Bissera V. Pentcheva’s research while affiliated with Stanford University and other places

This paper explores the chiastic sign ⊗ in Romanesque art showing its investment in the form of the crown of the saints (e.g., the corona on the golden statue of Sainte Foy at Conques); in the mirroring of celestial and terrestrial music (Paris, BnF, MS Lat. 776, fol. 1v); and in the chiastic step of Christ, the Archangel Michael, and the apostles (sculptures and the Beatus MS at Santo Domingo de Silos). The pirouetting step present in the art at Santo Domingo de Silos is interpreted here as the expression of the imbrication of human and divine. This entwining channels caritas: the love for one’s neighbour through which the faithful can return to the divine at the end of time. A powerful confirmation of these ideas about the interdigitation of human and divine through the practice of caritas is offered by the poetry and music for the feast of the Mandatum (The Washing of the Feet).

Using the evidence of Aquitanian chants, this article explores the possibility that a twelfth-century relief panel of the Annunciation today in the interior of Conques was originally designed for the West facade, where it completes the composition of the divine plan of Salvation. This hypothetic reconstruction also uncovers the important role of the patron saint, Sainte-Foy, and how she is promoted as second after Mary and efficacious intercessor.

The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Art and Architecture offers a wide-ranging introduction to the richness and diversity of the arts in the Byzantine world. It includes thirty-eight essays by an international roster of authors, from prominent researchers to emerging scholars, on various issues and media. Discussions consider art created for religious purposes, to enhance and beautify the Orthodox liturgy and worship space, as well as art made to serve in royal and domestic contexts. While the Byzantine period is defined as the years 330–1453 ce, some chapters treat the aftermath and influence of Byzantine art on later periods. Arts covered include buildings and objects from the Eastern Mediterranean region, including Italy, the Balkans, Russia, and the Near East. The volume brings together object-based considerations of themes and monuments that form the backbone of art history, with considerations drawing on many different methodologies—sociology, semiotics, anthropology, archaeology, reception theory, deconstruction theory, among others—all in an up-to-date synthesis of scholarship on Byzantine art and architecture. The handbook is a comprehensive overview of a rich field of study, offering a window into the world of this distinct and fascinating period of art.

This study explores optical and sonic brightness–aura–in the medieval church interior by focusing on one object: the golden retable of the Pentecost at Stavelot (Belgium). Its metal surface changes and becomes radiant in candlelight, in contrast to its static and dormant presence in the steady electric light of the standard museum display. This phenomenon–ephemeral brightness–was purposefully activated in the medieval ritual in order to offer the faithful an optical experience of the divine. Phenomenal aura exemplifies how matter imbued by the Spirit becomes alive, purified and perfected. The subject matter of the retable, a scene of Pentecost, further inscribed this descent of Pneuma in the visible. Its in-dwelling causes a return (choros) to the image of God. Thus, the enlightened apostles begin to mirror the imago Christi. The retable further links optical luminosity with sonic aura by means of a chant inscribed on the panel. The way the bright tones of this melody are spatialized traces the same principles of choros and mirroring in the sonic. To uncover the cultural significance of optical and acoustic aura, this analysis relies on texts produced or used at Stavelot, the vitae of the patron saint Remaclus, a treatise on the Eucharist composed by Alger of Liège (c. 1060–c.1131), the letters of Wibald, Abbot of Stavelot, Malmedy, Montecassino, and Corvey (1130–1158), his personal sacramentary, and the liturgy and poetry written at the monastery of Cluny for the feast of Pentecost.