“Sinai Byzantium Russia: Orthodox Art from the Sixth to the Twentieth Century” by Gosudarstvennyi Ermitazh.
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DESCRIPTION: MASSIVE pictorial hardcover with dustjacket. Publisher: Saint Catherine Foundation (2001). Pages: 488. Size: 12 x 10½ x 2 inches; 7 pounds. Summary: This text offers a comprehensive catalogue of Orthodox art: treasures and masterpieces rarely seen in the West. They are drawn from the Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai, the oldest monastery in the world; and the State Heritage Museum, St Petersburg, which has a collection of Byzantine, post-Byzantine, and Russian art. The materials included in this book range from: icons to paintings to jewelry; enamels; illuminated manuscripts; ivories; textiles; coins and precious metal works of all kinds.
CONDITION: NEW. MASSIVE virtually unread (faintly shelfworn) hardcover w/dustjacket. Saint Catherine Foundation (2001) 488 pages. Evidence indicates that someone read perhaps the first 15 pages of the book, then put it away never to be taken down and finished. Inside the book is pristine. Pages are clean, crisp, unmarked, unmutilated, tightly bound, and evidence no indications of having been read beyond about page 15. Of course its always possible that a few bookstore browsers may have flipped through the book while it was on the booksellers shelf - which is always a possibility with any book which traveled through normal retail distribution channels which would include traditional shelved ("brick and mortar") book stores. In addition to that its also possible the original owner may have flipped through the book, perhaps looking at the illustrations. However there are no indications the book has ever been read, were just presuming that with the book being almost 25 years old...someone, somewhere, at some time may have flipped through the illustrations...even if there are no such indications of even such a minimal event. Fro the outside the dustjacket evidences only faint edge and corner shelfwear. This is principally in the form of faint crinkling along the edges, including the dustjacket spine head and heel. There is a tiny bit of abrasive rubbing at the dustjacket spine head, where there is/was a tiny little 1/8 inch chip which was neatly mended from the underside of the dustjacket using an oil-based sharpie. Such huge, heavybooks like this (seven pounds!) are awkward to handle and so tend to show accelerated shelfwear to dustjacket edges. Due to their size and weight they are frequently dragged across bookshelves as they are difficult to lift off of a bookshelf without dragging them. Beneath the dustjacket the covers are clean and unsoiled, without any discernible shelfwear. Notwithstanding the possibility that the book may have been flipped through once or twice by bookstore "lookie loos", the condition of the book is entirely consistent with a new book from a traditional brick and mortar shelved bookstore environment such as Barnes & Noble or B. Dalton, wherein patrons are permitted to browse open stock, and so otherwise "new" books often show a little handling/shelf/browsing wear, if nothing else, merely from routine handling and the ongoing process of shelving and re-shelving the book. Satisfaction unconditionally guaranteed. In stock, ready to ship. No disappointments, no excuses. PROMPT SHIPPING! HEAVILY PADDED, DAMAGE-FREE PACKAGING! Meticulous and accurate descriptions! Selling rare and out-of-print ancient history books on-line since 1997. We accept returns for any reason within 30 days! #3141b.
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PLEASE SEE PUBLISHER, PROFESSIONAL, AND READER REVIEWS BELOW.
PUBLISHER REVIEWS:
REVIEW: Published to accompany an exhibition at The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg June 2000 - September 2000 and at the Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, London October 2000 - February 2001.
REVIEW: Includes bibliographical references. An exhibition at the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, June 2000-Sept. 2000 and at the Courtauld Gallery, London, Oct. 2000-Feb. 2001. In association with the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
The Saint Catherine Foundation and the Monastery of St. Catherine by Orianna Baddeley.
The Exhibition at the State Hermitage Museum by Yuri Piatnitsky.
Sinai, Byzantium and Russia by Yuri Piatnitsky.
Byzantine Art and the Holy Land by Marlia Mango.
Sinai: The Construction of a Sacred Landscape by Robin Cormack.
PROFESSIONAL REVIEWS:
REVIEW: A mother lode of Orthodox imagery comes into print via the monks of St. Catherines Monastery at Mount Sinai, world-famous for its Byzantine art, and the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, which houses various Byzantine masterpieces as shown here. Covering the time from the rise of Byzantium to the last Tsar of Russia, this lavishly illustrated volume presents an unbroken tradition in Orthodox painting from the sixth through the twentieth centuries.
