Professor Emeritus, Art History
School of Humanities

Byzantine and Medieval art and architecture

www.humanities.uci.edu/arthistory/faculty/agonosova.htm

In most of my research I have been concerned with the categories and modes of decorative art and its impact on the iconographic and visual meaning of the built environment of the Late Roman and Early Byzantine periods. I am particularly interested in floor mosaics and textiles since both of these media function as important components of the domestic and religious built environment, and I have studied both extensively in major museum collections, site visits and field work in Tunisia.


Besides the larger question of the interrelationship between various media of Late Roman and Early Byzantine decoration, I have been concerned with such specific issues in the study of textiles as the "life" cycles of motifs and compositions, the effect of techniques on them, the persistence of tradtion and their susceptibility to the innovation stimulated by both socio-cultural factors and iconographic considerations. Some of this research was published in my contributions to Beyond the Pharaohs, Egypt and the Copts in the 2nd to 7th Centuries (Exhibition catalogue, Museum of Art, The Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, R.I. 1989), Art and Holy Power in the Early Christian House (Exhibition catalogue, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, 1989), and The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era A.D. 843-1261 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1997).

Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=2672

Last updated
10/17/2013