Text and image issues in medieval Orthodox painting: a structural-semiotic approach (part III) Cover Image

Problema textului și a imaginii în pictura murală ortodoxă: o abordare structural-semiotică (parte a III-a)
Text and image issues in medieval Orthodox painting: a structural-semiotic approach (part III)

Author(s): Constantin I. Ciobanu
Subject(s): Visual Arts
Published by: Institutul Patrimoniului Cultural al Academiei de Științe a Moldovei
Keywords: Orthodox; Romanian medieval art; textual criticism; epigraphy; fresco; icon; hierotopy; image; writing; paleography; medieval painting; pragmatic; semantics; semiotics; sign; text

Summary/Abstract: The third part of the study „The problem of text and image...” is devoted to the typological classification of the inscriptions in the Romanian medieval art. Specialists in paleography observed non-compliance – extremely common – dating between actual painting of icons and the inscriptions dating from the same icons. One of the reasons for failure of traditional palaeographical methods in the research of epigraphic texts is related to the ineffectiveness of nomenclature types of characters taken from writing on parchment or paper and applied to hard materials such as wood, stone or metal. The difficulties, mentioned above, in the second half of the Twentieth century have pushed forward taxonomic investigations of medieval inscriptions. The methodological principles of epigraphical classification have been substantially clarified and finalized. Inscriptions on Orthodox icons and mural paintings were grouped according to various criteria: material and technical execution, location, language, content, form, time and so on. Thus, it was built the general typology of the texts and the inscriptions of the Ancient Orthodox Art. A second issue mentioned in the study is referring to morphological and grammatical structure of the names (theonyms, hagionyms, anthroponyms, names of places, eortonyms, ekklesionyms, icononyms) present in medieval icons and mural painting. The end of the study is addressed to issue of hierotopy’s genesis – seen in close connection with the acting-pragmatic aspect of the relationship between the work of Christian art and its users.

  • Issue Year: XXV/2016
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 5-15
  • Page Count: 11
  • Language: Romanian