page_title: Theodore Psalter
section_title: Combinations of Art and Text in the Theodore Psalter
hierarchical_section_title: Theodore Psalter / Combinations of Art and Text in the Theodore Psalter
caption_attribution_description: English: Theodore Psalter
context_page_description: The Theodore Psalter is an illustrated manuscript and compilation of the Psalms and the canticles, or Odes from the Old Testament. "This Psalter has been held in the British Library since 1853 as Additional 19.352," wrote Princeton Art History professor Charles Barber in his first essay that is a companion to the Theodore Psalter E-Facsimile. Barber called the Psalter, "One of the richest illuminated manuscripts to survive from Byzantium."
  He goes on to say, "This essay will introduce a number of the various approaches that have been brought to bear upon this work. In reviewing these wide-ranging approaches it will be possible both to define the questions that have shaped the reception of this work and to formulate some possibilities for future research."
context_section_description: The relationship of icons and text, especially religious text, is an ongoing topic of interest to scholars.  
  Professor Liz James writes:  "Art and text, the interface between images and words, is one of the oldest issues in art history. Are works of art and writings different but parallel forms of expression? Are they intertwined and interdependent?
  She goes on to ask, "Can art ever stand alone and apart from text or is it always enmeshed in the meanings expressed in the written and the oral that make it perpetually exposed to subjective interpretation? Byzantium was a culture in which the interactions between word and image underpinned, in many ways, the whole meaning of art. For the Byzantines, as a People of the Book, the interface between images and words, and, above all, Christ, the Word of God, was crucial. The dynamic between art and text in Byzantium is essential for understanding Byzantine society, where the correct relationship between the two was critical to the well being of the state."
caption: Theodore Psalter-Courtesy of the British Library; London, U.K.
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