Donor Portraits in Byzantine Art
The Vicissitudes of Contact between Human and Divine

Explores the complex relationship between art and religious belief in this important genre of painting.

Rico Franses (Author)

9781108407588, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 23 March 2023

261 pages, 64 b/w illus.
24.4 x 17 x 1.4 cm, 0.457 kg

'This is a book that takes a broadly synchronic look across the Byzantine world, a view that different works of art in different media from different times and places nonetheless speak to the same broad Christian world-view, to similar structures … This is a perspective that makes us think and it makes us question, and that is what the best scholarship should do.' Liz James, The English Historical Review

This book explores the range of images in Byzantine art known as donor portraits. It concentrates on the distinctive, supplicatory contact shown between ordinary, mortal figures and their holy, supernatural interlocutors. The topic is approached from a range of perspectives, including art history, theology, structuralist and post-structuralist anthropological theory, and contemporary symbol and metaphor theory. Rico Franses argues that the term 'donor portraits' is inappropriate for the category of images to which it conventionally refers and proposes an alternative title for the category, contact portraits. He contends that the most important feature of the scenes consists in the active role that they play within the belief systems of the supplicants. They are best conceived of not simply as passive expressions of stable, pre-existing ideas and concepts, but as dynamic proponents in a fraught, constantly shifting landscape. The book is important for all scholars and students of Byzantine art and religion.

Introduction: methodologies for the study of donor portraits
1. The history and problematic of the donor portrait
2. On meaning in portraits. The knot of intention and the question of the patron's share
3. Awaiting the end after the end. Sin, absolution, and the afterlife
4. Exchange and non-exchange. The gift between human and divine
5. The literal, the symbolic, and the contact portrait. On belief in the interaction between human and divine
Postscript: the problem of terminology again. Donor portraits and contact portraits.

Subject Areas: Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], European history [HBJD], History of art: Byzantine & Medieval art c 500 CE to c 1400 [ACK], History of art / art & design styles [AC]