by Julie Schauer | Feb 25, 2014 | Byzantine Art, Cathedral of Hildesheim, Christianity and the Church, Exhibition Reviews, Metalwork, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mosaics, National Gallery of Art Washington, The Middle Ages
Archangel Michael, First half 14th century tempera on wood, gold leaf
overall: 110 x 80 cm (43 5/16 x 31 1/2 in.) Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens
Gold radiates throughout dimly-lit rooms of the National Gallery of Art’s exhibition, Heaven and Earth: Byzantine Art from Greek Collections. Some 170 important works on loan from museums in Greece trace the development of Byzantine visual culture from the fourth to the 15th century. Organized by the Benaki Museum in Athens, it will be on view until March 2 and then at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles beginning April 19. The National Gallery has a done a great job organizing the show, getting across themes of both spiritual and secular life spanning more than 1000 years. The exhibition design is masterful and includes a film about four key Greek churches. The photography is exquisite and provides the full context for the Byzantine church art.
There are dining tables, coins, ivories, jewelry and other objects, but it’s the mosaics which I find most captivating, and this exhibition allows a close-up view. Their nuances of size and shape can be closely observed here, but not in slides or in the distance. Byzantine artists gradually replaced stone mosaics with glass tesserae, painting gold leaf behind the glass to portray backgrounds for the figures. It was the Byzantines created these wondrous images by transforming the Greco-Roman tradition of floor mosaics to that of wall mosaics.
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| Van Eyck, St John the Baptist, det-Ghent Altarpiece |
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New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art recently hosted another exhibition of the Middle Ages, “Treasures from Hildesheim,” works from the 10th through 13th centuries from Hildesheim Cathedral in Germany. Even though Greek Christians of Byzantine world officially split from Rome in the 11th century, the two exhibitions show that the art of east and west continued to share much in terms of iconography and style. Jan Van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece, from the 15th century, contains a Deesis composed of Mary, Jesus and John the Baptist, in its center, proving how persistent Byzantine iconography was in the West. That altarpiece shows the early Renaissance continuation of imagining heaven as glistening gold and jewels.
Church architecture evolved very differently however, with the Latin church preferring elongated churches with the floor plan of Roman basilicas. The ritual requirements of the Orthodox Church resulted in a more compact form using domes, squinches and half-domes. Fortunately, the National Gallery’s exhibition has a lot of information about Orthodox churches, their layout and how the Iconostasis (a screen for icons) divided the priests from the congregation.
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| Reliquary of St. Oswald, c. 1100, is silver gilt |
Both cultures re-used works from antiquity. In the East, the statue heads of pagan goddesses could become Christian saints with a addition of a cross on their foreheads. In the west, ancient portrait busts inspired gorgeous metalwork used for the relics of saints, such as the reliquary of St. Oswald, which actually contained a portion of this 7th century English saint’s skull. Mastering anatomy, perspective and foreshortening was not as important an aim as it was to evoke the glory and golden beauty of heaven as it was imagined to be. The goldsmiths and metalsmiths were considered the best artists of all during this period in the west.
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Mosaic with a font, mid-5th century Museum of
Byzantine culture, Thessaloniki
Photo source: NGA website |
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Perhaps the parallels exist because many artists from the Greek world went to the west during the Iconoclast controversy, spanning most years from 726 to 843. Mosaic artists from the Byzantine Empire peddled their talents in the west, particularly in Carolingian courts of Charlemagne and his sons. From that time forward certain standards of Byzantine representation, such as the long, dark, bearded Jesus on the cross. While we seem to see these images as either icons or mosaics in Greek art, they become symbols in the west, often translated into sculptures of wood, stone or even stained glass.
An interesting parallel of the two exhibitions is the early Byzantine fountain, a wall mosaic of gold, glass and stone in the NGA’s exhibition, which compares well to the 13th century Baptismal font from Hildesheim, showing the Baptism of Christ. The font mosaic is from the Church of the Acheiropoietos in Thessaloniki. It is thought to emulate the fountains and gardens of Paradise. One can visualize of the context in which the fragmentary mosaic was made by watching the film in the exhibition, which shows another wondrous 5th century church in Thessaloniki, the Rotonda Church.
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A Baptismal Font, 1226, is superb example of Medieval
metalwork from Hildesheim Cathedral. |
The exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum had a life-size
wooden statue of the dead Jesus, dated to the 11th century, originally on a wood cross, now gone. Wood carvers out of Germany were masters of emotional expression. In the iconic
Crucifixion image in the Greek exhibition, a very sad Mary and Apostle John are grieving at the side of Jesus. It’s poignant and emotional, with knit eyebrows, tilted heads and a profoundly felt grief.
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| Golden Madonna is wood covered in gold, made for St. Michael’s Cathedral before 1002 |
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The iconographic image of the Theotokos, a Greek type is normally a rigid, enthroned Mary who solidly holds her son, a little emperor. The format expresses that she is the throne, a seat for God in the form of Baby Jesus. From Hildesheim, there is a carved statue which dates to c. 970, carved of wood and covered with a sheet of real good. Both heads are now missing. At one time the statue was covered with jewels, offerings people had given to the statue. In the west, this type became common, called the sedes sapientaie, but the origin is probably Byzantium.
