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January 8, 2002
Henry Maguire The Icons of Their Bodies: Saints and Their Images in Byzantium Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. 222 pp.; 167 b/w ills. Paper $27.95 (0691050074)
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In this useful study, first published in 1996, Henry Maguire examines those seemingly endless rows of standing saints who feature so often in Byzantine churches, but so rarely in books on Byzantine art. The book is primarily a stylistic one, using formal analysis of the images to help understand the perception of saints in Byzantium. Maguire argues that the ways in which saints were depicted were determined by the need to “define” them. An analysis...