Lecture 18- THE SPREAD OF RELIGIONS -- Art of Byzantine Empire (540-843 CE), Part 2

Byzantine Empire General Facts 540-843 CE

• Using art to transcend the natural world, not depict the natural world

• tried to capture the intangible world of the spirit

• focused on light and color

  • didn’t focus on the illusionistic techniques like dark and shadow

• reduces the natural world to only a few necessary descriptive forms

• taking us out of physical space and into the mystical space of Christian tradition

• naturalism and illusionism = less important in Christian time than they were in roman empire

• timelessness and eternal symbols

Hagia Sophia Cathedral, “Holy Wisdom” of God, Constantinople begun 532 CE

• justinian’s “greatest architectural achievement”

• hagia sophia = holy wisdom

  • cathedral dedicated to the holy wisdom of God

• Cathedral is a name entitled to a church given by a bishop

• Home base of the highest ranking bishop in the church in eastern christian world

• Built very quickly

• Isidore of Miletus and Anthemios

  • 2 mathematicians designing this building

• Pendentive

• Half dome, pendentives surrounding the circular dome, half dome

• integrated the spiritual and ceremonial needs of the orthodox church with the mixing of these 2 plans

  • Longitudinal plan church

    • saw in the basilicas

    • thrust of the building is in one direction towards the apse where the high altar is

• Central plan church

• the central dome = symbol of the dome in heaven could accommodate imperial processions

  • turned the church into an earthly heaven where the super celestial god dwells and walks around

  • Can walk around this space

  • Can commune w God 

  • heavens opening to the worshippers below in the nave of the church to give them access to the celestial space 

  • offers worshippers the promise that they can transcend  the threshold that’s represented by the dome to go to heaven to commune with Go

• Collapsed in 558 and reconstructed

• Highly ornamented surfaces to create a “house for God”

  • Light gray marble floor with wave like pattern

    • grey stone was cut in a way called book matched

  • Space was divided by 4 bands of green stone set into stone

  • lower walls covered in revetment

  • Gold and silver in the tesserae

    • the hagia sophia tesserae was made by sandwiching gold or silver foil less than one micron thick between 2 pieces of glass

  • No figurative mosaics in Justinian’s church but repeated patterns of crosses to evoke the presence of God

  • Simple but unified looking interior

    • gray marble floor, lower wall revetments, and the gold mosaics w subtle patterns

    • creates an unbroken golden space

  • 40 windows surrounding the base of the dome bc of the light that would stream from all the domes

    • Gives the dome a levitating effect

• light and visual effects were important bc they felt those were needed to create a holy space

• wanted to give a sense of otherworldliness thru the play of light and use of gold within the space

• wanted to dematerialize the space to capture the sensory effects on the visitor

• hagia sophia was not static

  • sense of dynanism generated by the interaction btwn the physical environment and things such as sight, sound, smell, the architectural space, and the viewer

  • dynamically and continually created by the changing effects of those diff interactions at diff times

• designed to showcase the ceremonies that took place inside it

  • west side of church: large atrium and 2 large vestibules called narthexes

    • narthex (outer and inner): 2 sort of porches u had to walk thru to get to the entrances of the building

    • Imperial door: “central porch”— how emperor justinian and his royal entourage would enter

  • longitudinal aspect of the church (from the imperial door to the sanctuary)

    • facilitated these dramatic imperial entrances and the ensuing procession across this massive unfettered space where everyone gathered for the liturgy could admire the emperor and his entourage as they walked from the imperial door that only they were allowed to use to the most holy part of the church

      • done by justinian to set himself above both the ppl and the church

• longitudinal pole and pole of the central dome creates a sort of dynamic tension that emphasizes that transcendent feeling of communing with God during the liturgy

Pendentive

• an architectural element in the shape of a triangular segment of a sphere, used to make the transition from a square room to a circular base for a dome

Revetment

• in architecture, a decorative facing of stone, stucco, or other material covering a surface constructed of a less attractive material, such as brick or concrete

Iconoclasm

intentional religiously-motivated destruction of sacred images like icons

Icons

small portraits of Christ or the saints that were designed to serve as conduits to communing with the gods/saints and proxies for the divine presence

First Iconoclasm

• 726-787

• initiated by Byzantine emperor Leo III 

  • believe that the worship of icons violated the biblical commandment against making and worshipping graven images — led to formal ban on the creation and use of icons in the byzantine church

• iconoclasts arguing that icons would lead to idol worship

  • Worship would lead to worshipping the image itself instead of the thing represented by the image

Second Iconoclasm

• 814-842

• initiated by Leo the 5th

• Driven by repetitive successive military setbacks→ God was dissatisfied with them

• iconophiles

Monastery of St. Catherine’s Sinai, Egypt

• Oldest inhabited, functioning monastery

• holds many preserved icons

• built between 548 and 565

Icon of the Virgin and Child with Saints and Angels, 6th century, 6th century, Monastery of St. Catherine’s, Sinai, Egypt

• Encaustic

• Mary is holding baby jesus (center), to her right is saint theodore, and to her left is saint george and surrounded by angels looking up to the heavens

