Publication details
Zrození pozdně antické avantgardy ve sv. Anežce za hradbami: factor, kočovníci, liturgie a Max Dvořák
| Title in English | The Birth of the Late Antique Avant–Garde in the Church of Saint Agnes Outside the Walls. Factor, Nomads, Liturgy and Max Dvořák |
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| Year of publication | 2021 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Citation | |
| Description | This text reflects on a turning point in the history of European visual culture in the first half of the 7th century, documented in the apse mosaic of Sant'Agnese fuori le mura in Rome, and accurately described by Max Dvořák. In our view, this visual step is the result of a rational decision by an active factor. We have identified him as Honorius I, who not only commissioned the church but also seemed to have played a vital role in the conception of the images and texts that accompanied it. Nonetheless, in times past, just as today, an impulse from the outside is often necessary for fundamental changes. This impulse could not have come from elsewhere – as Dvořák timelessly argued – than from the nomadic tribes that brought their conceptual visual language with them to the Apennine Peninsula. Nevertheless, mere fascination with new aesthetic possibilities would not suffice to explain such a bold and avant-garde gesture in the apse of Saint Agnes. However, the need to link a visual experience with an exceptional liturgical event provides us with the motive for such a fundamental change in the history of European visual culture. |