Download PDF | (East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450-1450, 88) Vladimir Ivanovici, Alice Isabella Sullivan - Natural Light in Medieval Churches-Brill (2022).
390 Pages
Notes on Contributors
Anna Adashinskaya Ph.D., is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, and a former fellow at New Europe College in the framework of the ERC project Art Historiographies in Central and Eastern Europe. An Inquiry from the Perspective of Entangled Histories. She received an M.A. in Medieval Studies from Central European University and a Specialist Degree in Art History from Moscow State University. She completed her doctorate in Medieval Studies at Central European University, specializing in Byzantine art and patronage. Jelena Bogdanović Ph.D., is Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University. She is the author and editor of six books, including The Framing of Sacred Space: The Canopy and the Byzantine Church (2017), Perceptions of the Body and Sacred Space in Late Antiquity and Byzantium (2018), and Icons of Space (2021). Debanjana Chatterjee M.Arch., is an architectural designer, urban planner, researcher, and educator. She currently works as a designer at Leo A Daly. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor in the Architecture and Planning department at Amity University, India, and a Research Assistant at Iowa State University. Ljiljana Čavić Ph.D., graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Belgrade (2007) and received her doctorate at the Lisbon School of Architecture (2018). Since 2014, she is an associated member of CIAUD (O Centro de investigação em Arquitetura, Urbanismo e Design) and DCG (Design and Computation Group) at the Lisbon School of Architecture, where she also teaches project design.
Aleksandar Čučaković Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Descriptive Geometry and Computer-Aided Geometry, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Belgrade. He is an expert in descriptive geometry, projective geometry, computer-aided geometry, engineering graphics, 3D visual communications, and geometry in general, with its applications in engineering and science. He is the author/co-author of several publications in high-ranked journals in WoS and conference proceedings (Cultural Heritage, 2016; Geometry-Anamorphosis, 2016; Architecture and Mathematics, 2015, 2016, 2019).
Dušan Danilović Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer and Research Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University, where he works in the departments of Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy, and Communication of Science and Technology. His professional expertise includes work on organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Since he was an undergraduate student in the Department of Astronomy, Belgrade University, he has studied and published on the preservation and dissemination of astronomical knowledge in the Byzantine Empire. Magdalena Dragović Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Descriptive Geometry and Computer-Aided Geometry, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Belgrade. She works on 3D modeling in architecture and cultural heritage preservation. She published more than 80 journal articles and conference proceedings. She is a member of international editorial boards and committees in geometry.
Natalia Figueiras Pimentel Ph.D. candidate, is an art historian (Santiago of Compostela University, USC), art curator and restorer (Polytechnic University of Valencia, UPV), superior technician in Plastic Arts & Design and professional photographer (EASD ‘Antonio Faílde’), and Professor of Art History and Photography (Popular University of Ourense, UPO). In 2007, she created and directed the only Technical Center for Conservation and Restoration of Heritage in Galicia (CTSM: ‘San Martín’ Technical Center). She is director of the Agora, Art & Heritage Laboratory, as well as a member of the Board of Trustees and Vice-President of the Scientific Committee of the San Pedro de Rocas Foundation. Leslie Forehand M.Arch., is Assistant Professor at Long Beach City College in Los Angeles. She is a licensed architect, researcher, educator, and designer with over ten years of experience collaborating with engineers, scientists, historians, artists, and fashion designers. She currently leads the Architecture program at Long Beach City College in California. Among her award-winning projects is Mashrabiya 2.0 (with Doyle, Hunt and Senske) in computation, masonry design and construction, awarded by the International Masonry Institute (2018). Jacob Gasper B.Arch., worked as an undergraduate research assistant at the Computation + Construction lab and the Study Studenica projects. He has additional experience in landscape design, digital fabrication, and set design. His work has been published in conference proceedings and exhibited internationally.
