Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art: Crossing Borders, Exploring Boundaries
Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art: Crossing Borders, Exploring Boundaries

Summary/Abstract: The authors reflect on methodological and terminological problems related to the critical fields of Byzantine and so-called Post-Byzantine Art in the Balkans. Departing from the traditional, frequently controversial, issues of continuity and identity, this chapter proposes a more effective conceptual framework, which favours the ideas of multiculturality, hybridity, and horizontal exchange. The present essay also addresses the questions of cultural history, and, especially, of Western influences in Orthodox painting after the 15th century, and it urges that art of any period should be measured against the standards of its own time. More generally, it suggests that the reception of Orthodox Christian art in the Balkans ought also to be considered to fall within the purview of scholars of the Western Renaissance, as well as of Ottoman Studies, so as to ensure fruitful academic dialogue across disciplines.

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