Nectar and Illusion: Nature in Byzantine Art and Literature

219 Pages·2012·10.056 MB·English

by  Henry Maguire

Nectar and Illusion
Onassis Series in Hellenic Culture
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Simon Goldhill
Nectar and Illusion: Nature in Byzantine Art and Literature
Henry Maguire
Nectar and Illusion
NATURE IN BYZANTINE ART
AND LITERATURE
Henry Maguire
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Maguire, Henry, 1943–
Nectar and illusion : nature in Byzantine art and literature / Henry Maguire.
p. cm. — (Onassis series in Hellenic culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-976660-4
1. Nature in art. 2. Nature in literature. 3. Arts, Byzantine—Themes, motives.
4. Byzantine literature—Themes, motives. 5. Nature—Religious aspects—Christianity.
I. Title. II. Title: Nature in Byzantine art and literature.
NX650.N38M34 2012
700′.4609495—dc23 2011043945
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Anna and Pierre
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Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-color as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-fi recoal chestnut-falls; fi nches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fi ckle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
—Gerard Manley Hopkins
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CONTENTS
List of Illustrations xi
Preface xix
Introduction 3
1. Nature and Idolatry 11
2. Nature and Rhetoric 48
3. Nature and Metaphor 78
4. Nature and Abstraction 1 06
5. Nature and Architecture 135
Conclusion 166
Bibliography 1 75
Index 187