A Recurring Theme in Orthodox Art
Byzantine artists were fascinated with the subject that allowed them to graphically show human despair. The martyrs were typically represented at the point when they were about to freeze to death, "shivering from the cold, hugging themselves for warmth, or clasping hands to their faces or wrists in pain and despair". This is particularly evident in the large 10th-century ivory plaque from the Bode Museum and the Palaiologan portable mosaic set in wax, from Dumbarton Oaks.
The subject continues to be popular among Orthodox iconographers.
Read more about this topic: Forty Martyrs Of Sebaste
Famous quotes containing the words recurring, theme, orthodox and/or art:
“Let us think this thought in its most terrible form: existence as it is, without meaning or aim, and yet recurring inevitably, without a finale in nothingness—”eternal recurrence.””
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The one regret I have about my own abortions is that they cost money that might otherwise have been spent on something more pleasurable, like taking the kids to movies and theme parks.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“All orthodox opinion—that is, today, “revolutionary” opinion either of the pure or the impure variety—is anti-man.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)
“We’re made so that we love
First when we see them painted, things we have passed
Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see;
And so they are better, painted—better to us,
Which is the same thing. Art was given for that;
God uses us to help each other so,”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)