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This dissertation examines the cult of Our Lady of Remedios, one of the oldest Marian images in Mexico and declared the first patroness of the viceregal capital of New Spain in 1574. Despite Mexico City’s city council’s (cabildo) promotion of this Madonna as a relic of the conquest and the patroness of the City of Mexico, historians have not investigated the cult of Remedios extensively since the study of devotional practices in colonial Mexico has primarily focused on the Virgin of Guadalupe. As such, academics have underestimated the importance of Our Lady of Los Remedios, leading them to view her cult as unimportant to Novohispanic society. As this dissertation demonstrates, the cult of Our Lady of Los Remedios was not just prominent in the City of Mexico, but a frequent invocation in times of great misfortune. She was believed to remedythe ills of her devotees and the catastrophes that afflicted the metropolis, such as floods, droughts, and epidemics. As important as the sacred image of Our Lady of Los Remedios is to the history that I present, the core of this dissertation is the Confraternity of Los Remedios. My work examines the political and religious interests that Mexico City’s cabildo had in establishing and sponsoring the brotherhood and the role they played in supporting the cult image of Our Lady of Los Remedios. Additionally, due to the increasing religious devotion to Our Lady of Los Remedios, the Confraternity of Los Remedios received financial support from the generous offerings given to the revered statue. This outcome was financial independence, causing the Confraternity of Los Remedios to function as lenders, administrators of wills, and maintainers of records for different financial dealings. For this reason, I argue that the confraternity ceased to be an organization solelydedicated to religious purposes and instead became an institution of social and economic importance for the City of Mexico.

<p>The aim of this essay is to investigate the murals in the church of Arbrå, what they portrait and how they can be linked to medieval typology as described in <em>Biblia Pauperum </em>(BP), the Poor Man’s Bible. The aim is also to find out what the purpose was to paint medieval churches and what the function of the paintings was. Arbrå Church was painted around 1520-1530, and almost all of the motifs from the Old Testament can be directly traced back to BP as can one motif from the New Testament. Together these paintings represent most of the important events which make out the foundation of the Christian Cult. The purpose of painting churches was probably a combination of at least three; People of wealth could pay for different things for their church as a tribute to God, the paintings made people feel closer to God as they became enclosed in the biblical history and the paintings served an educative purpose as people could more easily remember what the priests preached.</p>

The aim of this essay is to investigate the murals in the church of Arbrå, what they portrait and how they can be linked to medieval typology as described in Biblia Pauperum (BP), the Poor Man’s Bible. The aim is also to find out what the purpose was to paint medieval churches and what the function of the paintings was. Arbrå Church was painted around 1520-1530, and almost all of the motifs from the Old Testament can be directly traced back to BP as can one motif from the New Testament. Together these paintings represent most of the important events which make out the foundation of the Christian Cult. The purpose of painting churches was probably a combination of at least three; People of wealth could pay for different things for their church as a tribute to God, the paintings made people feel closer to God as they became enclosed in the biblical history and the paintings served an educative purpose as people could more easily remember what the priests preached.

The orans, although a gesture with a long ‘pagan’ past, was easily adopted by Christians for its symbolic meanings of prayer and piety and quickly attained a number of other more nuanced meanings as it was refined and reused. By restricting the scope of this thesis to the orans in the Christian catacombs of Rome, it becomes possible to approach the figure from a multi-directional perspective, not merely concerned with what the gesture meant to the Christian, but with its literary and material pedigrees, its transition to Christian art, and its cultural significance. To this end, chapter one examines ‘pagan’ precursors of the Christian orans through an examination of coins, sculptures, inscriptions, and reliefs, as well as by looking at the two figures whose appearance most influences that of the orans – the goddess Pietas, and the Artemisia-Adorans funerary portrait type. Chapter two addresses the importance of the orans in the Christian literary community, and examines not only the actual usage of prayer with raised hands by the Christian faithful, but also examines the aesthetic and theological reasons for the popularity of the gesture – the parallel between the spread arms of the orans and the posture of the crucified Christ. Finally, chapter three presents a spatial-thematic analysis of the usage of the orans in the Roman Christian catacombs, using a corpus of 158 orantes. This chapter enables the reader to draw conclusions about the veracity of the academic theories presented in the previous chapters, as it compares the usage of the orans against its scholarly interpretation.

