movements of the participants – revealed (or dissimulated) ever new perspectives. The lecture will explore different modes of animation of medieval art that literally came alive by capturing all the senses of the beholder.

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