Vera Henkelmann Ph.D., studied art history, medieval and early modern history, as well as prehistory at the University of Bonn, and holds a doctorate in art history from the University of Dortmund. She was awarded the dissertation prize of the University of Dortmund for her thesis Spätgotische Marienleuchter: Formen, Funktionen, Bedeutungen (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2014). Gabriel-Dinu Herea Ph.D., studied Orthodox Theology and Philosophy and holds a doctorate in Art History (2013). He was the titular priest of the Church of the Holy Cross in Pătrăuți for over fifteen years, and has published several volumes on this and other medieval monuments in the area. His latest book, on the symbolism of sunlight at Pătrăuți, was published in several languages. He is currently the archbishopric’s supervisor for historical monuments in Suceava, Romania. Vladimir Ivanovici Ph.Ds. in History (2011) and Art History (2014), was postdoctoral fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institut für Kunstgeschichte Rom (2015– 2017) and summer fellow at Dumbarton Oaks (2019). He studies the use of light as a manifestation of the divine from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, with particular focus on its Inszenieung in cultic spaces and on the living body as medium of theophany. He is Lecturer at the Accademia di architettura di Mendrisio, Universita’ della Svizzera italiana and Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Vienna.
Charles Kerton Ph.D., is Associate Professor at Iowa State University. He worked on the International Galactic Plane Survey at the National Research Council of Canada before joining the Iowa State faculty. His research is in the area of observational studies of star formation and the physics of the interstellar medium, and the use of a wide variety of observational facilities ranging from the enormous 110-m diameter Green Bank radio telescope to the 0.8-m orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope in the infrared. Jorge López Quiroga Ph.D., is Professor-Researcher of Medieval Archaeology at the Autonomous University of Madrid since 2002. He holds a doctorate in Medieval History from Paris-Sorbonne University, Paris IV, and in Geography and History and European Doctor from Santiago of Compostela University. He is a former member of the ‘Casa de Velázquez’. He has been Visiting Professor at various European and American universities. He was director (2004 and 2008) of the‘Spanish Archaeological Mission’ in Conimbriga (Portugal). He is the author, editor and/or coordinator of 18 monographs and 150 articles, book chapters, and publications in various congresses. His research has focused, for more than thirty years, on Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages in the West.
Anastasija Martinenko Ph.D. candidate in Geodesy, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Belgrade, studies geoinformatics. Her research is in photogrammetry and terrestrial laser scanning, with visualization and modeling of cultural heritage. Her expertise is in processing, analyzing, 3D modeling, and distribution of point clouds obtained by applying photogrammetry and terrestrial laser scanning. She is the author of several publications in photogrammetry and Computer-aided Geometry. Andrea Mattiello Ph.D., completed a doctorate at the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham, and another in History and Theory of Performance Art at the School for Advanced Studies in Venice. He has recently co-edited the volume Late Byzantium Reconsidered (2019). He has conducted research at the International Centre for Architectural Studies “Andrea Palladio”, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, and with the Gerda Henkel Stiftung. He has lectured in the Department for Design and the Arts at the Università IUAV of Venice, at the University of Birmingham, and at Christie’s Education London. Rubén G. Mendoza Ph.D., is an archaeologist, writer, and photographer who has explored the length and breadth of Mexico, Central America, Europe, and the American Southwest documenting both pre-Columbian and Colonial era sites and collections. A founding faculty member of the California State University, Monterey Bay, he has directed major archaeological investigations and conservation projects at missions San Juan Bautista, San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, and Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, among others. He has published over 75 studies and scores of images spanning a range of topics, including pre-Columbian and Colonial era art and architecture, California missions’ art and architecture, American Indian science, technology, and medicine, and modern material cultures. Marko Pejić Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Geodetic Engineering at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Civil Engineering. He is an expert in surveying using terrestrial laser scanning technology, particularly in mathematical models of scanning, data registration, georeferencing, and 3D modeling. He is the author of numerous peer-reviewed papers, some of which in high-ranking status in WoS (Tunneling and Underground Space Technology, 2013; Measurement, 2014; Automation in Construction, 2016). He is also Associate Editor of the international Journal of Geodetic Science (since 2014). Iakovos Potamianos Ph.D., is Professor of the History of Architecture and Theory of Visual Reception at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He holds a B.A. in architecture from the School of Architecture of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, an M.A. in architecture from the California Polytechnic State University, and a Ph.D. in architectural theory from the University of Michigan. His publications include, among others, several studies of the use of light in Byzantine and post-Byzantine architecture. A student and a translator of Rudolf Arnheim into Greek, he focuses on his teaching and research on issues relating to the phenomenological perception of space, i.e. the philosophy and the poetics of space as perceived by the human eye.
