“Although many of the iconographic traditions in Byzantine art formed in the early centuries of Christianity, they were not petrified within a time warp. Subtle changes and refinements in Byzantine theology did find reflection in changes to the iconographic and stylistic conventions of Byzantine art. This is a brilliant and innovative book in which Dr Anita Strezova argues that a religious movement called Hesychasm, especially as espoused by the great Athonite monk St Gregory Palamas, had a profound impact on the iconography and style of Byzantine art, including that of the Slav diaspora, of the late Byzantine period. While many have been attracted to speculate on such a connection, none until now has embarked on proving such a nexus. The main stumbling blocks have included the need for a comprehensive knowledge of Byzantine theology; a training in art history, especially iconological, semiotic and formalist methodologies; extensive fieldwork in Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Turkey and Russia, and a working knowledge of Greek, Old Church Slavonic, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, Latin as well as several modern European languages, French, German, Russian and Italian. These are some of the skills which Dr Strezova has brought to her topic.” Professor Sasha Grishin AM, FAHA Adjunct Professor of Art History School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics The Australian National University

2Although many of the iconographic traditions in Byzantine art formed in the early centuries of Christianity, they were not petrified within a time warp. Subtle changes and refinements in Byzantine theology did find reflection in changes to the iconographic and stylistic conventions of Byzantine art. This is a brilliant and innovative book in which Dr Anita Strezova argues that a religious movement called Hesychasm, especially as espoused by the great Athonite monk St Gregory Palamas, had a profound impact on the iconography and style of Byzantine art, including that of the Slav diaspora, of the late Byzantine period. While many have been attracted to speculate on such a connection, none until now has embarked on proving such a nexus. The main stumbling blocks have included the need for a comprehensive knowledge of Byzantine theology; a training in art history, especially iconological, semiotic and formalist methodologies; extensive fieldwork in Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Turkey and Russia, and a working knowledge of Greek, Old Church Slavonic, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, Latin as well as several modern European languages, French, German, Russian and Italian. These are some of the skills which Dr Strezova has brought to her topic.3 Professor Sasha Grishin AM, FAHA Adjunct Professor of Art History School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics The Australian National University.

Religion and spirituality are key aspects of the contemporary art scene. Following Ronald Barthes' 'death of the author' - which argued for the dissociation of work from creator - works of art have withdrawn as independent objects, giving way to a growing religious awareness or practice. 'Art and Theology' examines the connection between art and religion in ancient Jewish drama, Greek tragedy, the Renaissance, the Byzantine icon and the medieval cathedral. The book explores how art lost its sacred character in the late Middle Ages and how the current withdrawal or 'death' of art and the fusion of the limits of art and life are consistent with the medieval view of the religious icon.

Written over nearly three decades, the fifteen essays involve the three a's of the title, art, agency, and appreciation. The first refers to the general subject matter of the book, Byzantine art, chiefly painting, of the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries, the second to its often human-like agency, and the last to its historical reception. Responding to different issues and perspectives that have animated art history and Byzantine studies in recent decades, the essays have wide theoretical range from art historical formalism, iconography, archaeology and its manuscript equivalent codicology, to statistics, patronage, narratology, and the histories of science and collecting. The series begins with art works themselves and with the imagery and iconography of church decoration and manuscript illumination, shifts to the ways that objects act in the world and affect their beholders, and concludes with more general appreciations of Byzantine art in case studies from the thirteenth century to the present.

Moscow's rise to power in the fifteenth century heralded a new era of patronage, reconfiguring the status of images within Russian society. Before this time, there was little theorization or close analysis of images in East Slavic literature, but a variety of social factors would combine to generate an unprecedented era of debate involving icons. The outbreak of heresies, competitive bidding among clients, the founding of new icon cults, and workshop reforms all endowed images with a new cultural weight.The literature that emerged from this period sought to influence both artistic practice and viewer interpretation. Exploring a variety of objects alongside these texts, this dissertation seeks to recover the historical immediacy of key artifacts through the discourses that guided viewers? perception.Grouping images under the heading of moods?or paradigmatic modes of encounter?the four chapters of this study show how disputes pressured the interpretation of compositional and stylistic elements down preset pathways, reifying an exemplary posture. In turn, this way of arranging the textual and visual evidence reveals the subtle adjustments viewers made over the course of nearly two centuries.Discussing the aesthetic and literalist moods in the first two chapters, and the mythical and transactional moods in the last two chapters, I argue that viewers' interests gradually shifted from surface elements (style, iconography) to the inner, cultic power of images, displacing the agency of artists onto the images themselves. Expecting images to perform miracles of healing, audiences became passive, images active, flipping the typical subject-object relation on its head. Charting an increasingly inward-looking concept of the image, the chapters foreshadow the trajectory of the cult image into modernity.The study's chronological parameters recast what has been viewed as Russian art's slide into "decline" (spad). For many scholars, the sixteenth-century ?crisis? was something that happened to, rather than was chosen by, those who produced, commissioned, interpreted, and enjoyed this art. However, when one situates period artworks within local contexts of viewing, it becomes clear that Russians were treating images differently than Byzantine authors had. This dissertation examines the reasons for this change in attitude.