University of Heidelberg

July 1^st 2011, 09.00am to 06.00pm

“Workshop on essentially auspicious and protective winged spirits that populate artefacts and architecture on their travels between east and west.”  

Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context”
Karl Jaspers Centre
Voßstr. 2, Building 4400
Room 212 (Second Floor)
69115 Heidelberg

Flyer Pdf  /  Poster Pdf     

Heavenly spirits, e.g. Genii, angels, djinn, peris, apsaras, vidyādharis, kinnaris or shen, in art and architecture have a history thousands of years old. Yet, throughout all cultures and religions, their iconography and specific function was modified from time to time in the course of conquest, trade and due to artistic fashions. There are many examples for the flow of specific forms of winged figures that demonstrate their historical entanglement caused by the appropriation, reworking and assimilation of the motif within specific taste and symbolic function.
The conference focuses on essentially auspicious and protective winged spirits that populate artefacts and architectural details travelling between the West and the East in a significant transcultural move. The conference seeks to assemble scholars from different fields of study in order to trace the history of the motif of winged spirits in its particular context and to examine the dynamic process of its transcultural flows. The seminar aims to initiate a broad discussion about the origins, appearance, functions, braided histories as well as the appropriate terminologies of winged spirits. The aim is to reveal stylistic similarities (and differences) in order to broaden the knowledge of a chronological “line of ancestors” of the winged celestial beings on a global scale.

Ebba Koch, an art and architectural historian and professor at the Institute of Art History in Vienna, Austria has spent much of her professional life studying the architecture, art, and culture of the Mughal Empire. She will open the symposium giving "Solomonic Angels in Mughal Sky"a lecture on winged spirits in Mogul skies on 30 June 2011, 18.00 – 20.00, at Karl Jaspers Centre.