The PhD thesis deals with the representation of heavenly musicians in the naturalistic image of the Renaissance on the assumption that the relationship between image and music is more significant and more complex than has previously been assumed. The naturalistic representation was part of the
change in pictorial style that marked the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In this change, which occurred during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, altarpieces that encompassed the lifelike representation of heavenly musicians are examples of a new way of rendering the absent
present. The thesis analyses the representation of music-making angels in Italian Renaissance altarpieces from the point of the ancient term enargeia (tr. vividness). Vividness is a conspicuous and recurrent topos in the history of art, but what happened in the Renaissance when the idea of vividness
synthesised with a new naturalistic style? Not least, what was the effect of this synthesis when taking into consideration that the altarpiece is a devotional object? By taking an anthropological and phenomenological approach to the image, the thesis presents a new interpretation of the lifelike representation
of heavenly musicians. As part of the analysis, the thesis examines the prevalence of the concept of enargeia in the image theory, image practice and image effect of the Italian Renaissance.
By taking into consideration a diverse range of textual sources from both Antiquity and the Renaissance, it is shown how the experience of vividness gained new relevance during the Renaissance in combination with the naturalistic image. From these sources, the thesis attempts to clarify how the
naturalistic image was meant to be perceived, especially by calling attention to the instances where the illusion of the “sounding” image was described as the height of vividness. The thesis argues that the lifelike representation of heavenly musicians in Italian Renaissance altarpieces operated as the silent potentiality for a “sounding” experience of vividness. It shows how the “heavenly sounding”
image emerged as a fluidity of boundary between the constructed space of the painting and the real space of the beholder. From the point of “visual” music and the role of real music and its performers in conjuring up the experience of vividness, the thesis reveals a new side to the animated image. Intended for the sacred space of the church, the altarpiece is a devotional object, and it is from this context that the thesis sheds new light upon the devotional use of visually produced enargeia. From the intersection between the vivid representation of the celestial musicians, the music that filled the church space and the memory and imagination of the beholder, the thesis shows how the “heavenly sounding” image was a means of tuning the soul of the beholder towards spiritual contemplation