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The nocturnal encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus in the Gospel of John (Jn 3: 1-21) inspired few artists before the sixteenth century, and only with Orientalism, in the nineteenth century, did the episode arouse genuine interest. But the artists who did illustrate it (Nikolayevitch, Uhde, Tanner, Thoma...) enjoyed an inebriating freedom of representation. Jesus and Nicodemus could speak face to face, in the presence of other Pharisees, of servants, or of maids. Their meeting could be characterized as a conversation, a lecture, or a confession. It could take place on a roof or by a burning fire in a closed room. This paper attempts to qualify the combination of apology, catechesis, devotion and ethnological curiosity that were all involved in the representations of the "'nocturnal encounter." All in all, though, the harvest is meagre, which prompts a whole set of new questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores those fading trends in the Western artistic tradition concerned with the representation of the Holy Face of Christ. While the theme of the Holy Face inspired prominent artists throughout the seventeenth century, in the following century it came to suffer from considerable neglect, as if artistic practice itself had chosen to shield the viewer's gaze from an unsettling encounter with Christ's own scrutinizing, suffering eyes. The avoidance of the theme remained constant throughout the xix century, and the specific theme of the Holy Face was absorbed in the more general iconography of the pieta, with the notable exception of the work of Odilon Redon. The rise of abstract art in the xx century and the general trend towards the elision of a represented subject's facial distinctiveness (as in the works of Giacometti, Baselitz and Rainer) did not however prevent the emergence of an "obsessive exaltation" of the Face of Christ in the works of Hawlensky and Rouault. The author in particular looks at the later works of the Foundation Paul vi of Concesio (in Lombardy), to explore how a peculiar interest for the Holy Face of Christ was reawakened later in the century, as the theme was liberated from its connotations of suffering, relating acheiropoietic mythologies and the more general symbolic indexing of Christ's sovereignty. The author also follows the development of the theme amongst French artists such as Damon, Arcabas and Houver, and concludes by looking at the case of the monumental Face of Christ unveiled in Strasbourg Cathedral in September 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Europoje "karaliŠkasis regioninės arba tautinės kultūros dėmuo", pakartojant Šios konferencijos pavadinimą, visada buvo glaudžiai susijęs su Kristaus karaliavimu todėl, kad pastarasis - viena iŠ pagrindinių ilgai Šiame žemyne vyravusios religijos temų ir iŠtisus amžius buvo galutinis visų valdovų atramos taŠkas. Tai pasitvirtina tiek pasaulėžiūros, tiek atvaizdų srityse; tiek Vakaruose, tiek Rytuose - baltų kraŠtuose ir Lietuvoje, kaip ir beveik visur kitur. Tačiau konstatuoti, kad esama "glaudžių ryŠių" tarp žemiŠkųjų karalių ir Kristaus Karaliaus atvaizdų, nereiŠkia, kad jiems būtų grėsęs pavojus būti bent kiek supainiotiems ar sutapatintiems. Remdamiesi pavyzdžiais, norėtume prisidėti prie Šio teiginio patvirtinimo. Juk yra nuvalkiotų tiesų, kurias verta įrodyti. įžanginis praneŠimas, kurį sumanėme skaityti Sigitos Maslauskaitės praŠymu, nepretenduoja į nieką kita, kaip tik būti pirmuoju daugybės klausimų parodymu - klausimų, kurių tiksliau ir nuodugniau imtis yra kaip tik Šios konferencijos užduotis, ir konferencijos dalyviai Šią užduotį įvykdys tikrai geriau, negu sugebėtų pirmąkart gyvenime Vilniuje esantis prancūzas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article provides an overview (as of September, 2008) of the state of the field of l’histoire des religions in the four french-speaking countries of Europe. It discusses the pioneers, along with their followers and influence, the position of principle institutions regarding teaching in the field, and the general orientations of each university, along with distinct emphases that reflect recent socio-political and cultural developments. This detailed panorama brings to light the relative weakness of french-speaking research in the field of l’histoire générale des religions. It calls attention to tensions between the former high status of this academic area, more than half of a century ago, and the disrepute into which its comparativist project has fallen over the last decades. It asks how French secularism – and the growing secularization of western societies more generally – may have influenced perceptions of the discipline, its orientations, and its position in today''s academic market academic market. It also considers the impact of declining comprehension of religious phenomena among younger generations and correlated concerns with popularisation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]