Late Byzantine painting is primarily known for its increasingly elaborate religious iconography. This talk will focus, instead, on a few uncommon images where artists visualised contemporary ideas about the structure of the universe, the nature of space and time, the composition of the human body, and the meaning of life. This will lead to some general considerations about the social status and educational level of Byzantine painters.
Georgi Parpulov has taught at the University of Oxford and done curatorial work at the Walters Art Museum, the J Paul Getty Museum, and the British Museum. He studies Greek manuscripts and Byzantine painting.