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Object Narratives explicate religious images, objects, monuments, buildings, or spaces in 1500 words or less.

Conversations

MAVCOR began publishing Conversations: An Online Journal of the Center for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion in 2014. In 2017 we selected a new name, MAVCOR Journal. Articles published prior to 2017 are considered part of Conversations and are listed as such under Volumes in the MAVCOR Journal menu.

  • A wood-engraving depicts a woman sitting on a bench staring off into a grassy landscape with a house and trees.
    Object Narratives
    Alexander Anderson, Abigail Hutchinson: A Young Woman Hopefully Converted
    Sonia Hazard
    That “Protestants don’t have pictures” remains a common generalization. Yet in the early nineteenth century, nothing could be further from the truth. Protestant publishers like the nonsectarian American Tract Society (ATS) lavishly decorated their tracts with small but expressive printed illustrations.
  • A black and white photo shows a space with adults and children on kneelers before an altar arrayed with devotional statues. The walls are lined with small framed images. One devotee stands on crutches.
    Object Narratives
    The Chapel of Our Lord of the Miracles (La Capilla de Nuestro Señor de los Milagros), San Antonio, Texas
    Timothy Matovina
    No exact date is known for the founding in San Antonio, Texas, of the Capilla de Nuestro Señor de los Milagros (Chapel of the Lord of Miracles), or Capilla de los Milagros, as it is sometimes called. Visitors to the shrine and its central Christ image offer both their orations and material expressions of prayer.
  • Object Narratives
    Opening Virgin (Vierge Ouvrante)
    Shira Brisman
    This object is an example of a type of small-scale Christian moveable-part medieval sculpture called a Vierge Ouvrante (“Opening Virgin”).
  • A light-skinned figure of a young boy wears a shiny blue robe, brown stole, and wide-brimmed hat. He is seated in a gold throne with an ornate canopy carved with a lamb insignia. The child holds a basket and staff.
    Object Narratives
    Traveling Image of the Holy Child of Atocha (Santo Niño de Atocha), Plateros, Mexico
    Jennifer Scheper Hughes and Daisy Vargas
    Each year, certain special religious images are ceremonially brought from Mexico and Central America to visit Catholic devotional communities in Southern California. These devotional statues of Catholic saints are “imágenes peregrinas,” pilgrim or traveling images.
  • Two half-naked female figures gather around a brown ox in a dark, painterly image. Thick brushstrokes also render fruit-bearing trees in the background.
    Object Narratives
    Arthur B. Davies, Sacramental Trees
    Emily Gephart
    Two maidens, one bright and one shadowy, lead an ox through a curiously dense, shallow, and cubistically-fragmented woodland, heading (one presumes) through the titular sacramental trees and towards an uncertain destination.
  • In a grayscale photo, a female stone torso with carved jewelry protrudes and swoops off a building. There is a jagged stone space where the figure's head should be.
    Object Narratives
    Drain-spout in the Form of a Flying Celestial Figure
    Tamara I. Sears
    Hovering above the central courtyard of a Hindu monastery at the rural central-Indian village of Chandrehe was once a set of finely sculpted flying celestials, known within their original, tenth-century context as gandharvas, heavenly singers in the court of the gods, or vidya-dharas, meaning “carriers of truth.”
  • A colorful but weathered ink painting shows a pale-skinned, many-armed figure sitting cross-legged at its center. A large halo of hands surrounds him, each with a single eye. Accompanying figures lie outside the halo against a blue background.
    Object Narratives
    Thousand-armed and Thousand-eyed Avalokiteshvara
    Michelle C. Wang
    Avalokiteshvara, one of the most important bodhisattvas in Buddhism, was popularly known as the “perceiver of the world’s cries.” Bodhisattvas, meaning literally “enlightened beings,” were devoted, out of a deep sense of compassion, to aiding other sentient beings in their quest for enlightenment, even to the point of postponing their own entry into nirvana.
  • A stone plinth holds a sculptural group of two stone, male figures. One concerned-looking robed man crouches down to adjust the cloths on the head of a supine male figure. The lying man has a bare chest and a pained expression.
    Object Narratives
    The Vincent and Mary Markham Monument
    Annette Stott
    In the summer of 1900, Denver acquired an unusual sculpture to mark the last resting place of pioneer attorney Vincent Daniel Markham (1826-1895) and his wife Mary (ca. 1834-1893).
  • A pale gold tall cap that rises to a peak is decorated with ornate embroidery all over. The colorful embroidery depicts swirling floral and vegetal designs in red, blue, and green.
    Object Narratives
    Cuzco Miter
    Maya Stanfield-Mazzi
    The Cathedral of Cuzco, Peru holds several liturgical ornaments from the Spanish colonial period in its treasury. Among them is a magnificent embroidered miter, the headdress worn by bishops for blessings, baptisms, and processions.
  • A dark-skinned man wearing a white t-shirt holds a large, broken mortar transformed into an art object. It is painted orange with a large eye depicted at center. Other smaller eyes cover the object's surface. Neat, white text also covers the piece.
    Object Narratives
    Kwame "Almighty" Akoto, The Supernatural Eyes of God
    Birgit Meyer
    During a trip to Ghana in May 2010, I visited the roadside shop and atelier of painter Kwame Akoto, alias “Almighty,” a name he adopted so as to praise the power of God.
  • A grayscale chart consists of a series of different size ovals set in a horizontal line. Each oval contains more circles with illustrations inside them. Text labels the spheres and thin lines make connections between events.
    Object Narratives
    Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth
    A.T. Coates
    Clarence Larkin’s dispensationalist chart “Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth” (1920) offers a detailed schematic of biblical history. The artistic product of an individual with experience in mechanical draftsmanship, Larkin’s chart shows how events and epochs fit together like parts in a salvation machine.
  • A painting of a light-skinned Mary with a large, oblong disk of gold leaf light behind her head is painted on a red background. She has large stylized eyes, red lips, and wears a burgundy cloak.
    Object Narratives
    Icon of Mary
    Elena Kravchenko
    Icons move. They cross national borders and traditional boundaries. They show up in the least expected places.

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