Download PDF | From Byzantium to El Greco Greek Frescoes and Icons, Greek Ministry Culture; Byzantine Museum of Athens 1987.
207 Pages
The wall paintings and icons here assembled have come from Greece, at the far end of Europe, to England, the country that supplied the B yzantine E m p ire with its finest m ercenaries: th e ‘Inglinoi’. Th e period when the Byzantine Em pire was at its height (twelfth to fifteenth centuries) and B yzantium the w o rld ’s leading p ow er, is re p resen ted only by a few wall p a in tings, anti by lesser k now n icons o f this period. This is the first tim e, h o w ever, that so many G reek icons from the following period (fifteenth to sixteenth centuries) have been brought together in London. During these centuries, the territory of modern Greece was occupied by two foreign powers, the Venetians and the O ttoman Turks.
The two conquerors, with their very different history and cultural origins, inevitably exercised an influence on their subjects, each at its own level. The few fragments of detached wall paintings presented here are only a tiny fraction of those that have been rescued from ruined churches in Greece; naturally, these are not an adequate basis on which to form an idea of the layout of (he painted decoration of a Byzantine church, which was one of the achievements of the Byzantine world. They are, however, representative of Byzantine painting, (or two reasons: the technique in which they were executed, inherited from the ( lieco-Roman tradition, enabled these wall paintings to retain their original, bright colours for centuries, despite the damage inflicted on them by the weather mil atm ospheric conditions.
And secondly, because their style is not that ol a local school, but em braces a variety of tendencies which can be found throughout the length and breadth of the empire, from Constantinople to the bounds ol Asia Minor and from Crete to Italy. W hen we reflect that there are roughly two 11 ii>iis;mill Byzantine churches in G re e c e , containing an endless variety and ill vi rsily o f d e co ration , we are b e tte r able to appreciate the significance of what is In i Inips a uniq ue p h e n o m e n o n : h ow ever different all these w orks ol art may lu in ti frns of technique and quality, they nonetheless have som ething in co m m on that I ii lifles the description of th e m as ‘B yzan tine’ and clearly ilisl ingur.hi's I he in lioin tin· non B yian lin e. From an o th e r point of view, these wall paintings lonsliluU valuable evidence lor the average level of art in a B yzantine μ ιο ν ιικ τ mil it I in·, lo be eoiicedeil that this was quite high, considering that they did not ■ unit in-ui iiiti|oi iii ban centres.
The icon as a form of art was created and flourished in Byzantium, in direct relation with both public and private worship. Nevertheless, it was so closely bound up with public life that it acted as a catalyst in times of great political crisis, such as that of the Iconoclasm, which lasted for approximately a century and a half (720-863) with only a short break. The significance of a Byzantine icon for worship lay in the likeness it bore to a specific prototype. The saint depicted in an icon had to be immediately recognizable, without it being necessary to read the inscription. This likeness was an essential condition of the worship of icons since without it the divine grace inherent in the prototype would not be transm itted to the icons. This goes some way to explain the constant repetition of certain types, not only of portraits, but also of narrative scenes. In the case of the latter it g u a ra n te e d the historical accuracy and authenticity of the event n a rra te d .
T h e re is no d o u b t th at this principle affected the iconographic dev elop m en t of the art in a variety of ways. By contrast, the stylistic development was not so strictly confined, though it too retained its traditional character. The different forms, shapes and sizes taken by icons were in large measure d e term in e d by the dev elo pm en t of the sanctuary screen, which evolved from a simple partition to a tall iconostasis. The gradual evolution of the iconostasis and the practice of adorning it with icons may account, more than any other factor, for the vast production of icons in the Byzantine Empire. Each group of icons on the iconostasis had a fixed subject and a fixed size, and each individual icon had a fixed position within the group.
The sum total of them constitutes a concise, hierarchically organized statem ent of the Orthodox doctrine: worship of icons, ritual, salvation of the soul, incarnation. The larger icons of Christ, the Virgin, St. John the Baptist and the saints usually belong to the bottom row close to the worshipper, where they were conveniently placed for purposes of p ro sk y n e sis (veneration); icons depicting scenes from the life of Christ related to the twelve major feasts of the year come from the row of the Dodekaorton (ritual); icons with busts of Christ, the Virgin, St. John the Baptist, angels and apostles belong to the top row of the G reat Deesis (salvation); finally, the iconostasis is crow ned by a large Crucifix, and entry to the Sanctuary is th ro u g h a richly carved pair of doors (the Bema doors) decorated with a representation symbolizing the Incarnation (usually the Annunciation).
These icons and their arrangement had their influence on Italian art, on the form taken by the pala on the altar, and on E uropean art in general prior to the Renaissance, where it can be seen in the growth of panel painting on wood. Similarly, a num ber of particular icons, notably Ihose of the Virgin and Child in various postures and the A kra Tapeinosis, or Man of Sorrows, served as models for W estern works, produced in the main for the private worship of Catholics. I'he art of wall painting and of the icon did not come to an end with the final dissolution of the Byzantine Em pire in 1453. Crete and many of the A egean islands had already been occupied in 1204 by the Crusaders, by w hom they were mled for many centuries, but this did not prevent the Greek Orthodox inhabitants I m m continuing to p ro du ce w ork s of art for their religious needs. Allci the fall of C onstantinople, a new m ajor centre of art arose in C rete, whi ir I he cities p ro spered u n d e r th e V en etian ad m inistration. T h e n u m b e r of piuiilus was swollen by artists seeking refuge from the central areas of the empire c o n q u e re d by the T urks.
The impressive n u m b er of pain ters at w ork in C rete in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was evidently a response to the increased demand for their products, not only from their Orthodox customers but also from the conservative Catholics. The same forces induced the Cretan painters to move to other parts of Greece, some of them permanently; Theophanes Strelitzas Bathas, for example, settled in M ount A thos where, with the assistance of his sons, he created some superb ensembles of wall paintings, and entire sets of icons. Research in the archives of Venice in recent years has illuminated many aspects of the painting and wood-carving of this period; most im portantly of all, it has enabled us to identify with some accuracy the major artists of the fifteenth century and their work; many of these painters had either been previously unknown, or had been erroneously dated. The resulting framework has in turn made it possible to assign to this period a large num ber of both know n and, until recently, unknown icons. This exhibition has the privilege of presenting a large number of these icons, which have not yet found their way into the handbooks.
The flowering of icon painting in fifteenth-century Crete offers an explanation of the influence and achievements of this art in the sixteenth century, which were already known. If called upon to summarize the character and quality of Cretan art, one might say that it kept alive the Byzantine tradition, with great success, and was able to renew it by recourse to Italian elem ents, though it is astonishing how few of these there are at such a late period, and after so many centuries of coexistence. This was the artistic background from which Theotokopoulos (El Greco) em erged. Like other fine Cretan artists of his day, he learned in Iraklion to paint in both the G reek and the Italian m anner; it is clear from the D orm ition of the Virgin from Syros that even before he left Crete (1567) he was able to handle both styles with impressive ease. He never explained why he ultimately chose the road to the West. His painting in Italy and Spain, however, which reveals a com plete break with the art of his fellow Cretans, perhaps supplies the answer.
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