• See the theme of the hand of god iconography

  • edge of a halo and a hand reaching down in this ray of light

• hieratic style

• we see a bit of naturalism in the faces and the body language of the angels, who def seem to be expressing emotion here as they react to the hand of god reaching down from the heavens— classicizing style that was mildly present

  • classicizing and hieratic style existing side by side

• one of the oldest icons in the collection found at the monastery of st. catherine’s in Sinai, Egypt

Encaustic

• pigment is mixed with hot wax to make this type of paint

Book Matched technique

plaques were cut across the veins and then arranged next to each other to create a symmetrical pattern that joined in a way that was reminiscent of water and of waves

tesserae

individual little tiles used to build mosaics

sanctuary

holiest part of the church and where the main altar would be located

Triumph of Orthodoxy

• 843

• occurs after first and second iconoclasm

• icons were formally reintroduced into orthodox practice

hieratic

style that’s characterized by formal, rigid, and highly stylized qualities, giving precedence to symbolic or spiritual significance over naturalism, illusionism, or emotional expression

Facts on the Vessels

• gifts from elite helped the churches and shaped the liturgical space

• christians sought to use luxurious objects whose material value and craftsmanship = suitable vessel for holding the bread and the wine

The Sion Treasure

• hoard of over 70 objects that were buried in the 6th century in southern Turkey

• contains liturgical objects 

  • patens

  • censer

  • chalice

  • book covers

Paten- Sion Treasure

plate to hold the bread that would become the body of christ during the eucharistic ceremony

Chalice- Sion Treasure

liturgical vessel that was used to hold the wine that was turned into body or the blood of christ during the eucharist

censer- sion treasure

• originally would’ve had long chains attached to the top and been swung

• would’ve contained smoldering incense and swung back and forth

• the censer who was censing would walk around the church to spread the sweet smell of the incense around the church using a censer

• embellished with repousse images of christ, st. peter, and st. paul

• have little feet resembling peacocks

Cludov Psalter- Byzantine Manuscript

• earliest surviving byzantine illustrated psalter

• opens with an image of King David composing the Psalms

• follows the “triumph of orthodoxy” that happened in 843 when icons were officially welcomed back into orthodox practice

• made of 169 folios

• 225 marginal illustrations

  • in this particular psalter, the marginal illustrations were based on orthodox theologies and may even based on previous psalters

  • images are completely within the existing tradition, not considered unorthodox

cludov

• name of someone who owned it at some point before it ended up in a museum

psalter

• manuscript that contains the book of psalms

• usually the first image is an image of King David (miniature)

  • in byzantine psalters, the image/images of king david were usually scenes from his life

  • for psalters in the west, it was usually an image of king david singing

psalms

• very important bc they were the basics of daily christian worship in both western and eastern christian traditions

• would be sung

• canonical hours- monks would get up in the middle of night to sing the psalms

miniature

painted image in a manuscript

not always small

illuminated manuscript

describes any manuscript that has images in it

folio

describes the leaves of a manuscript book

• manuscripts are numbered by folios rather than pages

• each leaf is identified by a number

• front and back of the leaf are distinguished by the terms recto and verso

• ex: first page = folio one

• ex: first page back side  = folio one verso

• ex: second page front side = folio two recto

marginal illustrations

images placed in the margins around the text

these are actual illustrations bc they do actually illustrate the content of the psalms

Image of the Crucifixion and iconoclasts whitewashing an icon of Christ, Khludov Psalter, Constantinople, soon after 843 CE (MS Khlud. D 129, State Historical Museum, Moscow), fol. 67r

• “un-neutral” image in the cludov psalter

• expresses the struggle back and forth over the validity of icons that had been part of the byzantine church for 100 years +

• from the 67 folio recto

• bottom left of the page

  • person in the front w crazy hair = reps the man who was the leading iconoclast during the 2nd iconoclasm named John the Grammarian

    • last iconoclastic patriarch of constantinople

  • person behind john is someone dressed as a bishop

  • above john is a label that says iconoclasts, indicating john and man dressed up as bishop as iconoclasts

• right margin

  • crucifixion— shows the moment when the roman soldiers are offering christ to drink from the sponge that was saturated with wine

  • metaphorical text on the page compares mixing water and lime over Jesus’s face AKA whitewashing this icon of Christ with the crucifixion

    • draws a parallel btwn the crucifixion and iconoclasm

    • trying to say that iconoclasm was as evil as the crucifixion itself

    • also indicates that the manuscript was probs owned by an iconophile

iconophile

someone who was in support of having icons and using them within the liturgy and having them in as part of Byzantine practice

Byzantine Art after Iconoclasm

iconoclasm’s effect on byzantine art after the triumph of orthodoxy in 843:

• restoration of icon veneration 

  • strongly affirmed the use of images in devotion w/o equating them w idol worship

• theological emphasis on the incarnation in art

  • theological justification for icons emphasized

  • focus on christ’s humanity

• codification and standardization of artistic programs and iconography

  • ensures theological orthodoxy

  • created a coherent visual language that was seen in all types of byzantine art

• icreases in production of icons and figurative mosaics

• increased emphasison the role of art and architecture as a medium thru which to encounter the sacred

  • goal of continuing making art a window into the divine, a conduit to the divine presence rather than just telling a story— reinforced byzantine spirituality and the role of art as the medium thru which ppl could encounter the sacred