Naslov
A New Perspective on the 11th-century Sculpture in Southern Dalmatia

Autori
Zornija, Meri

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
Byzantium in the Adriatic from the 6th to 12th century / Basić, Ivan ; Gračanin, Hrvoje ; Vedriš, Trpimir - Zagreb : Hrvatsko društvo za bizantske studije, 2018, 45-46

Skup
International Conference "Byzantium in the Adriatic from the 6th to 12th century"

Mjesto i datum
Split, Hrvatska, 28.09.2018. - 30.09.2018

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Recenziran

Ključne riječi
11th century, southern Dalmatia, Ston, Dubrovnik, pre-Romanesque sculpture, Byzantine sculpture

Sažetak
Pre-Romanesque sculpture from the Dubrovnik region, despite its peculiar ornamentation and motifs, has remained rather neglected in debates on the artistic expression in the Dalmatian Adriatic of the time. After of Miljenko Jurković’s cogent analysis in the 1980s, which outlined a fundamental line of development from the 9th until the late 11th century, no further satisfactory interpretations or elaborations by other authors have followed, despite the fact that the number of researched localities with remnants of pre-Romanesque stone carvings has grown significantly and that the results have been adequately published. In his analysis, Jurković briefly refers to the specificities of this sculpture compared to that of northern Dalmatia. Even though he mainly explained them through the unbroken continuity of stone carving since the early Christian period, he nevertheless briefly noted “a certain, albeit small, influence of Byzantium” as typical of this region. Elsewhere, however, he explicitly denied any direct influence of contemporary Byzantine art on the development of pre- Romanesque sculpture. What can be added to the topic today, more than thirty years after his analysis? Are we now able to define with more precision the impact of contemporary Byzantine sculpture on early medieval stone carving in southern Dalmatia – an issue that has long been ignored? Here, I consider it appropriate to focus on this very aspect of southern Dalmatian sculpture, mainly from the 11th century, or – according to Jurković – the younger stage of the second Pelješac layer. The characteristically fine, stylized, and very rich vegetal and zoomorphic ornamentation, carved with a high level of skill, points to models in the sculpture of the Macedonian renaissance. This paper compares several examples of decorative motifs and cites analogies from Constantinople and Greece as well as Apulia and the northern Adriatic basin from Pomposa to Venice and further to Aquileia. The numerous new motifs – reinvented vegetal ornamentation with opulent, stylized palmettes in numerous variants, as well as a considerably enlarged zoomorphic repertoire of different birds and quadrupeds in various positions, now anatomically far more convincing and enriched with fantastic beasts of Oriental provenance (gryphons) – are here juxtaposed to similar examples from contemporary Byzantine stone-carving workshops, which had access to Oriental textiles and drew their inspiration from them. This paper also offers a preliminary answer to the question of the routes by which these said influences arrived in the Eastern Adriatic region – was it a direct or indirect impact of Byzantium...? In this context, the role of the South Italian Benedictines is considered, as the first monks of Dubrovnik were recruited from their monasteries, and there were artistic and ecclesiastical relations with Apulia which continued well into the 12th century (Kotor was suffragan to the archdiocese of Bari from the 11th century onwards). Additional influences may have come indirectly from the northern Adriatic region, spreading southwards via Zadar and Split, leaving traces especially in the last layer of southern Dalmatian sculpture on the island of Koločep. In this context, some isolated examples of 11th-century relief carving from the area of Boka Kotorska will be considered.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

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