The contribution focusses on how images from the 8th to the 5th century address the issue of looking and watching. The phenomenon of the specific representation of the viewer (and viewers) in the image is related to the following aspects: (1) the modes of impression of figurative elements and the setting of an observer’s perspective; (2) the manner of painting and the related possibilities of the representation of the eye; (3) the composition and syntax of the image.

The invention of depicting figures participating in an event — nameless bystanders, beholders, and onlookers — marks an important change in the ways artists addressed the beholder of the artworks themselves. This shift speaks to a significant transformation of the relationship between images and their audience. The public in the picture acts as mediator between times, persons, and contents. The contributions of this volume describe this moment from a diachronic and transcultural perspective, while each of them focuses on a specific group of works revealing a new moment in this history. They explore the cultural contexts of the political and religious public, and relate the rise of the public in the picture to the rise of perspectival representation (Panofsky’s space-box and Kemp’s Chronotopos).