Grabar, André 2320

Grabar, André (July 26, 1896, Kiev – October 5,

1990, Paris), Archaeologist and Art Historian of Classical
Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Middle Ages.

G.’s prolific and multi-disciplinary research includes more than thirty book
titles, plus numerous book chapters and approximately three hundred ar-
ticles, all widely translated and reprinted. The largest part of his oeuvre is
devoted to Byzantine art of antiquity and the Middles Ages, but he also did
much research on the art of the western Middle Ages. The main thesis of much
of his work on Christian iconography stated that the early Christians appro-
priated motifs, symbols and images from contemporaneous Roman art, but
imbued these forms with religious signification.
During his adolescence in Kiev, G. hoped to become an artist; though his
training and career eventually addressed art history exclusively, he did con-
tinue to paint throughout his lifetime. G. began his higher education at the
University of St. Vladimir in Kiev, studying there for one year, then continu-
ing for two years in Petrograd, receiving his diploma in 1919 in Odessa. His
professors included N. Kondakov, D. Analov and J. Smirnov. Eventually
after the Bolshevik Revolution, G. left the tumult of Russia for Bulgaria
where he worked from 1920–1922 as an adjunct curator at a museum in Sop-
hia, cataloguing the region’s medieval art. G. emigrated to France in 1922
and within a year married Julie Ivanova. (Their son Oleg Grabar studied
Islamic art.) His first teaching position was as a Russian instructor in Stras-
bourg, a job he held for six years. His earlier work in Bulgaria contributed
to his doctoral thesis, completed in 1928 and entitled La peinture religieuse en
Bulgarie au moyen âge. For the next nine years, still in Strasbourg, he taught
art history, and more specifically, Byzantine civilization and art history.
Also during this period, he was mentored by Paul Perdrizet and Gabriel
Millet. G. began teaching archeology and Byzantine studies at the Ecole
des Hautes Etudes in Paris in 1937, replacing Millet; he was a member of the
Collège de France from 1946–1966 and was initiated into the Académie des In-
scriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1955. In 1945, G. and Jean Hubert began the im-
portant Medieval and Byzantine serial, Cahiers Archéologiques; he also founded
the Bibliothèque des Cahiers Archéologiques, which published monographs. G.
was associated with the Centre des Etudes Médiévales in Poitiers along with
Gilson and Ganshof.
In his 1946 work, Martyrium, G. noted the parallels between the customs
of Roman veneration of deceased heroes and the practices of Christian vener-
ation of heroic saints, or more specifically, martyrs. He also studied the dif-

Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services

Authenticated
Download Date | 6/20/15 8:59 PM
2321 Grabar, André

ference in veneration of relics between the eastern and western regions of the
Roman world and the ensuing architectural differences. He first dissemi-
nated this research in the form of lectures offered at the Collège de France in
1942.
In 1947, G. began his long association with Dumbarton Oaks, writing
frequently for its publications. His 1961 lecture series, part of the A.W. Mel-
lon Lectures in the Fine Arts and presented in the National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C., was published in 1968 as Christian Iconography: A Study of Its
Origins in the Bollingen Series. This research on Christian art from the period
of late antiquity was incorporated in his 1978 work, Les voies de la création en
iconographie chrétienne, which included an extensive study of medieval Chris-
tian iconography, both western and Byzantine. In both works, G. was con-
cerned with the origin and functions of visual motifs.
More specifically, a number of G.’s publications focused on the sources
and evolution of motifs in Christian iconography as inspired by its contem-
poraneous context, the religious and profane art of the Roman Empire,
itself heir to a Greek iconic lexicon. This iconic inheritance was then gently
appropriated and translated to a new context. For instance, G. traces
Resurrection motifs to Roman depictions of Triumph. Christ the Savior
is analogous to Hercules, both figures typically used in funerary art. The
Shepherd, a common figure in Roman art, conveyed the concept of the vir-
tue humanitas, according to G., which explains its appropriation and use by
Christians to symbolize Christ. This thesis was not accepted by all scholars.
In her review of Christian Iconography: a Study of its Origins (1968), Jocelyn
M.C. Toynbee disputed G.’s acceptance of Klauser’s hypothesis that the
pagan art which influenced Christian art used symbols to represent virtues.
Toynbee believed instead that this was an innovation of Christian art
itself. On the other hand, Toynbee found plausible G.’s explanation for
the late appearance of Crucifixion images: there were simply no corre-
sponding depictions in the art of Rome itself (Classical Review 20 [December
1970]: 380–83).
One important source of motifs for depictions of Christians was, accord-
ing to G., the Roman depictions of circus scenes which allowed for the com-
parison of the martyr and the athlete, an innovative idea in the estimation of
Ellis Kirkham Waterhouse in his review of Christian Iconography (The Eng-
lish Historical Review 86 [July 1971]: 598–99).
G.’s corpus of research, from his early work to his later writing, con-
tinues to be cited in general studies on Byzantine art. His work on martyrs
and relics was greatly admired by Richard Krautheimer in his 1953 review
of G.’s book (Art Bulletin XXXV [1953]: 57–61). While Krautheimer did

Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services

Authenticated
Download Date | 6/20/15 8:59 PM
Grabar, André 2322

take issue with some of G.’s procedural steps, he expressed much admiration
for his colleague’s innovative research: “The application of [his] thesis to
Early Christian and Byzantine church architecture has led G. to what may
well be the first consistent interpretation of the origin of these forms and of
the basic differences that separate Eastern and Western medieval architec-
ture.” This same work on martyrs remains pertinent to Robin Cormack’s
Byzantine Art (2000) as does G.’s 1963 study of Byzantine sculpture. David
Talbot Rice’s bibliography of core texts in his Art of the Byzantine Era (1963)
lists G.’s earliest publication, the book on Bulgarian religious painting,
a work also cited by Christa Schug-Willein her Art of the Byzantine World
(New York 1969). G.’s work on Christian iconography is considered funda-
mental to introductory studies on Byzantine art and informs Thomas F. Ma-
thews’s Byzantium: From Antiquity to the Renaissance (1998). His work remains
a pertinent resource for art history studies and even for postmodern theor-
ists. Annabel Jane Wharton, (“Rereading Martyrium: The Modernist
and Postmodernist Texts,” Gesta 29 [1990]: 3–7) finds that this work is, “a
text that points to the signifying potential of convention.” Wharton
credits G. with the understanding that, “distinct architectural forms hold
meaning depending on their syntactical setting”

Select Bibliography
Works: La peinture religieuse en Bulgarie (1928); Recherches sur les influences orientales dans
l’art balkanique (1928); La décoration byzantine (1928); Deux images de la vierge dans un manu-
scrit serbe (1930); L’empereur dans l’art byzantin (1936, rpt. 1971); L’art byzantin: 86 hélio-
typies précédées d’une introduction (1938); Miniatures byzantines de la Bibliothèque Nationale:
66 photographies inédites (1939); Martyrium: Recherches sur le culte des reliques et l’art chrétien
antique (1943–1946); La peinture byzantine: Etude historique et critique (1953); L’iconoclasme
byzantin: dossier archéologique (1957); La peinture romane du onzième au treizième siècle: Pein-
tures murales par André Grabar, L’enluminure par Carl Nordenfalk (1958); Sculptures byzantines
de Constantinople, IVe–Xe siècle (1963; L’âge d’or de Justinien, de la mort de Théodose à l’Islam
(1966); Le premier art chrétien (1966); L’art de la fin de l’antiquité et du moyen âge (1968); L’art
du moyen âge en Europe orientale (1968); Christian Iconography: A Study of its Origins (1968);
Les manuscrits grecs enluminés de provenance italienne, IXe–XIVe siècles (1972); Sculptures by-
zantines du moyen âge: XIe–XIVe siècle (1976); Les voies de la création en iconographie chrétienne
(1979).

Literature: Richard Krautheimer, “Review of Andre Grabar, Martyrium. Recherches

sur le culte des reliques et l’art chretien antique, 2 vols. (Paris: Collège de France: 1943–1946),”
originally Art Bulletin, XXXV (1953): 57–61; rpt. in Studies in Early Christian, Medieval,
and Renaissance Art (New York: New York University Press, 1969): 151–60; Annabel Jane
Wharton, “Rereading Martyrium: The Modernist and Postmodernist Texts,” Gesta
29 (1990): 3–7; Henry Maguire, “André Grabar 1896–1990,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers
45 (1991): xiii–xv; Suzy Dufrenne, “Andre Grabar,” Cahiers de Civilisation Medievale

Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services

Authenticated
Download Date | 6/20/15 8:59 PM
2323 Grabmann, Martin

35 (1992): 101–07; Helene Toubert, “Andre Grabar,” Revue de l’art 97 (1992): 96–97;
Gilbert Dagron, “André Grabar 26 juillet 1896–3 octobre 1990,” Nécrologie,
Annuaire du Collège de France (Paris 1990–1991): 91–94; Maria Giovanna Muzj, Un maître
pour l’art chrétien-André Grabar: Iconographie de la théophanie (Paris: Editions du Cerf His-
toire, 2005).

Linda Marie Rouillard

Grabmann, Martin (January 5, 1875, Winterzhofen –

January 9, 1949, Munich), German Medievalist.

G., scholar of medieval theology, philosophy, science, and spirituality, be-

longs to the generation that departed from (neo)thomistic Catholic scholar-
ship with its rather narrow outlook and opened his view to medieval intellec-
tual history in its widest spectrum: philosophy and mysticism, local schools of
thought not only in the Parisian center but also in Italy, England, Germany,
and the Low Countries, women’s religious literature, the manifold teachings
and reasoning of late scholastics, and the diversity of methods and opinions
within the different faculties of medieval university. Such a variety of fields
could be fully exposed and discussed only by drawing on the rich collections
of medieval manuscripts located in universities, libraries, and monasteries
throughout Europe. Moreover such research required an innovative set of
methodological considerations concerning the evaluation and classification
of newly discovered materials. G. was aware of these important methodo-
logical aspects and has provided us with a most impressive effort to cope with
this philological challenge. Although G. himself did not prepare any signifi-
cant critical edition of medieval works, he was probably the most diligent of
all modern scholars in his efforts to discover and chart the map of medieval
philosophical and theological writings. G.’s unique achievement in his own
time, and the main reason why he has remained an essential source of in-
formation until the present day, lies in the rich database he created, based on
materials taken from almost all the significant libraries in Europe.
G. was born to a rural Catholic south German family in Winterzhofen
(Bavaria). He received his early education in Eichstätt, first in a humanistic
high school (Gymnasium), where he acquired a solid knowledge of classic
languages, and later (1893–1898) in a theological seminar (Philosophisch-
Theologische Hochschule), where he was first introduced to the teaching of

Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services

Authenticated
Download Date | 6/20/15 8:59 PM