Maria Shevelkina Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University, studies Byzantine and medieval Slavic art. She spent two summers in Ferapontov, Russia: first as an intern in the Rare Books and Manuscripts division of the Museum of Dionisy’s Frescoes, and then as a visiting community member of the neighboring village Diakonovskaya. Her work centers on vision and sound as essential mediators of culturally-based perception and she is interested in phenomenology, mysticism, monumental wall-paintings, color, light, and movement. Alice Isabella Sullivan Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Medieval Art and Architecture and Director of Graduate Studies at Tufts University, specializing in the artistic production of Eastern Europe and the Byzantine-Slavic cultural spheres. She is the author of award-winning articles in The Art Bulletin (2017) and Speculum (2019), and the co-author of a study in Gesta (2021), among other peer-reviewed publications. She is co-editor of Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages (Brill, 2020) and Eclecticism in Late Medieval Visual Culture at the Crossroads of the Latin, Greek, and Slavic Traditions (De Gruyter, 2022), as well as co-founder of North of Byzantium and Mapping Eastern Europe – two initiatives that explore the history, art, and culture of the northern frontiers of the Byzantine Empire in Eastern Europe during the medieval and early modern periods.
Travis Yeager Ph.D., works at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, where his main research focus is on detecting Earth-crossing asteroids. Olga Yunak Ph.D. candidate at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, studies the intersection of art and theology in late Byzantium and medieval Rus. She is interested in the artist-image-beholder relation in the liturgical context of the Byzantine church. Her case study is the Transfiguration Church on Il’ina Street in Novgorod. With her dissertation she attempts to place Theophanes the Greek as an artist and a theologian in the larger context of the Byzantine and European art.
Introduction
Vladimir Ivanovici and Alice Isabella Sullivan On 24 June, between 11:00 and 11:40 in the morning, and thus at the hour when the Eucharistic liturgy reached its most intense point, a sunray falls onto the scene of Christ’s Descent into Hell located in the naos of the Church of the Holy Cross at Pătrăuți Monastery, Romania.1 In succession, the fine ray of light frames Adam’s face (the detail on the cover of this book), the united hands of Adam and Christ, and, just before disappearing, the other hand of Christ, which holds a scroll as a promise of His Second Coming (figure 0.1). Such uses of sunlight – which require astronomical as well as building know-how, and imply a careful coordination between the patron and his advisors, as well as the architect and the painter(s) – are attested from as early as the ninth century. From that time, a written source informs us that in the church of Saint John the Baptist in Gravedona on the northern shore of Lake Como, Italy,2 a sunray fell on the figures of the Virgin Mary, the Christ Child, and on the gifts He received from the Magi, but not on the figures of the Magi themselves in a mural of the Adoration of the Magi.3 Thanks to research carried out primarily in the last decade, it is now commonly accepted that throughout the Middle Ages Christian churches were often designed to harness and deploy light to underscore a variety of theological, ideological, and symbolic statements.4
The solutions usually found inLatin and Byzantine churches have been analyzed in studies that approached the issue from various perspectives, discussing natural and artificial lighting, as well as its role in decorative and iconographic choices, theology, ritual, and aesthetics. The societies that developed at the crossroads of the Latin, Greek, and Slavic cultural spheres advanced their own formulas for how to use natural light in religious buildings. This is the main theme of the present volume, which explores the economy of natural light in medieval churches constructed across Europe, but the focus is on the thus-far understudied areas spanning from the Balkan Peninsula to the Baltic Sea. The individual contributions – most of which present results of ongoing research projects – attest to the varied uses of natural light and their implications in these societies. They also confirm the particular capacity of the study of light to reveal essential aspects regarding liturgical spaces and the experiences they enabled, in addition to the cultures or communities who designed them. With this project, we present different approaches to the study of natural light in religious spaces, extending the cultural span and methodological considerations of earlier studies. As such, we hope this book and its varied contributions will sit at the foundation of future studies that focus on natural light and other ephemeral facets of religious spaces. The last article in the volume – which deals with the use of sunlight effects in churches built in the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries – shows that wherever the Christian faith arrived, light and its uses must be addressed, lending us insight not only into the design and building processes, but also into how the faith spread. In addition to enabling the use of built interiors, light shaped the experience of the spaces in various ways. The identification and analysis of these ways require a careful study of each building, its setting, and historical context. What unites these spaces is the central role given to light in the Christian tradition, where it had been identified with God as early as the first century.5 Thus legitimized as a mechanism of revelation, light was used to substantiate the presence of the divine in ritual contexts.6 Inside medieval churches, complex formulas were used in the design of the space – specifically chosen decorative materials, the iconography of the depicted scenes, the location of liturgical furnishings and objects, and the use of incense and speech – to enhance and draw attention to the architecture and ritual experience. Present in all these aspects, light provides a fil rouge that brings together several elements of the liturgical experience offered in medieval churches, and, as a result, its study brings us closer to elucidating the underlying design of the spaces – an aspect for which few medieval sources exist. In addition, as a common element, light provides the opportunity to study multiple distinct contexts within the Christian oikoumene. Finally, since several of the ways in which light was staged depended on the know-how inherited from antiquity and later preserved in local hubs, the phenomenon’s study helps us understand cultural relations and map the patterns of knowledge transfer. The studies in this volume explore refined and calculated ways of using sunlight, thus illuminating the conceptual nature of liturgical spaces designed and constructed across Europe during the Middle Ages. Although typically inspired by Byzantine and Western uses of light, several of the studied instances from Eastern Europe showcase a surprising capacity for innovation within a local context. As such, the study of light furthers our understanding of the limits of cultural contact and adaptation, as well as those of the creative power of these communities that developed at the crossroads of competing traditions in a period that was to prove essential for their identities.
