Princeton University | Amassing Perspectives: Recent Trends in Syriac Iconography

Registration is open for Amassing Perspectives: Recent Trends in Syriac Iconography, a virtual conference on medieval Syriac iconography and visual culture.

The plenary lecture will be delivered by Prof. Emma Loosley Leeming (University of Exeter) on “Syriac Iconography: How a ‘Provincial’ Style Came to Encompass Asia.” Roundtable sessions arranged around pre-circulated papers will follow on a variety of themes, including church architecture, manuscript illuminations, networks of artistic exchange, and theorizing Syriac artistic viewing.

Monastery wall paintings in Syria and Egypt, the illuminations of the Rabbula Gospels, and the architecture and decorations of churches in regions as diverse as Turkey and India are just some of the rich visual culture extant from the late antique and medieval Syriac tradition. Though there is a long tradition of studying Syriac visual culture, there have been few monographs dedicated to the topic in recent decades. This conference gathers diverse scholars from across the globe whose research touches on all aspects of Syriac iconography and visual culture in any geographic region from late antiquity throughout the Middle Ages, to roughly 1400 C.E. The conference will sum up the status quaestionis of research into Syriac art and architecture and spell out major desiderata for the field going forward.

This conference is hosted by the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. To register, please visit the conference website here. This conference is free and open to the public.

Image credit: Ascension from the Rabbula Gospels, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. Original source: Donated courtesy of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.