Although heaven is more important than earth, and God and saints in heaven are more powerful than humans, sometimes medieval artists have been capable of revealing the greatest truths about what it’s like to be a human being. In the icons, there is great poignancy and beauty in the eyes. At times the portrayal of grief is overwhelming, as we see on an icon of the Hodegetria image where Mary points the way, the baby Jesus but knows He will die. On the reverse is an excruciatingly painful Man of Sorrows.
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| Icon of the Virgin Hodegetria, last quarter 12th century, tempera and silver on wood, Kastoria, Byzantine Museum. On the Reverse is a Man of Sorrows |
The Metropolitan exhibition of course could not bring the two most important works from Hildesheim, the bronze relief sculptures: a triumphal column with the Passion of Christ and a set of bronze doors for the Cathedral. Completed before 1016, I often think of the figures on the relief panels on those doors as one of the most honest works of art ever created. As God convicts Adam of eating the forbidden fruit, Adam crosses his arm to point to Eve who twists her arms pointing downward to a snake on the ground. We may laugh because God’s arm seems to be caught in his sleeve as he points to Adam. Though this medieval artist/metalsmith (Bishop Bernward?) may not have understood anatomy and perspective, he understood how easy it is for humans to pass the blame and not take responsibility for their actions.
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| The Expulsion, before 1016, detail of bronze door, St. Michael’s, Hildesheim |
Medieval artists in both the Greek and Latin churches are normally not known by name. After all, their work was for God, not for themselves, for money or for fame.
Copyright Julie Schauer 2010-2016
by admin | Jul 29, 2013 | Architecture, Byzantine Art, Church of Zoohodos Pigi, Crete, Medieval Art, The Greek World
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| The Church of St. Nicholas in Kourtaliotis Gorge, Crete |
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| Piles of stones beside St. Nicholas Church |
I cherish my trips with Backroads Travel Co. To me the backroads of Crete are full of surprises, in addition to olive orchards, oleanders and orange groves. On our 3rd day we road from the north to south part of the island. On the way to the beach at Plakias, we bicycled through the Kourtaliotis Gorge. The scenery was breathtaking. A tiny church, St. Nicholas was nestled behind the oleander and the rocks. It seemed to be a place where only a handful of monks prayed a long time ago. Behind it were small piled-up shrines of stone, which resemble votive offerings beside the church.
Crete’s small country churches surprised me, but even smaller churches, or replicas of churches dot the sides of the country roads. These small shrines are all over the place.
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| A typical memorial erected among the orange groves of Crete |
They’re memorials to loved ones who’ve died and we saw them frequently. One of the hotshot men on our trip, Dennis, reprimanded me for taking photos of graves in churchyards. He told me, “It is bad luck.” (His mother’s family is from Crete.)
The day after we went to the Kourtaliotas Gorge, I experienced bigger surprises — a pair of surprises. Cindy (she lives in Shanghai and was also on the lookout for great photos) & I came upon an abandoned church, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. We both took pictures. Cindy biked on, but I decided to check out the inside.
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| A 14th century church between the villages of Koufos and Alikianos |
Through the opening of a locked door, I could see that in the center of the church was a fresco of Mary surrounded by two saints. It was too narrow to photograph, but the image was clear but had two big vertical cracks. There were more frescoes to the sides and above, but I really couldn’t see them.
On the outside of the church, a fresco of Mary adorns the pointed arch over a side door. It was badly damaged, but I took a picture (below). It also had painted trim directly under the arch in a beautiful red and blue pattern, and a Greek cross below that.
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A badly damaged fresco of Mary over the door dates
to the 14th century |
Paintings on the outside of a buildings can’t withstand time and weather.
The sign on the road pointed to Church of the Zoohodos Pigi (in Greek and in English, but what could that possibly mean?) (Later when I was home and looked it up on the Internet, I found a few churches of the same name in Greece.)
This church lies between Alikianos and Koufos. It was built in the early 14th century following an earthquake of 1303, but over the foundations of a 10th century church. (Earthquakes have always been a problem on this island, and in much of the Mediterranean.)
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| Zoohodos Pigi means “life giving source.” |
El Greco, Greece’s greatest artist in modern times, was from this part of Crete. No one knows exactly where El Greco was born, but his family was from Chania and this church is about 10-20 miles away.
We had already passed a town called Alikianos where there was large new blue and terra cotta colored Greek Orthodox church. It’s easy to understand why a church in the middle of nowhere was abandoned.
I hope that the Church of Zoohodos Pigi will be restored. Apparently it was quite an important church at one time. Zoohodos Pigi means “life-giving source.”
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| There’s a new Greek Orthodox church in the village of Alikianos |
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Just a few miles down the road, I had caught up with Cindy. We had to go up hills too steep for my endurance, and then we turned a corner and stopped. Here came the the biggest surprise of all:
It was lunch time and someone had just dumped a big truck of excess oranges in a goat pen and the goats were chomping away, peels and all. They were chomping like crazy, as if in a contests to finish first. We took many pictures.
How funny to realize that these delicious goat cheeses we’ve been eating in Crete come from animals who feed on oranges, the delicious oranges of Crete!
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| The Goats’ lunch — so good! |
I discovered both Greek cheeses and orange cake, also called orange pie, on this trip. My grocery store oranges aren’t quite like the oranges I had been eating, and I haven’t found Graviera cheese in any of my local markets. There’s nothing like feeling close to history, the land, the animals and the sea than in a Backroads biking trip.
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