Due to its focus on sunlight – whose presence inside churches was shaped by the orientation of the building and by the location, size, and shape of its windows and doors – this volume leans toward those elements of the experience that were fixed and stable, namely the built space, the decorative surfaces, and the iconographic cycles. A future volume dealing primarily with the uses of artificial light (i.e., lamps and candles) in churches seeks to complete the picture by integrating the ephemeral, mobile elements of the experience, such as the location and movement of ritual participants, the incensing, singing, and reading. Discussing contexts ranging from the sixth to the seventeenth century, and spaces from Serbia to Spain and from Estonia to the United States, the papers in this volume adopt various approaches. Typically interdisciplinary, since the study of sunlight requires the consideration of several fields (scientific, anthropological, art historical, etc.), the studies were difficult to fit into one or another category. We decided to organize the chapters so as to offer readers a coherent introduction and treatment of the topic with available, current methodologies. Therefore, although the individual contributions can be read independently, the volume can be read as a monographic study, where the chapters not only complement each other, but flow coherently and build on one another within and across the two sections: “Light, Theology, and Aesthetics,” and “Lighting Sacred Space.” The opening chapter introduces a well-documented and fascinating example from the Balkans that attests to the potential these studies have for furthering our understanding of churches in this area. The text explores the connections between lighting systems, architecture, and rituals performed in the church of the Ascension at Dečani Monastery (1327–1334), arguing that some light effects were carefully planned even before the building process began, while others were studied and refined after the initial construction phases. The author, Anna Adashinskaya, also draws connections between the emphasis on the effects of natural light and Hesychast theology resulting from SerbianAthonite relations fostered during the fourteenth century. In Chapter 2, Olga Yunak takes us further north to the region of Veliky Novgorod. The author examines the role of darkness in the spatial organization of a small subsidiary chapel in the fourteenth-century church of the Transfiguration of the Savior on Il’ina Street. Decorated with images of ascetics in a light and almost monochromatic painting style, the dimly lit chapel and its visual accouterments stimulated certain spiritual experiences, which the author connected to monastic ascetic practices. Remaining in the northern cultural context, Chapter 3 focuses on the extant wall paintings of the Nativity of the Mother of God church in Ferapontov Monastery, executed by Dionisy (ca. 1450–ca. 1520) and his workshop in the summer of 1502.
