Short description:

The book examines the process of symbolic and material alteration of religious images in antiquity, the middle ages and the modern period.

Long description:

The book examines the process of symbolic and material alteration of religious images in antiquity, the middle ages and the modern period.

The process by which the form and meaning of images are modified and adapted for a new context is defined by a large number of spiritual, religious, artistic, geographical or historical circumstances. This book provides a defined theoretical framework for these symbolic and material alterations based on the concept of iconotropy; that is, the way in which images change and/or alter their meaning. Iconotropy is a key concept in religious history, particularly for periods in which religious changes, often turbulent, took place. In addition, the iconotropic process of appropriating cult images brought with it changes in the materiality of those images. Numerous accounts from antiquity, the middle ages and the modern period detail how cult images were involved in such processes of misinterpretation, both symbolically and materially.

The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual culture and religious history.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Iconotropy and the Alteration of Religious Images

Jorge Tomás García and Sandra Sáenz-López Pérez

1. Sensuous Encounters: The Adornment of Cult Statues in Ancient Greece

Cecilie Br?ns

2. Taming the Gorgon: Visual Iconotropy in the Archaic Greek Medusa

Rafael Jackson-Martín

3. The Religion of Theft: Stolen Cult Images in Ancient Greek Ritual and Cult

Aaron Beck-Schachter

4. The New Life of Greek Images Outside Greece: The Case of Iberia

Adolfo J. Domínguez

5. What Does an Idol Look Like? Visualizing Idolatry in Late Antique Jewish and Christian Art

Giovanni Gasbarri

6. Pagan Statues in Islamic Context: Iconotropy in Tenth-Century al-Andalus

Jorge Elices Ocón

7. Cross-Mediterranean Misinterpretations of Sacred Imagery

Michele Bacci

8. Enchanted by the ?Madonna Nicopeia?: Reception, Myth and the Methodological Pitfalls of the Art Historian

Meital Shai

9. Avalokiteśvara is Mutating Again: Chinese and Japanese Encounters with the Virgin Mary

Marco Musillo