CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2013
| Author | Dalbini, Zsuzsanna |
|---|---|
| Title | Changing Iconography in Eleventh- and Twelfth-century Psalters: Miriam's Dance as an Expression of Personal Devotion |
| Summary | Representations of Miriam’s dance as illuminations of the first ode of Moses portray a specific circle dance in nine eleventh- and twelfth-century Byzantine psalters. The varying postures depicted suggest that the images do not rely on a common pictorial model, but were inspired by a contemporary circle dance. Furthermore, the garments of the dancers can be correlated with the eleventh- and twelfth-century courtly milieu. This implies that the images placed Miriam’s dance in a contemporary environment, or at least an environment recognizable to contemporaries. The first ode of Moses praises the triumphant God, thus Miriam’s dance can be perceived as a triumphal dance. This triumphal connotation of dance is apparent in the written sources, e.g., The Book of Ceremonies. Furthermore, this new type of representation abandoned any visual reference to the narrative (the crossing of the Red Sea), which suggests that these illuminations can be perceived as representational portraits similarly to the neighboring portraits of the supposed authors of the odes. I suggest that these portraits could have been seen as examples, models of devotion and prayer. It seems that the majority of the psalters in this sample were made for personal, not liturgical, use. Thus, the representations may have been perceived as focal points for contemplation and meditation during the recitation of psalms and odes. |
| Supervisor | Christidou, Anna; Gaul, Niels; Szakács, Béla Zsolt |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2013/dalbini_zsuzsanna.pdf |
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