Annual Kent dur Russell Lecture with Alice Isabella Sullivan
Spatial Icons: The Communion of the Apostles in Medieval Art and Ritual
Free admission. Registration is required, please kindly RSVP below by Friday, June 12.
The Communion of the Apostles – a theme common to Byzantine and Slavic icons, manuscript decorations, textiles, liturgical objects, and mural cycles – presents a liturgical interpretation of the Last Supper. This image type display symmetrical compositions that center on a single or double-figure of Christ at an altar, officiating the Eucharistic bread and wine to the twelve apostles before him, arranged in various configurations. These images thus show two diachronic events, either chronologically or out of sequence but meant to be understood as unfolding in a temporal continuum. In examining the iconographic developments of The Communion of the Apostles theme in various media in the Byzantine and Slavic cultural spheres, this lecture considers the temporal and mimetic effects, as well as the functional fluidity of this image type in medieval art and ritual.
About the Speaker:
Alice Isabella Sullivan, PhD, is Assistant Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Tufts University. She specializes in the artistic production of Eastern Europe and the Byzantine-Slavic cultural spheres in the period between the 14th and 16th centuries. Sullivan is the author of the award-winning book The Eclectic Visual Culture of Medieval Moldavia (Brill, 2023), Europe’s Eastern Christian Frontier (ARC, 2024), and co-editor of several volumes. In addition, she is co-director of the Sinai Digital Archive, and co-founder of North of Byzantium and Map¬ping Eastern Europe – two initiatives that explore the history, art, and culture of the northern frontiers of the Byzantine Empire in Eastern Europe during the medieval and early modern periods.
Register early, space is limited! Please make sure to RSVP by Friday, June 12.
Special thanks to Edward Russell for his support of the Annual Kent dur Russell Lecture.
Clinton, MA 01510 United States
Spatial Icons: The Communion of the Apostles in Medieval Art and Ritual
Free admission. Registration is required, please kindly RSVP below by Friday, June 12.
The Communion of the Apostles – a theme common to Byzantine and Slavic icons, manuscript decorations, textiles, liturgical objects, and mural cycles – presents a liturgical interpretation of the Last Supper. This image type display symmetrical compositions that center on a single or double-figure of Christ at an altar, officiating the Eucharistic bread and wine to the twelve apostles before him, arranged in various configurations. These images thus show two diachronic events, either chronologically or out of sequence but meant to be understood as unfolding in a temporal continuum. In examining the iconographic developments of The Communion of the Apostles theme in various media in the Byzantine and Slavic cultural spheres, this lecture considers the temporal and mimetic effects, as well as the functional fluidity of this image type in medieval art and ritual.
About the Speaker:
Alice Isabella Sullivan, PhD, is Assistant Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Tufts University. She specializes in the artistic production of Eastern Europe and the Byzantine-Slavic cultural spheres in the period between the 14th and 16th centuries. Sullivan is the author of the award-winning book The Eclectic Visual Culture of Medieval Moldavia (Brill, 2023), Europe’s Eastern Christian Frontier (ARC, 2024), and co-editor of several volumes. In addition, she is co-director of the Sinai Digital Archive, and co-founder of North of Byzantium and Map¬ping Eastern Europe – two initiatives that explore the history, art, and culture of the northern frontiers of the Byzantine Empire in Eastern Europe during the medieval and early modern periods.
Register early, space is limited! Please make sure to RSVP by Friday, June 12.
Special thanks to Edward Russell for his support of the Annual Kent dur Russell Lecture.