Liminality and the Medieval Art

By focusing on liturgical screens, this contribution addresses issues of liminality in Medieval art and ritual performance, both in the Eastern and Western Christian traditions. Working as shrines for the holiest parts inside church architecture, liturgical separations created areas of inclusion and exclusion between the different categories of actors involved in the use and fruition of the sacred. In both Byzantine and Roman rites, the history of the sanctuary and choir screen is intertwined with the congregation’s experiential transition from a straightforward visual participation in the rites towards the ritualic interactions with an enclosure which prompts a multisensorial engagement in the liturgy. This study emphasizes the role of screens in shaping rituals and generating devotional responses by assessing the use of barriers during liturgical performances and exploring ways in which sacred spaces were designed to accompany the beholders towards a mystical experience through liminal devices.

IMAGERY AND RITUAL IN THE LIMINAL ZONE A STUDY OF TEXTS AND ARCHITECTURAL SCULPTURE FROM THE NIDAROS PROVINCE C.1100-1300, 2012

This Ph.D dissertation from the University of Copenhagen/Danmarks Grundforskningsfond's Center of Excellence examines the use of church portals in the middle ages, and the symbolism ascribed to them through ritual prescriptions and performances. It moreover examined their legal functions. The main objet of study is the Nidaros Cathedral, and the main liturgical sources are the Ordo Nidrosiense and the Manuale Norwegicum. The dissertation examines the spatial choreography prescribed here, and how this express notions of scared space, and communicates the Church's ideas of sacred zones (as expressed in rituals such as church dedication, baptism, churching, marriage, or in the communal cyclical liturgy). The thesis also examines legal prescription in relation to the use of cemeteries, and the notion of sacred zones that these express. Legal texts, sagas and diplomas are brought into the discussion to shed light upon religious notions of purity and impurity in general in the North in the period (1100-1300). The dissertation then presents some case studies of medieval architectural sculpture, and examines this from the perspective of liminal space.

Betwixt and Between Liminality and Marginality: Mind the Gap., 2023

The church porch is a place of rest, shelter and entrance. However in the medieval period it was so much more. A place of informal worship, formal ritual and contract making. The medieval porch has born witness to all the comings and goings of human activity and where it survives the graffiti left behind tells the tale of this activity. This chapter explores these fascinating spaces and proposes an environment that gains power as a place of its own. A liminal space where the intersection of the secular and the divine interact to crate a multi purpose semi-religious place.

Ethnographisch-Archäologische Zeitschrift, 2015

Using the concept of liminality, this paper provides a comparative study of ritual places. The concept was introduced by Arnold van Gennep in his study "rites de passage", in which he differentiated between rites of separation (préliminaires), rites of transition (liminaires) and rites of aggregation (postiliminaires). The main characteristics of liminality were elaborated by Victor Turner: of crucial importance are the temporary dissolution or reversal of existing social structures and the visit of places that are set apart due to their geographical or cultural location. Accordingly, these places enhance the emotional and physical experiences of the individuals participating in the rituals. We discuss case studies from Prehistoric Archaeology, Classical Archaeology and Ethnology: (I) the Heidentor near Egesheim on the Swabian Jura in southwestern Germany, used during the Hallstatt and the La Tène period, (II) the Early Iron Age ritual complex of Francavilla Marittima close to the Ionian coast of Calabria in southern Italy and (III) the recently used pilgrimage site in the Manzhyly-Ata Valley on the shore of Lake Yssyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan. The comparative analysis focuses on the spatial and material expressions of liminality and its social significance: the history of origin and usage, special forms of artifacts involved in the rituals and the geographical or cultural location. Due to the exceptional nature of the case studies, their location and long (dis)continuous histories of use, they differ from contemporaneous structures. Altogether, the concept of liminality provides new perspectives on ritual sites and how they were embedded in their surrounding landscapes.

2019

During the late Middle Ages a unique type of ‘mixed media’ recycled and remnant art arose in houses of religious women in the Low Countries: Enclosed Gardens. These are retables, sometimes with painted side panels, the central section filled not only with narrative sculpture, but also with all sorts of trinkets and hand-worked textiles. Adornments include relics, wax medallions, gemstones set in silver, pilgrimage souvenirs, parchment banderoles, flowers made from textiles with silk thread, semi-precious stones, pearls and quilling (a decorative technique using rolled paper). The ensemble is an impressive and one-of-a-kind display and presents as an intoxicating garden. In this essay the exceptional heritage of such Enclosed Gardens is interpreted from a range of approaches. The Enclosed Garden is studied as a symbol of paradise and mystical union, as the sanctuary of interiority, as the sublimation of the sensorium (in particular the sense of smell), as a typical gendered product, and as a centre of psycho-energetic creative processes.

ii ABSTRACT This thesis aims to investigate and analyze the recent history of the relation between liminality and artistic production and reception, as well as current modes of creation and utilization of liminal transformation in art making. Through a review of a wide range of differing transformational aims and actions of various western artistic movements, artists and groups, it seeks to answer the questions of whether and how art can initiate and implement change and transformation. To this end, following an anthropologic introduction to ritual in general, the concepts of liminal and liminoid rituals have been presented as anthropologist Victor Turner has theorized. Turner’s assertion of artistic experience being liminoid has been challenged and a contrasting suggestion has been put forward. This contradiction has been strengthened through examination and exemplification of various artistic endeavors and inquiries with differing and powerful liminal aims in the face of different issues of their social, cultural and ideological milieus. Following the analysis of chosen liminal examples of modern and postmodern art movements of the 20 th and 21 st centuries, it has been concluded that contrary to Turner’s suggestions, artmaking has a tremendous capacity of liminal transformation. More importantly today, not only is it able to achieve liminal transformation, but the domain of art is also seen to assume the ambiguous attributes of the liminal space itself and may be the only remaining space for initiating change and transformation against the monopolized power structure of the spectacle dominated neo-liberal system.