Pictures and reality
Subtitle: monumental frescoes and mosaics in Rome around 1300
By: Jens T. Wollesen.
Series: Hermeneutics of art ;; v. 8
Publisher: Peter Lang; Lang Publishing, Incorporated, Peter
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 432
Subjects: Mural painting and decoration, Italian -- Italy -- Rome -- Themes, motives.; Mural painting and decoration, Medieval -- Italy -- Rome -- Themes, motives.; Mosaics, Italian -- Italy -- Rome -- Themes, motives.; Mosaics, Medieval -- Italy -- Rome -- Themes, motives.; Popes -- Art patronage.
Description: Monumental pictures and their social reality in Rome around 1300 are the focus of this study. The frescoes and mosaics under examination belong to the hitherto neglected facades and porticoes of important basilicas. Many of them - now lost or fragmented - described their cult repertory. They propagated ideas of their commissioners and mirrored the reality of the beholder, in terms of a new pictorial mimesis or verisimilitude.

Their visual arguments were targeted towards the Romans, and, more importantly, towards the pilgrims who visited the eternal city to seek remission for their sins. The function of these pictorial media to transmit new and unconventional contents, phrased as a new pictorial vernacular, was increasingly devoted to the needs and expectations of a profoundly changed lay public. This process - although it coincided with the activity of Giotto - had its own distinctly Roman history.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [261]-280) and index.