The Visual Rhetoric of the Married Laity in Late Antiquity by Ellison, Mark D.;

Rövid leírás:

This study examines third- and fourth-century portraits of married Christians and associated images, reading them as visual rhetoric in early Christian conversations about marriage and celibacy, and recovering lay perspectives underrepresented

Hosszú leírás:

This study examines third- and fourth-century portraits of married Christians and associated images, reading them as visual rhetoric in early Christian conversations about marriage and celibacy, and recovering lay perspectives underrepresented or missing in literary sources.

Historians of early Christianity have grown increasingly aware that written sources display an enthusiasm for asceticism and sexual renunciation that was far from representative of the lives of most early Christians. Often called a ?silent majority,? the married laity in fact left behind a significant body of work in the material record. Particularly in and around Rome, they commissioned and used such objects as sarcophagi, paintings, glass vessels, finger rings, luxury silver, other jewellery items, gems, and seals that bore their portraits and other iconographic forms of self-representation. This study is the first to undertake a sustained exploration of these material sources in the context of early Christian discourses and practices related to marriage, sexuality, and celibacy. Reading this visual evidence increases understanding of the population who created it, the religious commitments they asserted, and the comparatively moderate forms of piety they set forth as meritorious alternatives to the ascetic ideal. In their visual rhetoric, these artifacts and images comprise additional voices in Late Antique conversations about idealized ways of Christian life, and ultimately provide a fuller picture of the early Christian world. Plentifully illustrated with photographs and drawings, this volume provides readers access to primary material evidence. Such evidence, like textual sources, require critical interpretation; this study sets forth a careful methodology for iconographic analysis and applies it to identify the potential intentions of patrons and artists and the perceptions of viewers. It compares iconography to literary sources and ritual practices as part of the interpretive process, clarifying the ways images had a rhetorical edge and contributed to larger conversations.

Accessibly written, The Visual Rhetoric of the Married Laity in Late Antiquity is of interest to students and scholars working on Late Antiquity, early Christian and late Roman social history, marriage and celibacy in early Christianity, and early Christian, Roman, and Byzantine art.

"In Late Antiquity, many Christian leaders expressed a negative view of the married life of the laity. They preferred to support monks and to praise virgins. In this learned and thought-provoking book, Mark Ellison modifies the gloomy impression left by their writings. He shows that the shrill radicalism of the few was held in check by innumerable silent choices that can be seen in the iconography of Early Christian sarcophagi, in marriage poems and funeral addresses, and in the twinkling light of the gold glass cups and medallions scattered throughout the catacombs of Rome and elsewhere. He has brought into the light (often, literally from underground) evidence for a gentler Christianity, more widespread and more respectful of married love than we had expected." - Peter Brown,

Tartalomjegyzék:

Prologue: The Monk and the Matrona;