Walking on Water: Cosmic Floors in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

• Autores: Fabio Barry
• Localización: Art bulletin, ISSN 0004-3079, Vol. 89, Nº 4, 2007, págs. 627-656
• Idioma: inglés
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• Dialnet Métricas: 9 Citas
• Resumen

  • For centuries, observers imagined a “frozen sea” in the book-matched marble floor of Hagia Sophia. Enduring perceptions of marble as a liquid substance led to similar descriptions of floors of other medieval churches, east and west, and the concept was consciously revived in late-nineteenth-century London. Such floors could simultaneously evoke primeval chaos and theological images of the sea: devotees who “walked on water” could visualize themselves in a sacred edifice of macrocosmic pretensions in which the Creator too would feel at home.