The Art Bulletin

Of the many issues pertaining to the Ionic frieze of the Parthenon, the depiction of the twelve gods and their two attendants is particularly enigmatic. This paper presents new evidence for the identification of Hera’s attendant as Hebe; argues that the gods are arranged according to their significance for Persian war battles, with land deities on the south and sea deities on the north; posits a spatial configuration in which the gods are seated in a semicircle in front of the center scene; and discusses the influence of this section of the frieze on later art.

An exquisite example of toreutic art of the early Roman Imperial period known as the Warren Cup has been largely neglected in the scholarly literature because of the controversial nature of its scenes of homoerotic lovemaking. This paper offers a new interpretation of the cup’s date, subject matter, function, and significance and considers for the first time the cup’s presumed lost mate and its possible imagery. The rhetorical and aporetic nature of its scenes, its intended audience, and the role of such cups in the intellectual discourse of the Roman banquet are discussed.

The open folios of a medieval manuscript, like parts of the human body, phenomenologically generate meaning. The first opening of the Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, a translation of the first six books of the Old Testament produced in eleventh-century England, contains two prefaces: an illustration of the Fall of the Rebel Angels and Ælfric of Eynsham’s "Preface to Genesis." Previously read by scholars as separate discourses, these two structures together introduce the translated text that follows, situating the reader/viewer between a series of dichotomies: proper and improper interpretation, good and evil, incorporation or exclusion from the Christian community.

This study analyzes image-text relationships in an illustrated vernacular devotional work, the Anglo-French Complaint of Our Lady/Gospel of Nicodemus, part of a profusely illuminated book of hours commissioned about 1335-40 by a female member of the English gentry. It is argued that certain features of the manuscript’s design and illustration structured and enhanced the religious experience of the "devotionally literate" reader. Further, the study suggests how the patron might have used this illustrated text to educate her daughter in the fundamentals of literate devotion.

Giotto’s fresco of the Annunciation in the Arena Chapel differs significantly from other scenes in the cycle in pictorial form and narrative style. Numerous clues indicate that the Annunciation was designed to relate to devotional practices in wholly original ways. The figures resemble actors in a paraliturgical performance, and during Mass on the feast day of the Annunciation they became "performers" in a synaesthesic spectacle of sound and light.

Technical study of Jan van Eyck’s Annunciation in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., has revealed several significantly different stages in the artist’s development of the composition. The initial conception, recorded in the underdrawing, set the scene in a church of uniform architecture with a decorative floor of carpet or patterned stone. Van Eyck revised his image throughout the painting process, introducing the rich decorations with the Old Testament references that characterize the final image. In an apparently late revision, van Eyck seems to have painted the majolica vase and lilies over the previously completed floor and the Virgin’s mantle.

As an attempt to relate the recently discovered compositional stages of Jan van Eyck’s Annunciation in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., to the development of the artist’s final iconographic program, this article builds on the technical findings of Melanie Gifford and the staff of the National Gallery (see preceding article). The initial metaphoric construct of van Eyck’s church building is found to be unique in his oeuvre. His subsequent revisions appear designed to add important historical and theological dimensions to the viewer’s perception of the Annunciation event.

This essay examines Oskar Kokoschka’s play Murderer, Hope of Women in the context of the antifeminine views of fin de siècle culture, paying particular attention to the ways art, science, philology, and the philosophy of history all contributed to reinforce the cultural and political disenfranchisement of women. In addition to investigating the intellectual assumptions underlying Murderer, the essay also argues that formal strategies had highly specific political meanings in Vienna 19149 and that Kokoschka, under the influence of his patrons, initiated a stylistic shift that aligned his own artistic production with the antifeminist ideology of his culture.

Classical modern art in Bulgaria followed a singular path within eastern Europe, in general, and in the Balkans, in particular. This study provides an analysis of the original contexts and unique conditions that account for the distinctive character and particular form of Bulgaria’s modern art.