Hagia Sophia, 1850-1950: Holy Wisdom Modern Monument

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University of Chicago Press, 14 juil. 2004 - 278 pages
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Hagia Sophia, the Church of Holy Wisdom, sits majestically atop the plateau that commands the straits separating Europe and Asia. Located near the acropolis of the ancient city of Byzantium, this unparalleled structure has enjoyed an extensive and colorful history, as it has successively been transformed into a cathedral, mosque, monument, and museum. In Hagia Sophia, 1850-1950, Robert S. Nelson explores its many lives.

Built from 532 to 537 as the Cathedral of Constantinople, Hagia Sophia was little studied and seldom recognized as a great monument of world art until the nineteenth century, and Nelson examines the causes and consequences of the building's newly elevated status during that time. He chronicles the grand dome's modern history through a vibrant cast of characters—emperors, sultans, critics, poets, archaeologists, architects, philanthropists, and religious congregations—some of whom spent years studying it, others never visiting the building. But as Nelson shows, they all had a hand in the recreation of Hagia Sophia as a modern architectural icon. By many means and for its own purposes, the West has conceptually transformed Hagia Sophia into the international symbol that it is today.

While other books have covered the architectural history of the structure, this is the first study to address its status as a modern monument. With his narrative of the building's rebirth, Nelson captures its importance for the diverse communities that shape and find meaning in Hagia Sophia. His book will resonate with cultural, architectural, and art historians as well as with those seeking to acquaint themselves with the modern life of an inspired and inspiring building.
 

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Table des matières

The Byzantine Poems of W B Yeats
129
Thomas Whittemore and His American Patrons
155
Modern Sophias
187
Abbreviations List 215 Notes 217 Index
265
Droits d'auteur

Expressions et termes fréquents

Fréquemment cités

Page 60 - But my soul wanders ; I demand it back To meditate amongst decay, and stand A ruin amidst ruins ; there to track Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land Which was the mightiest in its old command, And is the loveliest, and must ever be The master -mould of Nature's heavenly hand, Wherein were cast the heroic and the free, The beautiful, the brave — the lords of earth and sea, XXVI.
Page 70 - ... on their stony scales by the deep russet-orange lichen, melancholy gold ; and so, higher still, to the bleak towers, so far above that the eye loses itself among the bosses of their traceries, though they are rude and strong, and only sees like a drift of eddying black points, now closing, now scattering, and now settling suddenly into invisible places among the bosses and flowers, the crowd of restless birds that fill the whole square with that strange clangour of theirs, so harsh and yet so...
Page 63 - ... a confusion of delight, amidst which the breasts of the Greek horses are seen blazing in their breadth of golden strength, and the St Mark's lion, lifted on a blue field covered with stars, until at last, as if in ecstasy, the crests of the arches break into a marble foam, and toss themselves far into the blue sky in flashes and wreaths of sculptured spray, as if the breakers on the Lido shore had been frostbound before they fell, and the sea-nymphs had inlaid them with coral and amethyst.
Page 214 - Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul. Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?
Page 70 - And now I wish that the reader, before I bring him into St. Mark's Place, would imagine himself for a little time in a quiet English cathedral town, and walk with me to the west front of its cathedral. Let us go together up the more retired street, at the end of which we can see the pinnacles of one of the towers, and then through the low grey gateway, with its battlemented top and small latticed window in the centre, into the inner private-looking road or close, where nothing goes in but the carts...
Page 130 - That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees —Those dying generations— at their song...
Page 130 - An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium.

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À propos de l'auteur (2004)

Robert S. Nelson is Distinguished Professor of Art History and History of Culture at the University of Chicago as well as current chair of the Committee on the History of Culture. He is the coeditor of Critical Terms for Art History (2nd ed.), and Monuments and Memory, Made and Unmade, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

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