In this study I propose that transgressive interpretations of Christian iconography provide a valuable strategy for contemporary artists to engage with perceived social inequalities in postapartheid South Africa. Working in light of Michel Foucault’s idea of an “ontology of the present”, I investigate the ways in which religious iconography has been implicated in the regulation of society. Parodic reworking of Christian imagery in the selected examples is investigated as a strategy to expose these controls and offer a critique of mechanisms which produce normative ‘truths’. I also consider how such imagery has been received and the factors accounting for that reception. The study is contextualized by a brief, literary based, historical overview of Christian religious imagery to explain the strength of feeling evinced by religious images. This includes a review of the conflation of religion and state control of the masses, an analysis of the sovereign controls and disciplinary powers that they wield, and an explication of their illustration in religious iconography. I also identify reasons why such imagery may have seemed compelling to artists working in a post-apartheid context. By locating recent works in terms of those made elsewhere or South African examples prior to the period that is my focus, the works discussed are explored in terms of broader orientations in post-apartheid South African art. Artworks that respond to specific Christian iconography are discussed, including Adam and Eve, The Virgin Mary, Christ, and various saints and sinners. The selected artists whose works form the focus of this study are Diane Victor, Christine Dixie, Majak Bredell, Tracey Rose, Wim Botha, Conrad Botes, Johannes Phokela and Lawrence Lemaoana. Through transgressive depictions of Christian icons these artists address current inequalities in society. The content of their works analysed here includes (among others): the construction of both female and male identities; sexual roles, social roles, and racial identity; the social expectations of contemporary motherhood; repressive role models; Afrikaner heritage; political and social change and its effects; colonial power; sacrifice; murder, rape, and violence in South Africa; abuses of power by role models and politicians; rugby; heroism; and patricide. Christian iconography is a useful communicative tool because it has permeated many cultures over centuries, and the meanings it carries are thus accessible to large numbers of people. Religious imagery is often held sacred or is regarded with a degree of reverence, thus ensuring an emotive response when iconoclasm or transgression of any sort is identified. This study argues that by parodying sacred imagery these artists are able to disturb complacent viewing and encourage viewers to engage critically with some of its underlying implications.

The orans, although a gesture with a long ‘pagan’ past, was easily adopted by Christians for its symbolic meanings of prayer and piety and quickly attained a number of other more nuanced meanings as it was refined and reused. By restricting the scope of this thesis to the orans in the Christian catacombs of Rome, it becomes possible to approach the figure from a multi-directional perspective, not merely concerned with what the gesture meant to the Christian, but with its literary and material pedigrees, its transition to Christian art, and its cultural significance. To this end, chapter one examines ‘pagan’ precursors of the Christian orans through an examination of coins, sculptures, inscriptions, and reliefs, as well as by looking at the two figures whose appearance most influences that of the orans – the goddess Pietas, and the Artemisia-Adorans funerary portrait type. Chapter two addresses the importance of the orans in the Christian literary community, and examines not only the actual usage of prayer with raised hands by the Christian faithful, but also examines the aesthetic and theological reasons for the popularity of the gesture – the parallel between the spread arms of the orans and the posture of the crucified Christ. Finally, chapter three presents a spatial-thematic analysis of the usage of the orans in the Roman Christian catacombs, using a corpus of 158 orantes. This chapter enables the reader to draw conclusions about the veracity of the academic theories presented in the previous chapters, as it compares the usage of the orans against its scholarly interpretation.

This paper deals with the history of the study and discipline called "History of Christian Art". It attempts to find the roots of the interest in history, sacred monuments, and national monuments of the past in the spiritual environment of the Czech lands, and its subsequent inclusion in the context of contemporary European developments of interest in art and its study. Beginning with the oldest hagiographic texts, which are not only records of literary history, but in many cases are important in terms of references to building monuments and artworks, among which Kristian's legend is dominant, through the texts of medieval chroniclers, Kosmas, his followers, the Chronicle of Zbraslav Monastery and chronicles from the reign of Charles IV., across the historiography of the Baroque period, which is without a doubt dominated by the work of Bohuslav Balbín and Thomas Pešina of Čechorod, and the period of national awakening, through a boom industry in the nineteenth century, when Ferdinand Josef Lehner made history with his founding work, to the culmination in the activities of representatives of the field the first half of the twentieth century, when it was represented by personalities such as Antonin Podlaha, Eduard Sittler, and Josef Cibulka. Based on the recapitulation and subsequent description of...

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