Department of Art and Art History

Old road signs, especially larger, sturdier ones whose support structures are still intact but whose vintage lettering and neon are either too decayed or too prob­lematically specific to preserve offer public art programs an opportunity to rethink three-dimensional public artworks as sites more akin to galleries than stand-alone, immutable works of genius. Valued artworks are still assumed to be the product of unique, individual perspectives, and detractors of public art often consider the genre a lesser form because it necessarily involves legal limitations, institutional approval and revision processes, and thus multiple or communal perspectives that “dilute” the artwork. Empty road signs as sites for public art provide a unique opportunity to model an inclusive public art approach that also values historic continuity, a palimpsest of sorts that leaves traces of the past as well as room for new eruptions.

While the trajectory of transmission of art in the Mediterranean has often been understood as West to East, here I will consider the transmission of artistic sources to Cyprus from both the West and East. These trajectories open a dialogue regarding the question of how the many sources that underpin Cypriot medieval art converged on the island. Focusing on commissions ofthe Lusignan dynasty, as well as other powerful communities such as the Orthodox Greeks and the Genoese, this paper shows that the social and political identity of these groups was constantly in flux; the artistic styles they used to express themselves changed according to their shifts in status. Thus, their use of artistic and architectural styles was strategic and both reflected and shaped the family's changing political and economic position in the Mediterranean.

In the center of Nicosia rises the impressive monument that was once the Latin cathedral of Santa Sophia. The former cathedral towers above the old city with its incongruous mixture of Turkish minarets and French Gothic towers. The cathedral, begun in the thirteenth century, has been known since 1571 as the Selimye Mosque. Since the sixteenth century the decoration of Santa Sophia has receded into mystery behind white paint and plaster. The most informative passages are found in the sculpture of figures and foliage on the west portals of the cathedral, a significant part of which was revealed when the plaster was removed in 1948. 1 The three bays of the porch extend from the west end of the cathedral and shelter the three pointed-arched doorways (fig. 1). Each portal has a distinct program of sculpture, including remaining figural imagery in arched registers, or archivolts, over the center doorway. These fourteenth-century additions to the western end of Santa Sophia have always been discussed in terms of their Gothic style and the emergence of a flamboyant Gothic visual culture on the island. 2 The rise of Gothic and Western forms of art on Cyprus, however, was paralleled by the emerging Paleologan style of Byzantium and even the high court artistic styles of Mamluk Cairo. 3 The sculpture of the western facade of the cathedral of Nicosia, therefore, presents neither a wholly Gothic image nor a primarily Byzantine image. This paper will interpret the messages of the portals of Santa Sophia, finding in them *I would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Annemarie Weyl Carr for her guidance and support of my study of medieval Cyprus, and to Dr. Barbara Zeitler for her advice in the preparation of this paper. Photographs were taken by Stuart Swiny, whose assistance while I was in Nicosia was invaluable. I am also grateful to the Hakkon Fellowship Committee for their financial support of my research in Cyprus. 1 T. S. R. Boase, "The Arts in Cyprus," in A History of the Crusades, gen. ed. Kenneth M. Setton, 4: The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States, ed. Harry W. Hazard. (Madison 1977) 170. 2 The monumental study by Camille Enlart laid an essential groundwork for much of our study of architecture from medieval Cyprus today. However, the work approaches Cyprus from a colonial standpoint and stresses the polarities between East and West with clear emphasis on "pure" Gothic style from the

Robin Cormack's book presents the reader with a history of perhaps the most enigmatic art object, the Byzantine icon. Concluding that we can never really understand the Byzantine world through the contemplation of the icon, Cormack offers us a picture of the icon as death mask (164). Contrary to the title of the book, this mask does not cover something deceased but reveals itself as an object constructed for and interacting with its audience. It is this interaction, or the response of the viewer, which is the central interest of Cormack's book. Cormack begins by acknowledging the early work on icons by Hugo Buchthal and David Talbot Rice, which has established a chronology based on stylistic analysis. With this information, it is now possible to move beyond the formal qualities of the image to look at the surrounding historical and social context of an icon. Cormack refutes Hans Belting's proposal that the icon is not art and shows that the viewer experiences the icon aesthetically, religiously, and politically (23). He remains very much attuned to the object itself, including its worn, scratched, or repainted surface and its size, weight, and mobility. These elements of an icon act, for Cormack, as evidence of the object's interaction with an audience more than as indicators of date, location of production, or patron. He uses traditional methods of dating and attribution to identify the complex community of viewers and their responses to the icon and examines the function of this complex art object, often using an anthropological approach which includes Orthodox culture's interaction with icons today and the placement and use of visual imagery within these communities. At the same time, he balances modern practice with medieval textual evidence from the Byzantine Empire. Other recent studies on the Byzantine icon present a stylistic and formal analysis of the icon without looking at the surrounding issues of function and belief. Cormack approaches icons in an entirely new way; he talks little of style. He examines iconography, such as the Hodigitria and the image of Christ, as they relate to the use of the object and a Byzantine understanding of imagery and presents the complexity of icons, carefully peeling away layers of multiple (mis)understandings of these paintings. Throughout the text, Cormack returns to the period of iconoclasm. Rather than viewing these years (726-843) as a tremendous break in the chronological consistency of icon production, he uses the crisis as a sounding board for diverse and contrasting opinions about imagery and its use in Byzantine culture. As Cormack explores these connections to piety, government, and popular culture in the first three chapters, one is confronted with an overwhelming number of questions and the sense that each in turn could be explored more deeply in its own volume. The book's major questions, however, apply generally to the analysis of imagery from cultures distant from our own by space, time, and technology. How should we speak about icons (or art generally)? Where and how do we see icons/images? How were and are icons used? What were and are the public and private responses to religious art?

Summary of the history of production of tin-glazed earthenware in Spain and New Spain/Mexico from the 10th century to present day. Discusses design influences, changes in form and style, materials, trade, guilds, apprenticeships, and revival.

Modern artist Cady Wells (1904-1954) lived in New Mexico in the 1930s and 40s. During this time he put together a collection of New Mexican religious art--santos--that later became the foundation of the Museum of New Mexico's collection. This chapter examines how Wells built his unique collection and the influence these historic New Mexican artworks had on his own art and life.

A distinctive Indo-Hispano style developed in New Mexico in the late colonial-early Mexican periods that was unique to the region. This chapter explores the political and socio/cultural phenomena that may have contributed to the creation of an artistic aesthetic in response to to a particular set of circumstances.