Graceland is much more than a wildly popular historic house and tourist destination associated with a famous entertainer, and Elvis Presley is much more than the King of Rock 'n' Roll. As former Walters Art Museum director and medievalist Gary Vikan shows us in his fascinating new book, Graceland, the second-most visited historic house in the U.S., is a locus sanctus --a holy place--and Elvis is its resident saint, while the hordes of fans that crowd Elvis Presley Boulevard in Memphis are modern-day pilgrims, connected in spirit and practice to their early Christian counterparts, sharing a...
Graceland is much more than a wildly popular historic house and tourist destination associated with a famous entertainer, and Elvis Presley is much mo...
Sharon E. J. Gerstel Julie A. Lauffenburger Gary Vikan
During the tenth and eleventh centuries, splendid Byzantine buildings were enriched by colorful ceramic tiles decorated with an impressive range of figural and ornamental patterns. Despite their widespread use, traces of this important decorative medium have, for the most part, disappeared. Relegated to museum storerooms, hidden in private collections, buried under layers of construction, and eclipsed by more durable media, polychrome tiles have until now been denied their full role in our understanding of Byzantine decoration and aesthetics.
A Lost Art Rediscovered...
During the tenth and eleventh centuries, splendid Byzantine buildings were enriched by colorful ceramic tiles decorated with an impressive range of...