'Italo-Byzantine' ivory and issues in the definition of 'Byzantine' art

该项目的主要研究问题是如何定义拜占庭艺术的地理和质量范围的限制。博物馆和展览往往只展示最高质量的作品，这些都加强了拜占庭艺术的看法，基本上是帝国/法院委员会的高质量产品。用象牙等奢侈、昂贵的材料制成的物品尤其如此。质量较低的产品，特别是象牙，往往被分配到帝国政治和文化边界之外的地方。这导致了一个现代的帝国知识模型，拜占庭创造和传播艺术，周围的文化复制和模仿。现代艺术史学家自动将低质量的艺术品归于拜占庭帝国的邻国，这强化了拜占庭本身至高无上的观念。最近一系列关于拜占庭艺术的综合书籍加强了拜占庭艺术的这一观点，反映了帝国政府官僚机构的中央集权模式。不符合这一假定模型的艺术品被排除在外。我所写的文章回应了帝国及其艺术的这种模式，并揭示了其背后的假设。该项目考察了拜占庭象牙分类的方法，并探索了帝国内部低质量艺术产生的其他可能模式。特别是我研究了一种更加多样化和投机性的艺术生产形式，这种形式不受帝国和宫廷赞助的支配，但可能更受市场驱动，对帝国境内各种不同的艺术观众做出反应。我曾探讨过一种更多样化、更异质化的拜占庭艺术模式，以及拜占庭帝国的模式是否可行，我的工作集中在伦敦博物馆的两件象牙上：克里凡号角（Clephane horn，大英博物馆收藏的一件世纪的奥列芬特作品）和一块《最后审判》的牌匾（Last Judgment，12世纪，维多利亚和阿尔伯特博物馆）。这些象牙都是1930年安德鲁·凯克（Andrew Keck）的文章的核心，该文章首次定义了意大利-拜占庭象牙的存在，此后很少受到关注。他们提出了不同的，但相关的问题。Clephane号角装饰着的图像，赛车，而这种图像往往被认为是暗示了君士坦丁堡的起源作品。然而，它的体裁在拜占庭没有先例--大多数奥列芬特的作品要么是西方的，要么是伊斯兰的--而且它的风格在帝国内部也不容易被模仿。这表明了学者们在中世纪世界中为这个物体分配一个家时所面临的问题。同样，到了约1100年，即奥列芬特的假定日期，拜占庭人似乎已经失去了所有早期帝国的共鸣，而仍然是帝国游客的有力象征（来自威尼斯和基辅的证据）。对克里法内号角的研究，然后，允许观众和接受的问题得到审查，以及可以为没有出处的物体创造的替代历史，根据对象的哪些元素被强调I风格，流派，图像学，或观众。最后的审判象牙，另一方面，有一个图像学和风格，传统上一直与意大利。在这里，对意大利的分配是主观决定的。这是一个从未得到充分分析的归因。我对这批象牙的研究重新评估了意大利-拜占庭象牙，并提出这批象牙是在帝国内部制造的，可能是在君士坦丁堡，但与传统上认为的象牙相比，它的受众是不同的，非帝国。它对中世纪象牙市场的性质提出了质疑，并对艺术品的生产、委托和销售提出了不同的看法。

The principal research question that this project addresses is how to define the limits of Byzantine art, in terms of geographic and qualitative range. Museums and Exhibitions tend to display only the highest quality works, and these have reinforced a perception of Byzantine art as being essentially imperial/court commissions of high quality products. This is particularly the case with objects made from luxury, expensive materials such as ivory. Lower quality products, particularly in ivory, have tended to be assigned to locations outside the political and cultural borders of the empire. This has led to a modern intellectual model of empire in which Byzantium creates and disseminates art, and surrounding cultures copy and emulate. The automatic assignation by modern art historians of low quality art to the neighbours of the Byzantine Empire reinforces the idea of the supremacy of Byzantium itself. A recent spate of general books on Byzantine art has reinforced this idea of Byzantine art, reflecting the centralised model of the imperial governmental bureaucracy. Art which does not fit this presumed model is excluded. The articles I have written respond to that model of the empire and its art, and expose the assumptions that underlie it.The project examines the methodology underlying the categorisation of Byzantine ivories, and explores other possible models for the generation of lower quality art within the empire. In particular I have researched a more diverse and speculative form of artistic production not dominated by imperial and court patronage, but possibly more market driven and responsive to the various diverse audiences for art within the borders of the empire. I have explored whether a more diverse and heterogeneous model of Byzantine art, and indeed of the Byzantine Empire, is feasible.The work has focused on two ivories in London Museums: the Clephane horn [an eleventh-century Oliphant in the British Museum] and a plaque of the Last Judgement [twelfth century, Victoria & Albert Museum]. These ivories, which were both central to the 1930 article of Andrew Keck which first defined the existence of ltalo-Byzantine ivories, have received little attention since. They raise distinct, but related questions.The Clephane horn is decorated with images of chariot-racing, and this iconography has often been assumed to imply a Constantinopolitan origin for the piece. Its genre, however, has no precedents within Byzantium -most Oliphant's are either western or Islamic- and its style cannot easily be paralleled within the empire. This demonstrates the problems scholars have faced in assigning this object a home in the medieval world. Equally, by c.1100, the presumed date of the Oliphant, chariot-racing seems to have lost all its earlier imperial resonances to a Byzantine audience, whilst remaining a potent symbol to visitors to the empire (evidence from Venice and Kiev).The study of the Clephane horn, then, allows questions of audience and reception to be examined, and of the alternative histories that can be created for objects without provenance, depending on which elements of the object are emphasised I style, genre, iconography, or audience.The Last judgement ivory, on the other hand, has an iconography and style which have traditionally been linked to Italy. Here, the assignation to Italy is much more subjectively determined. This is an attribution that has never been fully analysed. My examination of this ivory re-evaluates the group of ltalo-Byzantine ivory, and proposes that this group was made within the empire, probably in Constantinople, but for a different, non-imperial audience than that traditionally assumed for ivories. It raises questions about the nature of the market for ivory in the middle ages and alternative views of the production, commissioning and sale of art.