The Old Testament Prophecy of the Resurrection of the Dry Bones between the West and Byzantium

Résumé En

The imagery of the vision of the valley of dry bones (Ezek 37. 1–14) still fascinates theologians and historians of religion with its exegetical and liturgical significance. Rarely represented in medieval art, the iconography of this singular topic related to the Last Judgment deserves closer attention on the part of art historians. The aim of the present contribution is to remedy this situation by offering an analysis of the main pictorial representations of Ezekiel’s prophecy within the medieval East and West. This paper examines the evolution of the theme from the first pictorial evidence from Mesopotamia through the Roman late antique funerary sculpture into the Catalan and Germanic illuminated manuscript production from 11th and 12th centuries. Then, the field of the investigation broadens by taking into consideration the Byzantine artistic patterns of Ezekiel’s vision of the resurrection of the dead. Finally, this paper accents the multilayered contribution of the mural paintings from the Balkan cultural field. In order to reconsider this subject through the prism of the artistic interactions between East and West, the continuity of an ancient pictorial tradition that seems to have been previously neglected is highlighted.