Byzantine Icons from the Menil Collection

I am excited to pass this information on to you.  The Menil Collection here in Houston (my favorite museum ever) is putting on an exhibit of their rare Byzantine and Russian icons.  The Menil's collection of icons is considered one of the most important in the U.S. with rare pieces from the 6th to the 18th centuries.  The name of the exhibit is Imprinting the Divine (MORE...)

PHOTO: Saint Marina, Lebanon, possibly Tripoli, 13th century, Tempera and metal leaf on wood, 8-1/2  x 6-3/8 x 7/8 inches. The Menil Collection, Houston. Photo: Paul Hester

This is how they describe the exhibit:
Orthodox Christianity developed in the Near East during the rule of the Byzantine Empire. Greek, Russian, Romanian, Serbian, and Bulgarian Orthodox churches maintained a tradition of icon painting rooted in Byzantium but each expressed it in distinctive ways. Transcending time and place through a delicate balance of tradition and innovation, these images of saintly figures and divine events were designed to imprint their holy subjects on the human mind. Though largely overlooked by Western audiences for much of their history, icons captured the imagination of early modernist painters and their distinct qualities were appreciated by contemporary audiences.
 
An icon, whether in an ancient or modern context, is a sign or likeness of something of greater significance. Throughout history religious icons have been used to instruct, adorn and inspire worship. To be an effective conduit to the sacred, an icon must achieve fidelity to the subject it represents, be accessible enough to be easily remembered, and blend new messages with familiar elements. The icons of Imprinting the Divine reveal a variety of visual strategies that repeat figures and scenes but that also refresh, revise and renew the various elements that go into their creation. As Carr writes in the exhibition’s catalogue, “The art form evolved in both meaning and technique, yet maintained the continuity and fidelity to type so crucial to its purpose. Even now, centuries later…icons have lost none of their power to intrigue and impress.” (p. 33)

Report on "The Birth of Christianity: A Jewish Story" Exhibit: The Alexander son of Simon Ossuary

The exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural History on the Jewish birth of Christianity shows many fascinating objects. Over the next few weeks, I will occasionally comment on those I have found to be particularly important. I have already posted a few comments on the Apocalypse of Gabriel stone, and I will continue to do so as I work on the stone in the next couple of months.

For now, I want to point out one of the objects that most fascinates me. It is a first-century ossuary that we are lucky to have in this exhibit. The ossuary is a rather crude plain white stone box with rough letters carved into it. The inscription reads in Greek: "Alexandros (son of) Simon". On the lid, "Alexandros" is repeated, along with the Hebrew inscription QRNYT. Scholars have made sense of this odd word by suggesting that the final "T" is a mistake that we should read "H". If this is the case, then QRNYH would mean that Simon was Cyrenian since this is the Hebrew word of someone of Cyrenian origin. If not a mistake, it may be that the word should be read "Cyrenite" instead of "Cyrenian." Cyrene was the capital city of the province Cyrenaica in North Africa.

The ossuary was found in the Kidron Valley of eastern Jerusalem in 1941 by archaeologist Eleazar Sukenik from Hebrew University. The tomb contained eleven ossuaries and pottery from the first century CE. The use of ossuaries occurred during a very short period in Jewish history, mainly from 20 BCE to 70 CE. The deceased would be laid in a stone niche in the wall of the tomb and after a year the bones would be collected and stored in a small stone box. The inscriptions were often done crudely by a family member who scratched the deceased person's ID on the box so that the family could identify what box belonged to whom. Mistakes were common as were interring more than one person in a box so that the box has multiple names.

In this particular tomb, there were bones that were never interred, a fact that has led some to conclude that the tomb was abandoned during the Jewish War, and the family never returned to Jerusalem to rebury their dead in the ossuary.

The inscriptions on these particular ossuaries are unusual names among the Greco-Jewish inscriptions of the Palestinian Jews at that time. Yet some of them were common in Cyrenaica, a point that confirms the interpretation of the Alexandros inscription. So the tomb is of a Jewish family with connections to Cyrenaica.

