Creating a Portrait: Power, Authority, and Reverence in Byzantium

Byzantine Studies Teaching Day will focus on how the Byzantines crafted, shaped and interpreted portraits through words, objects, rituals, and memory. Emperors, theologians, authors, and artists all participated in the making of portraits, whether idealized images, critical caricatures, or polemical representations intended to cultivate, negotiate, or undermine power, authority, and reverence. By engaging with objects, texts, and less tangible forms of evidence such as ritual, memory, and reputation, students are introduced to the methodological breadth of Byzantine Studies and the interpretive challenges of working across media. Students will tour the Dumbarton Oaks Museum, including the special exhibition Medallions: The Art of Politics and Generosity, visit object storage, and attend papers.

Speakers

· Reyhan Durmaz

· Tony Eastmond

· John Ladouceur

This event is open to students from D.C.-area universities.

Image: Constantine I, 3-solidus medallion, gold, Constantinople, 335–36

© Dumbarton Oaks, Coins and Seals Collection, Washington, DC

Alt-text: A gold medallion featuring an image of the head and shoulders of a man looking to the right. He wears a jeweled crown and robes fastened at the shoulder with a rectangular broach. Around the edges of the medallion there is text.

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