Mural

About: Mural is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1144 publications have been published within this topic receiving 5050 citations.

Studies On The Deterioration Of Coptic Mural Paintings In The Monastery Of Martyrs And The Luxor Temple

Abstract: In this study the surfaces and cross sections of deteriorated Coptic mural paintings were investigated using Computer Tomography (CT) scan images and video, and points (voids) on the surface were a ...

A Study of Costumes Appearing in Afrasiab Mural Painting

Abstract: The four walls of mural paintings in Afrasiab, Samarkand, have discovered: the indian-concept east wall, the west with the paintings of envoys from a number of countries bringing in King's letters or gifts, the south describing traditional ceremony celebrating the new year, the north with a picture of a Chinese princess on board beside hunting scenes. Overall, Sogdians in Afrasiab mural paintings of 7th century had following costume codes: a very short haircut or the Turkic queue, a rather-narrow-sleeved caftan with round-neck, a belt and boots. The west wall showed various costume style of a set of envoys from countries. First, a Turkic envoy had 3-6 rows of long plaits, wearing a caftan with two lapels and a belt - interestingly, Sogdian and Turkic nobles didn't wear pochettes. Second, a Chaganiyan had a hairband on his short hair, and his colorful round-neck caftan is decorated with animal-patterned medallions and a golden belt. Third, a Chach wore a jewelled hairband, putting gaiters on his pants. Forth, a Chinese was in putou with a round-neck caftan, and with a belt and sword around his waist. Lastly, also appeared a Koguryo envoy in white putou with a double-bird-feathered crown on top, wearing a long-sleeved yellow v-neck top, a belt, narrow-cuffed pants and boots. Identical to the Sogdian statues excavated in various regions of China are the appearance of big eyes and nose -similar to the warrior stone in Korea- a hairband, and a pochette down from the waist line. During this period, white and red were considered as prevailing colors for clothing: red and yellow among Turks. The costumes of characters in Afrasiab mural paintings were preferably made with the animal-patterned, sophiscated samite Zandanachi of Sogdiana.

The "Allegory of Mercy" at the Misericordia in Florence: Historiography, Context, Iconography, and the Documentation of Confraternal Charity in the Trecento

Abstract: Levin, William R. The "Allegory of Mercy" at the Misencordia in Florence: Historiography, Context, Iconography, and the Documentation of Confraternal Charity in the Trecento. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2004. Pp. viii; 180. Twenty black-and-white illustrations. Levin's book on the Allegory of Mercy at the Confraternity of the Misericordia is a welcome addition both to the scholarship on fourteenth-c. Florentine painting and to that on Italian renaissance art. As its subtitle indicates, the work is an examination not only of the various stylistic, iconographie, and historiographie aspects of the monumental mural but also of the religious and social ambiances within which it was created. The thoroughness of the research on which Levin's study is based cannot be surmised from the relatively small soft-cover volume in which the book appears. Indeed, the comprehensiveness of the well-written text should have qualified it for a more impressive publication, which might have included color plates instead of a few black and white reproductions. Levin makes clear at the outset that the Allegory of Mercy was one of the first major semi-public (if not public) images displayed hi the center of Florence (15). Visible to people who walked by the Cathedral and the Baptistry, or fingered in the Piazza del Duomo (one of the frequented squares in the city), the image served as a reminder of the continuous and close interrelationship between the activities of the Confraternity of the Misericordia and those of the Florentine community. Therefore, obviously, the fresco depicts the life-size female personification of Mercy hovering above a detailed city-scape of Florence and flanked by thirty-six male and female figures, which must represent the city's populace. For that reason also, Levin begins his stylistic analysis of the mural not with the personification of Mercy itself which is of course in the center - but with two subsidiary portrayals of buildings and the people who inhabit them (31-36). Among various important art-historical issues addressed by Levin is the identification of the subject of the Allegory of Mercy (19-20; 36-37). As scholars of late-medieval and early renaissance art realize, the depiction of a towering female whose mantle covers and protects smaller figures of men and women often presents Mary in her role as the purveyor of Christ's mercy (fig. 11). On other occasions, an almost identical image may display not the Virgin, but St. Ursula flanked by adoring females. Nonetheless, hi Allegory of Mercy, a similar representation becomes the very embodiment of the virtue of Mercy, which, like that of Charity, may (in other instances) be symbolized by the portrayal of a mother shown nursing two infants (figs. 16-17). Also enhghtening is the controversy about the dating of the picture (pp. 16-17); according to the earliest historiographer of the Confraternity of the Misericordia, Placido Landini, the mural was painted in 1352. …