Sacral dynamics: the roles of body and space in medieval Byzantine religious art and architecture

• Applicant: Dr. Lara Frentrop
• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 528631191

The body matters. It constructs and marks identity and the self within specific contexts, be they cultural, social, political, or economical. It is the tool through which we experience the world and classify our knowledge of it. Yet, there is no cohesive and in-depth study of how the body’s interaction with space and art accomplished these two things in the medieval Byzantine Empire. Throughout the Byzantine medieval period objects, images, and buildings that prompted physical engagement with and by the viewer were produced in the Byzantine Empire and its sphere of cultural connections. The interactions between art, body, and space ranged from movement through and around buildings, thereby also changing the viewer’s relation to the images contained within that space, to the opening and closing of hinged compartments contained within devotional objects. This project will examine works of medieval Byzantine religious art and architecture in one introductory object and three case studies – buildings with inscriptions, monumental images, and reliquaries – through their interaction with the viewer through embodied experience and the movement of the viewer’s body through space and through the handling of objects. This will result in unprecedented insights into the ways in which Byzantine religious buildings, images, and objects were reliant on a viewer and user to create and unfold their meaning and how they, in turn, contributed to defining the viewer’s identity. The findings will bear on the discipline of art history, offering up new and unprecedented approaches to Byzantine works of art and architecture, and on those of history, anthropology, sociology, and archaeology. The project will be based at the Institut für Europäische Kunstgeschichte (IEK) at the University of Heidelberg. The University’s library holds excellent resources for research thanks to its ‘Sammelschwerpunkt "Europäische Kunstgeschichte bis 1945 und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft”’. The University holds one of the most important collections of literature on Byzantine art and culture in Germany, enhanced by the presence of one of the few departments of Byzantinische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte” in the country. The IEK’s library has additional important resources. Taken together, Heidelberg University and the IEK are the best-resourced institutions in Germany to research medieval art history of any geography. Existing research strengths at the IEK complement this study in terms of their methodology and aims, notably Prof. Rebecca Müller’s work on medieval material culture and the results of the collaborative research cluster ‘Materiale Textkulturen’ It has created the competencies, resources, and structures required to successfully complete the research on the proposed project. Together, the resources and the expertise present in Heidelberg make this the ideal environment to conduct this project.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants