Cross-cultural exchanges

This study presents a precious illuminated Bible, dating to the late 13th century, actually in the Cleveland Museum of Art: the
contribution shows that this significant manuscript is stylistically close to a group of illuminated Bibles from Catalonia and French
Midi. On the basis of its stylistic and palaeographic analysis, the Bible is attributable to southern France. This Bible must be considered
therefore as a concrete example of an original creative process based on geographical mobility of manuscripts, exchanges of
models and interactions between clients, owners and illuminators (often from different backgrounds) in the geographical context
of the Mediterranean arc, between southern France and Catalonia.

De nombreux grands manuscrits ont été la proie de marchands qui les ont dépecés en feuillets séparés pour offrir aux amateurs la possibilité d'acquérir de belles miniatures isolées. Les recherches de divers historiens d'art ont permis d'identifier un ensemble de folios provenant tous d'un même remarquable manuscrit juridique du XIVe siècle, composé et décoré à Toulouse, qui comportait des illustrations originales de haute qualité.

ABSTRACT:  This lecture (no. 10) furnishes a view of the Middle Bronze Age Near East --(and Egypt briefly)-- outside Mesopotamia.  It first provides a brief summary and background regarding Middle Bronze Age eastern Syria and Mesopotamia (as a review of lecture 9) and then proceeds with Syro-Mesopotamian interconnections with Anatolia during the Middle Bronze Age. In this section I draw upon the pertinent parts of another course lecture (I teach) on MB Age Anatolia, namely an overview of the Anatolian Middle Bronze Age and international relations (mainly Old Assyrian trade) with Kultepe-Kanesh, the role of Assyrians (and Syria-Mesopotamia) with other Anatolian communities in the central plateau region, some Syro-Mesopotamian influence in Anatolian Material culture, and the end of MB Age Anatolia and the collapse of Assyrian trade.  The next section draws upon several pertinent lectures from my "Bible Lands" (Archaeology of Syria-Palestine) and Egypt courses, looking at Syro-Mesopotamian interconnections with Canaan (mainly Palestine) in the MB Age, including an emphasis upon Syro-Mesopotamian influence in Canaan, similarities and connections in fortifications and related aspects, in palace and elite architecture, in temple architecture, fittings and votives, in elite/royal tombs and burials, in southern Levantine material culture, and in language and writing. This section also examines some Middle Kingdom to Second Intermediate Period Egyptian relations with and influence in Palestine and Syria during the MB Age via literature (e.g., Story of Sinuhe), inscriptions (e.g., Execration Texts), historical texts (e.g., royal and private), and archaeological data. This section concludes with a very brief overview of some Canaanite presence and influence in Middle Kingdom to Second Intermediate Period Egypt (e.g., Avaris). The last section covers the end of the Middle Bronze Age, ca. 1,550 BC, in the Near East. UPDATED: 2022 Spring offering.

This volume on the relationships between decadent literature and anthropology in late 19th- and early 20th-century Europe studies the unnoticed connection between, on the one hand, a purposeless and ephemeral beauty, and, on the other hand, the disinterestedness and the spontaneity ascribed by anthropologists to the ceremonial expenditure of “primitive” civilizations. The book highlights how, in those two apparently opposed discourses, prodigality and uselessness challenge the Western cult of profit by working in two directions: beauty is a form of lavishness, and lavishness is a source of beauty. An innovative theoretical and cultural framework at the crossroads of aesthetics, anthropology, and philosophy allows me to reexamine the works of O. Wilde, G. D’Annunzio, and J.-K. Huysmans, and to claim the crucial role of neglected authors like Paolo Mantegazza and Vernon Lee in what I trace as the emergence of a proto-theorization of gift-exchange in the European fin de siècle culture. The pervasiveness of symbolic economy in those writers establishes a new dynamic relationship between decadence and modernism, and also exposes the limits of the allegedly disinterested forms of expenditure that will soon lure the modernists to go “primitive”.

Background. The study of cultural exchanges during the Cold War period is largely confined to the ideological stand-off between the USSR and the USA in Eastern Europe. However, little attention has been given to the Soviet Union’s extensive efforts to promote socialism among the populations of newly-independent states of the developing world through educational, scientific, and cultural exchanges. This vector of Soviet foreign policy takes on a particular relevance in the context of China’s soft power outreach on the African continent today, which is informed by similar ideological guidelines.
Focus. I propose to examine visual representation of Soviet-African relations in Socialist Realist art, including paintings, graphic art, postcards, stamps, and photography. It should be noted that the Socialism Goes Global website contains a series of images which highlight the importance of the visual dimension in documenting cultural and political exchange. The Soviet domestic and international media widely reproduced images of happy African children playing with Soviet youths, which were further incorporated into the USSR’s iconography.

Socialist Realism acts as an interface between ideology and the visual arts, documenting state-sanctioned elements of Soviet reality. For example, the cover image depicts pioneers in Artek, the famous children’s camp in the Crimea, which hosted 300,000 children including more than 13,000 children from 70 foreign countries between 1925 and 1969, including Angola, Nigeria and Uganda (from 1955) and Guinea (from 1960).

Methods. The findings of this paper are based on archival and bibliographical work, textual analysis of materials in Russian, French, and English, visual analysis, interviews with former educational and cultural professionals who were employed by the Soviet government to work in Africa.

Conclusions. Instilling cultural awareness of the Soviet benefactor was an important tool in fomenting support for Socialism among populations abroad. The African states with which the Soviet Union was especially concerned to develop cultural exchanges were also largely the states whose foreign policy rendered them potentially the most receptive to Soviet influence. However, documenting the USSR’s positive impact in the developing world was an essential element of the national ideology. It contrasted the mission civilisatrice of socialism against the ‘imperialist pretensions’ of the capitalist world.

Notre contribution se propose d’analyser le programme iconographique inédit d’un manuscrit des Décrétales de Grégoire IX à l’usage de l’université de Toulouse conservé aux Archives Nationales de la Torre do Tombo à Lisbonne pour montrer quelles sont les particularités et les spécificités de ce programme ainsi que le message que ce programme se propose de véhiculer en relation avec le texte juridique qu’il introduit. Les Décrétales de la Torre do Tombo nous permettent aussi d’ajouter encore un élément important à la connaissance des relations entre la France méridionale et le Portugal au Moyen Âge.

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Our contribution proposes to analyse the iconographic program of a manuscript of the Decretals of Gregory IX used by the University of Toulouse and kept in the National Archives of Torre do Tombo in Lisbon, in order to show what is special and specific in this program and what is the message that the program intends to convey in relation to the legal text that it introduces. The Decretals of Torre do Tombo also allow us to add another important element in knowledge of cultural relationships between southern France and Portugal in the Middle Ages.

Cette communication se propose d’analyser la circulation d’artistes, de manuscrits enluminés ainsi que la circulation de modèles entre le Midi de la France, l’Italie et la Catalogne (XIVe-XVe siècles). On analysera la circulation de modèles, entre XIVe et XVe siècle, dans le Midi de la France en relation avec l’ensemble de la création artistique dans l’espace des rivages nord-méditerranéens. On visera en particulier à tracer les parcours suivis par les artistes, les manuscrits enluminés ainsi que par les modèles entre la Provence, le Languedoc, la Catalogne et l’Italie du Nord entre le XIVe et la première moitié du XVe siècle. Ce seront les échanges, les déplacements, qui seront observés ainsi que les rapports stylistiques qui existent entre les différents genres (sculptures, peintures, enluminures, tapisseries et vitraux). Cette communication vise à réfléchir sur les mécanismes de circulation entre différents espaces culturels et aussi à ouvrir des perspectives utiles pour l’étude et la compréhension des échanges et des transferts artistiques dans le milieu européen méridional en montrant comment le Midi de la France a été aussi un important point de convergence et de départ d’enlumineurs comme de modèles qui se sont diffusés progressivement tout au long de l’arc méditerranéen.