The next PCMA Seminar is scheduled for December 12, featuring a presentation by Dr. Magdalena Łaptaś (IHS UKSW): “An Apostle, Jesus, Pilate or the Virgin Mary? A New Identification of Two Wall Paintings from the Faras Cathedral.”
Abstract: „In 2017, a comprehensive catalogue of wall paintings from the Faras Cathedral was published by Stefan Jakobielski, Magdalena Łaptaś, Małgorzata Martens-Czarnecka, Bożena Mierzejewska and Bożena Rostkowska. This catalogue presents all paintings discovered in the Faras Cathedral by the Polish team during the so-called Nubian campaign – a rescue operation conducted in 1959–1969 under the auspices of UNESCO. It contains the paintings housed in the National Museums at Warsaw and Khartoum, as well as the unpreserved paintings, thus providing a foundation for further research.
The aim of this lecture is to present a new identification of two paintings which were in such a poor condition at the moment of their discovery that they could not be removed from the walls of the Cathedral. They were painted on the first layer of plaster by the northern entrance to the building. In the catalogue mentioned above, both scenes (Exc. Nos 100 and a37) were labelled as unidentified scenes (Ca. Nos 12 and 13), yet some interpretations were given in the attached texts. All these interpretations, as well as those previously published, are, in the opinion of the speaker, erroneous.
The identification presented during the lecture will be based on a new iconographic reading of both these paintings and the context in which they were placed. Next, a comparative analysis with Byzantine and Cappadocian monuments will be presented along with an interpretation of the written sources on which these compositions were based. Such identification will not only allow for a new look at the iconographic program of the paintings in the Cathedral, but also to place these scenes in the world-wide development of Christian art in the period of the 8th /9th century (if not later).”
The seminar will be held on Thursday, 12th December 2024, at 2 pm (Warsaw time) on the Zoom platform.
To receive the link, please write to: seminarium.pcma@uw.edu.pl