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Kuvatova V.Z. Compositional Models of the Early Christian Catacomb Painting. Semiotic Analysis

Abstract: This article is focused on Roman Early Christian catacomb painting of the pre-Constantinian and early Constantinian period (III – 1st half of the IV century). It attempts to examine the impact of syntactic connections in the iconographic models of the Early Christian catacomb painting on the symbolic meaning of such models. The characteristics of the Early Christian catacomb painting make it an interesting subject for the semiotic approach. The limited amount of the visual citations of the Bible and other Early Christian texts in the pre-Constantine and early Constantine period allow to trace sustainable compositional patterns. Meanwhile, the relative flexibility of the compositional models (as compared to sarcophagi, e.g.), on the one hand, and a considerable amount of thematically isolated architectural areas (cubicula, arcosolia, loculi), on the other hand, predetermined the intense use of syntactic instruments for the development of semantic schemes. The specific characteristics of the Early Christian art stipulated the employment of the semiotic method as a principal research strategy. The semiotic method is not very popular among the Russian art historians. Meanwhile it offers wide opportunities for the study of art symbolic systems and the Early Christian art, in particular.


Keywords:

semiotic analysis, semiotics of art, semiotic method, Roman catacombs, funerary art, late Antiquity, catacomb painting, Early Christian art, composite laws, symbolic images


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