Dr Antony Eastmond

AG Leventis Reader in the History of Byzantine Art

BA (Oxon), MA, PhD (Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London)

Contact details:

The Courtauld Institute of Art

Somerset House

Strand

London WC2R 0RN

 

+44 (0) 20 7848 2165

antony.eastmond@courtauld.ac.uk

 

Antony Eastmond read History at Oxford, before coming to The Courtauld where he took his MA in Byzantine art and PhD in art in medieval Georgia. After two years as British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at The Courtauld, in 1995 he moved to Warwick University as Research Fellow. In 2001 he was appointed Reader in the History of Art and Chair of Department at Warwick. He returned to The Courtauld as Reader in the History of Byzantine Art in 2004.

He sits on the Wardrop Trust of the University of Oxford (which promotes the study of Georgia in the UK).was on the executive committee of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies 1996-2010.

In 2008-2010 he ran an AHRC funded Research Network in the Beyond Text programme entitled Viewing texts: Word as image and ornament in medieval inscriptions.

research Interests

 

• Byzantine art in all forms, but especially Byzantine ivories
• Interchange between Christian and Islamic art in the medieval near east
• Medieval art in the Caucasus (Georgia and Armenia)
  
  

 

Courses taught in 2011-12

 

• MA Option: Byzantium and its rivals. Art, display and cultural identity in the Christian and Islamic Mediterranean
• BA Topic (first-year): The Pursuit of Leisure in the Middle Ages
• BA Special Option (third-year): East and West in the Age of the Crusades
• Contributor to Foundations course (BA first year), and Frameworks course (BA second year)
  
  

Titles of PhD theses Supervised

Current PhD topics

• Byzantine painting in Famagusta (Maria Paschali)
• Medieval reliquaries: containers and containment (Jack Hartnell)
• The social history of the Last Judgement in Byzantine art (Niamh Bhalla)
• The reception of Islamic art in Italy (Emma Rogers)
  
  

Recently completed

• Byzantine art in treasuries in Siena and Venice (Dr Stefania Gerevini)
• Byzantine art in Albania in the early Palaiologan period (Dr Anna Christidou)
• The south-west vestibule mosaic in Hagia Sophia, Constantinople (Dr Eleni Dimitriadou)

 

 

Recent/forthcoming publications

Forthcoming

Byzantine and East Christian Art (London: Phaidon, 2013)

‘The St Petroc casket, a certain mutilated man, and the trade in ivories’ in D. Knipp, ed., Siculo Arabic Ivories (Rome, 2011)

'Inscriptions and Authority in Ani', in Double Headed Eagle – Byzantium and the Seljuks in Anatolia between the Late 11th and 13th Centuries, ed. N. Asutay-Effenberger (Mainz, 2012)

'Diplomatic commodities: women and art as imperial gifts in the thirteenth century', in Liquid and Multiple: Identities in the medieval mediterranean in the thirteenth century, eds. D. Stathokopoulos and G. Saint-Guillan (Paris: Sorbonne, 2011)

Recent Publications

'Messages, meanings and metamorphoses: the icon of the Transfiguration of Zarzma', in Images of the Byzantine World - Visions, Messages and Meanings. Studies presented to Leslie Brubaker, ed. A. Lymberopoulou (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), 57-82

'Consular diptychs, rhetoric and the languages of art in sixth-century Constantinople', Art History 33/5 (2010), 742-765

'Gender and patronage between Christianity and Islam in the thirteenth century', in Change in the Byzantine world in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, eds. A. Ödekan, E. Akyürek, N. Necipoğlu, 1 Uluslararasi Sevgi Gönül Bizans Araştirmalari Sempozyumu / First International Sevgi Gönül Byzantine Studies Symposium (Istanbul, 2010), 78-88

'The Limits of Byzantine Art', in A Companion to Byzantium, ed. L. James (Oxford: Wiley, 2010), 313-22

