Plathe, Sissel F., Jens Bruun: Danmarks middelalderlige altertavler â og anden billedbærende kirkeudsmykning af betydning for liturgien og den private andagt. En katalog. 2 vol.

På närmare ettusenfyrahundra sidor, fördelat på två volymer i storformat som tillsammans väger dryga sju kilo, framläggs i Danmarks middelalderlige altertavler â og annen billedbærende kirkeudsmykning af betydning for liturgien og den private andagt dokumentation i ord och bild av halvtannat tusen bildbärande föremål, hemmahörande i eller stammande från 630 kyrkor i nuvarande Danmark. Bakom de två murstenarna står Sissel F. Plathe, museumsinspektör vid Nationalmuseet i København, och tidl. sockenpräst Jens Bruun. Varje föremål eller, med katalogens terminologi ââ¬Åemneââ¬Â, beskrivs enligt en mall där uppgift om proveniens, datering, nuvarande placering, material och mått, följs av en kortfattad beskrivning samt upplysningar om staffering (bemålning), eventuella tillskrivningar till mästare, verkstad eller grupper av flera likartade arbeten, senare åstadkomna förändringar och restaureringar, samt slutligen en litteraturlista. Posterna är ordnade alfabetiskt efter sockennamn, och med få undantag är vart och ett av de bevarade objekten illustrerat med ett eller flera färgfotografier (merparten tagna av Jens Bruun) av ypperlig kvalitet, i såväl fotografiskt som reproduktivt hänseende

Medieval Iconography in the Digital Age: Creating a Database of the Cult of Saints in Medieval Sweden and Finland

This article describes Mapping Lived Religion, an ongoing research and digitization project based at Linnaeus University and in collaboration with the University of Gothenburg. The project members are building an open access, online database of objects and texts connected to the cults of saints in medieval Sweden and Finland. The database is connected to a digital map and includes a register of medieval places. As part of its work, the project has enabled the digitization and digital publication of the Iconographic Index, housed by the Swedish National Heritage Board. Additionally, the photographs from The World of Medieval Images have been re-digitized as high-resolution images in collaboration with the Swedish National History Museums. By the end of the project, the database will be a major research and educational resource for those working on and teaching this period. As an open access portal published in both Swedish and English, it will offer data on the cults of saints to anyone with an interest in the field in Sweden, Finland, and internationally

What is the Difference between Iconography and Semiotics?

The article asks to what extent, if at all, the methodological modus operandiof Erwin Panofsky’s three-level model for iconographic-iconological interpretation and analysis parallels that of semiotics as conceived by Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce. That this is the case has occasionally been asserted, for instance by Mieke Bal and Norman Bryson, as well as Giulio Carlo Argan. The exposition begins with an outline of features of iconography and of semiotics pertinent to the argument. It then proceeds to relate the grounds on which the two systems have been taken to resemble each other. Lastly, the alleged correspondence is contested on the grounds of differences regarding both the practices and objectives of iconography and semiotics respectively

Det befolkade rummet: Relikfyndet från Torsken kyrka

Taking its point of departure in the finding of a bag of relics tucked away under the chin of a late medieval wooden Christ figure from Torsken Church, Senja, this essay discusses relics as an essential feature of the medieval church room. Through the relics – deposited in the sepulchres of the altars, encased in reliquaries made from precious metals or, as in the case of the Torsken crucifix, contained within wooden cult images – the saints became present and accessible as addressees of intercessions. The role of relics in medieval liturgy and devotion is accounted for, and the oscillation between visibility and invisibility, reality and representation, as played out by the Torsken crucifix with its relics, is explored. The visible, “realistic” or life-like figure of Christ is a mere representation, a manufactured similitude of the Son of Man, whereas it is the relics, hidden away in the bag, that manifest the actual presence of the higher, invisible but nevertheless true divine reality in the church room