Landscape, Nature, and the Sacred in Byzantium
Landscape, Nature, and the Sacred in Byzantium
Nature is as much an idea as a physical reality. By 'placing' nature within Byzantine culture and within the discourse of Orthodox Christian thought and practice, Landscape, Nature and the Sacred in Byzantium explores attitudes towards creation that are utterly and fascinatingly different from the modern. Drawing on Patristic writing and on Byzantine literature and art, the book develops a fresh conceptual framework for approaching Byzantine perceptions of space and the environment. It takes readers on an imaginary flight over the Earth and its varied topographies of gardens and wilderness, mountains and caves, rivers and seas, and invites them to shift from the linear time of history to the cyclical time and spaces of the sacred - the time and spaces of eternal returns and revelations.
- Offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary study of Byzantine perceptions of nature and the environment
- Develops a new conceptual framework to explore the principles that underpin Byzantine perceptions
- Numerous illustrations and a comprehensive bibliography make this a useful resource and reference work
Product details
August 2021Paperback
9781316502242
320 pages
244 × 170 × 20 mm
0.56kg
47 b/w illus. 13 colour illus. 3 maps
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction: placing topographies
- Part I. Topos and Cosmos:
- 1. Sacred topographies
- 2. Sacred cosmographies
- Part II. Land:
- 3. Gardens
- 4. Wilderness
- Part III. Rock:
- 5. Mountains
- 6. Caves
- Part IV. Water:
- 7. Rivers
- 8. Seas
- Epilogue.
