Kairos or Occasion as Paradigm in the Visual Medium (Paperback)

Paperback. The meaning of tearing and splitting as a life-, love- andwisdom-generating event (for example, the tearing of the temple curtain)is profoundly rooted in the visual and literary 'bodies' of ancient andChristian thought. The primordial cosmogonic split is always sudden, isalways sharp (like a knife), appears as a flash (sudden and allencompassing) and is experienced through the whole bodily sensorium (inshivering, bliss, sigh, wind, breath). The split is the epiphany ofradical change, revolution and the transition beyond. The Greek deityKairos embodies this mystery. The reach of Kairos can be detected in thetheory of rhetoric (Sophists vs. Aristotle (385-322 BC)), in humanisticpolitics, in postmodern theology and in contemporary time-management.Iconographical studies have treated Kairos's Nachleben inByzantine and Latin visual traditions where the god is conflated withFortuna and Occasio. This essay addresses the impact of Kairos and itsiconographic Nachleben from a literary and historicalperspective, and further considers Kairos as a new art historicalparadigm. Indeed, Kairos can offer us alternative hermeneutics toreconceive the image as chronotopos, as epiphany and as intercession. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…