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Reichenau: the Lost Glory and the Holy Blood Relic
Once Richenau was a monastic island, one big and famous monastery with over twenty chapels and churches, monks dormitories, gardens and scriptoria. Not much is left form its former glory, but still...
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The Holy Blood Relic of Reichenau: lost glory also?
Relics, kind of strange to many of us, but they have important place in medieval history. And history of art too, as reliquaries have elaborate and artistic forms. Just a visit to the treasury of...
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Colors of Power: red and blue- History of Color in Middle Ages # 9
Red and blue, most prominent color duo of the Middle Ages. People just loved them so much, that even when writing about rainbow they wrote often only blue and red! Also the existence of separated...
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Purple, the Imperial Color, History of Color #10
Byzantine Emperor Justinian, mosaic in St Vitale church, Ravenna, ItalyI wrote about red and blue as colors of power in my recent entry. But the ultimate color of power was purple, before red and blue...
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Yellow: Triumph and Fall, history of color #11
Yellow is unusual in art history regarding the attitudes people had toward this hue: it was held in high esteem until did fall low.First during medieval times yellow was replacing gold when it was too...
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Mountain of Venus: legend about Tannhauser
Recently I saw with my husband the movie Wagner's Dream. Totally fascinating documentary (and my husband told me it was very interesting to watch me watching the movie, my reactions, etc.) It was about...
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Dragon of the Wawel Castle, Kracow, and some dragon examples
On the left is a snapshot from small part of the courtyard of the Wawel Castle in Cracow. I revisited this city, I liked to go there since I was in my late teens. When I was a child, like every kid I...
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Byzantine tradition: icons, garments and liturgy
Once strolling through the old streets close to Krakow's Old Town Market Square I heard amazing singing, Orthodox choir. I stood on the street and listen, assuming someone had a nice CD playing, the...
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Dark Ages? Not everywhere: Byzantine love for classics
In popular opinions Dark Ages were taking over Europe until the Renaissance came with revival of classic traditions. This is only partially true. Byzantine Empire continued the tradition of Greece and...
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Paradise on Earth-the legend
Legends were extremely important during the Middle Ages, sure. Some were the source of psychological strength, like the legend of the terrestial paradise, which gave people sense of hope and was...
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Green: Paradise and the color symbolism, history of color # 12
Green in Medieval times had rather varied symbolic meaning, depending if was used in the religious or secular context. In religious art it was a symbol of eternal happy existence, Paradise, and soul's...
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Rock-hewn churches, cave monasteries, and stones: longing for travel
I come from a country with mostly flat terrain, some hills and mountains, but not much, lots of lakes and forests, and as you probably guess not many stone buildings. There are some, but most old...
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Things get repeated
My blog got neglected. In this week I hope to have enough time to post about the tradition about Holy Grail in the church of Bezlawki. Now simply my reflection about how things get repeated over and...
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Kupala Night during the Summer Solsitce: Festival of Fire and Water
Kupala Night by Siomon Kozhin Summer Solstice festival as we know it: it is linked to paganism and bonfires, and dances. It was celebrated once all over Europe in very similar forms. Slavs, Celts and...
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Holy Grail in Bezlawki, part 1, Escape after Hastings
Bayeux tapestry, battle of Hastings. Via wiki commons, by MaximThis blog has been neglected for long time. I planed and promised to write about the legend of the Holy Grail in Bezlawki, today's Poland....
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Perished Mary Magdalene's old collegiate church
Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene are two women who are the most represented in the history of Catholic church. Mary Magdalene is the second most shown woman, so we can safely say that as a saint she is...
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Forgoten Patron-Abbot Suger
If you are interested in art history, specially if you are interested in Medieval art, sooner or later you will run in your conversation, or books people recommend to you, into stories about Templars,...
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Saints who once were crooks, criminals and bad people in general
St Christopher, dog-headed saint, iconThis entry will be not a light read partially, for it is about bad people who changed their ways and became saints, were reformed individuals. I was writing about...
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Beuatiful Madonnas style in International Gothic and topoi of courtly love
Today i want to show some Madonnas in style which was a branch of International Gothic. Those depictions of Virgin Mary are called in Beautiful Madonnas. This iconographic type emerged in Bohemia...
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The supposed "heresy" of "All men are born equal" part 1
Polish Medieval coins with inscriptions in HebrewYesterday was 4th of July celebrations in US. This time I am moving away from my chronological plan, and move in the next entry about this subject into...
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