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Abstract
The pre-modern work of art, which gained authority through its extension in ritual action, could function as a social integrator. This essay investigates the figural decoration of the Orthodox Baptistery in Ravenna, in an effort to explain certain features of the mosaic program. If the initiation ritual is reenacted and the civic centrality of the rite and its executant, the bishop, is restored, the apparent “iconographic mistakes” in the mosaics reveal themselves as signs of the mimetic responsiveness of the icon. By acknowledging their unmediated character, it may be possible to re-empower both pre-modern images and our own interpretative strategy.
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Notes on contributors
Annabel Jane Wharton
Annabel Wharton's major publications include Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (with A.P. Kazhdan), 1985; Tokali Kilise. Tenth-Century Metropolitan Art in Byzantine Cappadocia, 1986; and Art of Empire: Painting and Architecture of the Byzantine Periphery. A Comparative Study of Four Provinces (in press). [Department of Art and Art History, 112 East Duke Building, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708]