Maria Shevelkina addresses the painting technique and light-infused color spectrum of the murals, showing that the luminescent visual scheme engages with Platonist, Pseudo-Dionysian, and Hesychast theories of light that further endows the sacred space of the church with a theophanic quality. Shifting the focus toward the Baltic, Chapter 4 introduces and documents the use of oculi in eight fifteenth-century Estonian churches. Vera Henkelmann points out the relationship between the oculi and wall niches used to store the consecrated host, examining the individual contexts as well as the liturgical implications of the practice. Chapter 5 examines the relationship between space, decoration, and lighting in the rock-cut Enkleistra of Neophytos church (1159–1160) on Cyprus. Selectively lit through several openings, as Maria Paschali and Dimitris Minasidis discuss, the fleeting Christological images in the mural decorations contributed to the effect of the space and the theophanic experiences of the patron and his congregation. With the final chapter in this section, we move away from the study of individual settings toward a more philosophical approach that seeks to understand the effects of such ephemeral artifices in religious settings. Drawing on his previous work on the topic for Chapter 6, Iakovos Potamianos analyzes the sophisticated design of Middle Byzantine churches that deployed natural light to generate a suitable atmosphere for religious worship. The author argues that the architecture was carefully planned relative to theological and philosophical ideas about light in order to create otherworldly experiences in which the natural phenomenon played a key role. The second section of the volume is dedicated to specific uses of sunlight and the various ways in which they can be analyzed. Chapter 7, co-authored by Natalia Figueiras Pimentel and Jorge López Quiroga, focuses on a rock-cut monastic complex in modern Spain. Established in the sixth century, the ecclesiastical complex at San Pedro de Rocas documents the multiple ways in which sunlight could be used to regulate the life of a monastic community and to direct its thoughts toward the divine. This study also reveals how strategies to manipulate light – which developed in the late antique period in the eastern Mediterranean – reached medieval Spain, where they were further enhanced. Still in the early Middle Ages, Chapter 8 centers on the use of natural light in the ninth-century church of Sant’Ambrogio alla Rienna in the countryside of Montecorvino Rovella (Salerno, Italy). Andrea Mattiello investigates the design and orientation of the edifice, as well as the liturgical implications of the light phenomena relative to the cult of Saint Ambrose and other Milanese saints. The carefully orchestrated light effects would have united aspects of the architecture and decoration for ritual performances, but, unfortunately, the decorations no longer survive. In contrast, the case study at the core of Chapter 9 – the church of the Holy Cross at Pătrăuți Monastery in the former principality of Moldavia, modern Romania – retains the original architectural features and mural decorations, which enable a more comprehensive study of the site relative to its shifting light effects. The co-authors of this study, Vladimir Ivanovici, Alice Isabella Sullivan, and Gabriel-Dinu Herea, analyze several primary and secondary light effects observed inside the church at Pătrăuți that reveal a novel local synthesis between Eastern and Western church construction and decorating traditions, in addition to the interactions that occurred between patron, advisor, architect, and artist. The example at Pătrăuți invites analysis of other Moldavian churches, using similar lines of inquiry to determine local design practices. It also offers a model for how other churches in the Byzantine-Slavic cultural sphere, or areas that developed at the crossroads of traditions, can be studied in light of their concrete and ephemeral facets. Chapter 10 takes us deeper into the analytical realm as it presents the ongoing work of a team of researchers who document the natural light effects in the main church at Studenica Monastery in Serbia.
The team has created a virtual model of the twelfth-century church in order to simulate and track the lighting of the interior throughout the year. Using astronomical data and detailed measurements and observations of the church, the model demonstrates that the medieval architects used knowledge of astronomy to emphasize the church’s interior lighting during specific liturgical celebrations. Moving from the analytical into the philosophical realm and considering the perceptual dimension of sacred spaces, Chapter 11 connects the analysis of the light effects inside the katholikon at Studenica Monastery to the topography and skyline of the area, as well as to the orientation and architectural features of the church. As Ljiljana Čavić explains, natural light articulates the interiors of Studenica in specific ways, which relate to phenomenological perceptions of space, place, and landscape. Finally, Chapter 12 takes the discussion into the present, demonstrating the relevance of natural sunlight in the design of mission churches in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. Rubén Mendoza draws on years of research and careful observation of light effects in Catholic churches around noontime, during the solstitial and equinoctial alignments, and during corollary solar geometry, revealing remarkable parallels with earlier observed phenomena and demonstrating the enduring theological and symbolic values of sunlight in Christian sacred spaces.
The studies presented in this volume summarize, integrate, and expand research on the conceptual and methodological uses of natural light. As such, we hope that the volume provides a useful starting point for those interested in the subject, as well as for those who study the experiential dimension of medieval liturgical spaces and the cultures of individual societies in the Middle Ages and after. Furthermore, the discovery of additional ways in which light effects have been staged, and the development of new instruments for their study, open the path for similar analyses of related monuments. This future research has the potential to enrich our understanding of medieval sacred spaces and their uses of sunlight, as well as confirm the need to recognise the immersive quality of rituals composed of fixed and ephemeral experiences.
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