Living Icons: Tracing a Motif in Verbal and Visual Representation from the Second to Fourth Centuries C.E.

This paper traces the development of a deliberate and intense emphasis on visuality in literary representation of the second through fourth centuries C.E., resulting in a new cultural phenomenon: attributing the characteristics and functions of images to living persons. Calling on a range of sources from Lucian's Eikones to the Life of St. Daniel the Stylite and recent scholarship in art history and critical theory, the paper analyzes a series of interfaces between verbal and visual representation in terms of an active transaction between viewer and viewed to construct meaning and establish and communicate social power.