'Schwarzmeergriechen, Armenier, Georgier und andere Kaukasusvölker', in Kontinuitäten und Brüche: Lebensformen - Alteingesessene - Zuwanderer von 500 bis 1500, eds. K. Kaser, et al. [Wieser Enzyklopädie des Europäischen Ostens: 12] (Klagenfurt: Wieser Verlag, 2010), 305-13

'Udabno Monastery in Georgia: The innovation, conservation and reinterpretation of art in the Middle Ages', Iconographica. Rivista di iconografia medievale e moderna 7 (2008), 23-43 (with Z. Skhirt'ladze)

'Beyond Byzantium', in Byzantium, eds. R. Cormack and M. Vassilaki (London: Royal Academy, 2008), 307-14

'Art and frontiers between Byzantium and the Caucasus', in Byzantium. Faith and Power (1261-1557): Perspectives on Late Byzantine Art and Culture, ed. S.T. Brooks [The Metropolitan Museum of Art Symposia] (New Haven & London: Yale, 2007), 154-69

'Un'eco della leggenda del Mandylion nell'Islam', in Intorno al Sacro Volto. Genova, Bisanzio e il Mediterraneo (secoli XI-XIV), eds. A.R.C. Masetti, et al. [Collana del Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz Max-Planck-Institut: 11] (Florence: Marsilio, 2007), 175-80

'Eat, drink. and pay the price', in Eat, drink and be merry (Luke 12:19) - Food and Wine in Byzantium, eds. L. Brubaker and K. Linardou [Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies. Publications: 13] (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 175-89 (with L. James)

 

Entries on byzantine ivory and metalwork' in San Nicola. Splendori d'arte d'Oriente e d'Occidente, ed. M. Bacci (Milan: Skira, 2006), 205-07

The Road to Byzantium: The Luxury arts of Antiquity (Fontanka: London, 2006) ed. with Peter Stewart and Robin Cormack.

Art and Identity in Thirteenth-Century Byzantium. Hagia Sophia and the Empire of Trebizond (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2004)

Icon and Word. The Power of images in Byzantium (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2003), ed. with Liz James

"Between Icon and Idol: the uncertainty of imperial images" in Icon and Word (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2003), 73-85

"'Local' saints, art and regional identity in the Orthodox world after the Fourth Crusade" Speculum 78 (2003), 707-49

‘Relics of the True Cross and Byzantine Identity’, in A. Lidov, ed., East Christian Relics (Moscow, 2003), 205-15

editor of Eastern Approaches to Byzantium, Papers from the Thirty-third Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, University of Warwick, March 1999, (Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies. Publications: 9), (Aldershot 2001)

"The cult of St Davit Garejeli: patronage and iconographic change in the Gareja Desert", in Z. Skhirtladze ed., Desert Monasticism: Gareja and the Christian East (Tbilisi, 2001), 220-239

"Robing, Power and Legitimacy in Armenia and Georgia", in S. Gordon ed., Robes and Honor. The Medieval World of Investiture [The New Middle Ages] (Palgrave, 2001), 146-191(with Lynn Jones)

Eastmond, A., 'Narratives of the Fall: Structure and Meaning in the Genesis Frieze at Hagia Sophia, Trebizond', Dumbarton Oaks Papers 53 (1999), 219-36

'Body vs. column: the cults of St Symeon Stylites', in Desire and Denial in Byzantium, ed. L. James [Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies. Publications: 6] (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 87-100

Royal Imagery in Medieval Georgia (University Park, PA: Penn State, 1998)

'An Intentional Error? Imperial Art and "Mis"-Interpretation under Andronikos I Komnenos', Art Bulletin 76 (1994), 502-10

Keywords

Byzantine art; Medieval art; Christian; Islamic; Artistic Interchange; Wall paintings; Mosaics; Ivories; Patronage; Georgia; Armenia ; Late Antiquity.