Subtle Bodies

Glenn Peers is Assistant Professor of Art and Art History at the University of Texas, Austin. He collaborated with Massimo Bernabo and Rita Tarasconi on Il Fisiologo di Smirne (1998), and he is completing a study on framing in Byzantine art.

• List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction 1. Issues in Representing Angels 2. Arguments against Images of Angels 3. Representing Angels: Images and Theory 4. The Veneration of Angels and Their Images 5. Apprehending the Archangel Michael Conclusion Bibliography Index

"Peers' insightful and wide-ranging study supplies a clear and comprehensive history of the angelic image in cosmology and cult during the formative period prior to Iconoclasm. The paradoxes of the angelic body provide the proving ground for fiercely contested and incompatible claims for text and image as authoritative representations of the holy." - Jeffrey F. Hamburger, author of Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent "[Peers takes] the angelic experience as an instance of the problems inherent in Christian representation. But both astutely and elegantly, he treats angels not simply as an example but as the most enlightening case if we wish to understand these problems." - Anthony Cutler,' author of Imagery and Ideology in Byzantine Art"