Do we know more? It is wonderful that the biblical story mentions a Simon of Cyrene. He is the one who carries Jesus' cross (Mt 27:32; Luke 23:26). According to Mark 15:21, Simon has two sons, Alexander and Rufus. Could this ossuary be the bone box of Simon's son (or even both father and son as Tom Powers thinks)? Of course we can never know for certain. But it is a fascinating possibility.

For some earlier web articles on the Alexander son of Simon ossuary, see:

Tom Powers, "A Simon of Cyrene in Jerusalem."
Tom Powers, "A Second Look at the 'Alexander son of Simon' Ossuary."

PHOTO: The Alexander son of Simon ossuary pictured in Powers' article, "A Second Look..."

Symposium on Early Christian Art at Kimbell Museum

It has come to my attention that there is a symposium planned at the beginning of March to go along with the terrific exhibition of early Christian art at the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth. Here are the details from the website advertising it. Again, this is something not to miss.

Symposium on Early Christian Art

Saturday and Sunday, March 1–2, 2008

A two-day symposium featuring distinguished scholars from Europe and America will discuss various aspects of the function of Christian art, including its use in the format of Christian self-identity. The symposium will be moderated by the curator of the exhibition, Jeffery Spier of the University of Arizona, Tucson.

This symposium has been made possible by a generous grant from the Leon Levy Foundation.

Welcome and Introductions
Saturday, March 1
10:15 a.m.
Malcolm Warner, acting director, Kimbell Art Museum, and
Timothy Potts, director, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England

Temple, Church, and Synagogue: The Evolution of Religious Architecture in the World of Early Christianity
Saturday, March 1
10:30–11:30 a.m.
L. Michael White, R. N. Smith Endowed Chair in Classics and Religious Studies; director, Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins, department of classics, University of Texas at Austin

Emblems of Catholic Identity in Rome and North Africa
Saturday, March 1
11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Annewies van den Hoek, lecturer on Greek and Latin, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Images at the Christian Tomb: What They Do and What They Expect
Saturday, March 1
2–3 p.m.
Ann Marie Yasin, assistant professor, department of classics and art history, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

Fountains, Apses, and the Meaning of Water
Saturday, March 1
3–4 p.m.
Beat Brenk, full professor of Early Christian and medieval archaeology, Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza," Italy

The Earliest Christian Decorated Books: Function and Use
Sunday, March 2
11 a.m.–noon
John Lowden, professor, Courtauld Institute of Art, London

Art and Liturgical Disposition in Early Christian Churches
Sunday, March 2
1:30–2:30 p.m.
Sible L. de Blaauw, Van der Meer chair of Early Christian art and architecture, Department of the History of Art, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, The Netherlands

"Countless Imaginations" and the Authentic Likeness of Christ
Sunday, March 2
2:30–3:30 p.m.
Herbert L. Kessler, professor of the history of art, Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore

Discussion
Sunday, March 2
3:30–4:30 p.m.

Picturing the Bible at Kimbell Art Museum

On display at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, is a manuscript page I have always wanted to see. It is The Ascension from the Rabbula Gospels, Syria 586, vellum, Cod. Plut. I. 56, Fol. 13v (Biblioteca Mdicea Laurenziana, Florence). I have been fascinated with this rendering of Christ for years, since he is standing on nothing less than the wheeled merkavah!

If you are in Texas, go and see this exhibit. I haven't been yet. But as soon as the Codex Judas Congress is over, it is on my list of things to do. Maybe I will even try to organize a "field trip" with some of my students. It appears to be a gorgeous exhibit that is NOT traveling.

The Kimbell's website describes it as follows:

The Kimbell Art Museum announces Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art, a landmark exhibition of the earliest works of art illustrating the Old and New Testaments that will be on view from November 18, 2007, to March 30, 2008. Developed and organized by the Kimbell (its exclusive venue), and guest-curated by Dr. Jeffrey Spier of the University of Arizona, this highly important exhibition draws upon recent research and new discoveries to tell the story of how the earliest Christians first gave visual expression to their religious beliefs....

For more prose about the exhibition, CLICK HERE.