Commanditaires et peintres à Chypre sous les Lusignan (1192-1474/1489)
Images d'un royaume multiculturel
By (author) G. Meyer-Fernandez
Hardback (Published)
(September 2026)
ISBN: 9782869586284
Price: $150.00
On back order
En abordant le royaume des Lusignan (1192-1474/1489) à travers le prisme de la commande picturale, cet ouvrage propose une lecture inédite d’une société cosmopolite et d’une culture originale du monde des croisades, où se mêlent étroitement éléments d’Orient et d’Occident. Il rassemble, pour la première fois de manière systématique, l’ensemble des peintures murales et sur bois conservant des portraits de donateurs, des inscriptions dédicatoires, votives et commémoratives, ainsi que des blasons armoriés répartis sur l’ensemble du territoire chypriote. Ce corpus, constitué au fil d’une enquête de terrain approfondie, embrasse aussi bien les grandes fondations urbaines que les églises rurales les plus modestes, révélant l’ampleur et la diversité des pratiques de commande à toutes les échelles de la société insulaire.
Ces images, souvent méconnues, mal documentées et endommagées par l’histoire mouvementée de Chypre — occupations successives, iconoclasmes, séismes, restaurations hâtives — ou simplement par les ravages du temps, témoignent de dynamiques sociales et artistiques riches et complexes entre Grecs, Latins et chrétiens orientaux de milieux variés: familles seigneuriales, clergé séculier et régulier, notables urbains, artisans. Leur étude croisée, associant histoire de l’art, épigraphie et héraldique, révèle le rôle central des commanditaires et des peintres dans les échanges culturels et l’émergence de formes iconographiques et stylistiques nouvelles, à la croisée des traditions byzantine, occidentale et levantine.
En interrogeant la place de ces images dans la construction des identités individuelles et collectives, cet ouvrage questionne notre perception des arts de la Méditerranée entre le Moyen Âge et le début de la période moderne, et invite à repenser les catégories trop souvent cloisonnées d’«art byzantin» et d’«art occidental» dans un espace de contacts et d’hybridations permanents.
By examining the Lusignan kingdom (1192-1474/1489) through the lens of artistic patronage, this book offers a new interpretation of a cosmopolitan society and a distinctive culture within the Crusader world, one in which Eastern and Western elements were closely and continuously intertwined. For the first time, it brings together in a systematic way the full corpus of frescoes and panel paintings across Cyprus that preserve donor portraits, dedicatory, votive, and commemorative inscriptions, and coats of arms. Assembled through extensive fieldwork, this corpus spans major urban foundations as well as the most modest rural churches, revealing the scale and diversity of patronage practices at every level of island society.
Often overlooked, poorly documented, and damaged by Cyprus’s turbulent history — successive occupations, iconoclastic episodes, earthquakes, and hasty restorations — or simply by the passage of time, these images testify to the rich and complex social and artistic dynamics that developed among Greeks, Latins, and Eastern Christians of diverse backgrounds, from seigneurial families and secular and regular clergy to urban notables and craftsmen. Combining art history, epigraphy, and heraldry, this cross-disciplinary study reveals the central role played by patrons and painters in cultural exchange and in the emergence of new iconographic and stylistic forms at the crossroads of Byzantine, Western, and Levantine traditions.
By examining the place of these images in the construction of individual and collective identities, this book challenges our understanding of Mediterranean art at the transition from the Middle Ages to the early modern period, and invites a rethinking of the often too rigidly separated categories of “Byzantine art” and “Western art” within a space defined by constant contact and hybridisation.
- By (author) G. Meyer-Fernandez
Other Titles in this Series
La cité des Delphiens
Une communauté politique à l'ombre d'Apollon (VIe-Ier siecle av. J.-C.)
Volume 416
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