Mnemonic Use and Social Agency: A Sinai Icon of the Last Judgement, lecture by Niamh Bhalla (The Courtauld Institute of Art), Research Seminar: Medieval Work in Progress, April 29, 2015 5:30 pm

The image of the Last Judgement was executed in Byzantium for the impact that it was thought to have in the lives of individuals and communities. The mnemonic use of the image of the Last Judgement formed a large part of the social agency of these images. The funerary and commemorative contexts of many Last Judgement images necessarily implicated them in memorial practices. The image was itself also specifically designed to prompt and facilitate memory. On a simplistic level, it occasioned the remembrance of sin, death and judgement on the part of its original viewers and prompted them to pray for the departed, as well as for their own souls. Its mnemonic use expanded greatly beyond this, however. In committing social structures to collective memory, through individual use, the image played a role in the construction and consolidation of communities. This paper discusses the mnemonic nature of an eleventh-century icon of the Last Judgement, which forms part of the Sinai hexaptych, as being unique to Sinai. It will be particularly considered in relation to the identity of the Georgian subgroup found there and explored as a locus of social dialogue, formation and negotiation.