“Mallow, a flower of life: from Ancient Greece to Christianity and Ukrainian culture (new discoveries of ancient symbols)”

ДЕТИ ВРУ
“Children are the Ambassadors of Peace”
01.10.2018
ОХИ_2018
October 28 – ΟΧΙ Day, the Greek National Holiday
18.10.2018
Show all

“Mallow, a flower of life: from Ancient Greece to Christianity and Ukrainian culture (new discoveries of ancient symbols)”

Мальва

October 25, 2018 at 16:00 the BHFC will host a lecture “Mallow, a flower of life: from Ancient Greece to Christianity and Ukrainian culture (new discoveries of ancient symbols)”.

Mallows are big bright flowers we remember from our childhood. White huts and red mallows under the window is the most recognizable characteristic image of Ukraine… We find mallows in songs, in fairy tales, in paintings and embroidery. Why are they so inherent in Ukrainian culture? Mallow flowers were popular not only in Ukraine, they appear in Christian art from the very beginning. Mallow flowers cover the vaults of ancient churches and are placed in the most honorable places – by the Cross or around the Lamb … Why was the mallow so important for Christians? What did they want to tell us by constantly portraying this flower? The explanation for this is rooted in the culture of ancient Greece pertaining to the earliest food of antiquity … The lecture by Yulia Matveyeva will make a discovery of mallow as an ancient symbol from ancient Greek texts to the most famous examples of Christian art and to Ukrainian traditions.

Lecturer: Julia Matveyeva holds PhD in Art History and is an Associate Professor at the Department of Design and Fine Arts of  A. Beketov Kharkiv National University of Municipal Economy. For about 20 years, she has been studying Christian art. She is the author of more than 60 publications, most of which are devoted to the art of the church. In 2008she defended the thesis “Evolution of the Byzantine tradition in the iconography of liturgical sewing of the late Middle Ages”. For the last ten years, her interests have been focused on the emergence and development of liturgical fabrics and the formation of the altar space in the early Byzantine period. She is the author of two monographs, “Decorative fabrics in mosaics of Ravenna: semantics and cultural-semantic context” and “The language of textiles in the Byzantine art”.

HFC
HFC