Other typically Byzantine items are also included: religious mosaics, amphoras, plates, liturgical crosses and vessels, coins, and illuminated manuscript pages from St. Catherines superlative collection of historic Christian texts, the largest outside the Vatican. This volume contains some images that have not been seen in previous books on the subject and provides a more substantial look at St. Catherines than other books on this monastery, the oldest Christian monastery in the world. The book is a visual feast of pieces with timeless beauty and depth. Several more general books on Byzantine art include The "Glory of Byzantium", edited by Helen C. Evans, and Thomas F. Mathewss "Byzantium from Antiquity to the Renaissance"). Also, any works by Konrad Onasch or the late Kurt Weitzmann would be helpful supplements in the subject area. Recommended for libraries with a focus in art history. [Library Journal].
REVIEW: Brilliant and hermetic, Byzantine art exhibitions have glittered across the millennial decade (1993–2004), leaving us to ponder what they have altered or reclaimed. The groundbreaking exhibition held in Athens in 1964 claimed in its title, Byzantine Art, an European Art. “Why?” rejoined Greek critic Iannes Tsarouches. “Why not call Byzantine art an American art? This isn’t paradoxical: from a certain point of view Byzantium has much more in common with America than Europe”.
But in the United States, Byzantine studies seem to Robert Ousterhout “semi-marginalized,” unable to claim position either as our own or as other. Ideological partisanship is precisely what critics missed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Glory of Byzantium exhibition in 1997, and an attitude of spectator neutrality was yet far more calculated in exhibitions mounted in France and England, which displayed not Byzantium as such, but the ways its artifacts had been collected.
Ownership is, by contrast, the passionate claim of Sinai, Byzantium, Russia: Orthodox Art from the Sixth to the Twentieth Century, the catalogue of an exhibition of 496 items or clusters of items held at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2000. At its core are ten superb icons from the Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai, along with a vast array of 156 Byzantine, fifteen Georgian, and 315 Russian artifacts drawn from the museum’s collections. The exhibition covers a period ranging from the Justinianic era to 1918 in a scintillating cascade of every imaginable luminous medium: metalwork, enamel, gold embroidery, ivory, panel painting, manuscript illumination, glyptics, and glass.
The exhibition “represents two wonderful, famous, and typologically different treasure houses: Sinai and the Hermitage”, reminding us of their bonds and furthering fundraising for Sinai’s preservation. In the catalogue’s words: “Through its active imperial support for the St. Catherine Monastery, Russia firmly announced its adoption of the Byzantine tradition of state patronage of religious institutions. . . . It is a great honour for us to revive Russia’s glorious traditions, even if not at the former tsarist level”.
Even if not, perhaps, at the former tsarist level, the catalogue is nonetheless overwhelming in its prodigality. Many of its artifacts, including three of the Sinai icons, have never been published, and many more, including all ten Sinai icons, have never been exhibited. Practically all of the works are excellently reproduced in color, many for the first time. Together, they offer an unparalleled volume of otherwise unknown works: As a visual offering, the catalogue is a staggering achievement.
In all this amplitude, it is easy for the reviewer to dwell upon the things that are not there. Most conspicuous of these is an articulated art-historical strategy for the exhibition. The objects range from the Justinianic period to the end of the Romanov era, but the essays focus only on the Sinai collection. The contributions from Oriana Baddeley, Yuri Piatnitsky, Marlia Mundell Mango, and Robin Cormack include insights into Russian support for Sinai during the early modern centuries, when the monastery’s history is especially obscure.
In addition, Cormack’s essay contains a useful summary of speculation about artistic production at Sinai. Otherwise, one is left awash in a radiant flood of objects, from icons to Easter eggs to gilded porcelain portions of Easter cheese. The connections between them are not articulated, and the objects themselves are left to make clear the exhibition’s theme of the seamlessness of Byzantium, Sinai, and Russia.
All artifacts presented here are Orthodox. But what does it mean to be Orthodox? Certainly there are icons, but the deliberate juxtapositions of icons in radically different manners make it clear that their Orthodoxy does not lie in their style. Many of the objects have a ritual function, but those functions change, as polycandilia and pyxides give way to Easter eggs and commemorative medals. The theological disputes precipitated by the Old Believers that so often shape histories of Russian art are not examined here.
A section on Cretan icons, including a ravishing tiny triptych by Nicolas Tsafouris (B155), shows that Orthodoxy is larger in scope and influence than Russia itself. More than in site, style, function, or doctrine, the essence of Orthodoxy seems to find expression in a particular attitude to material, an attitude that—rather than likening the monastery to a museum—makes both into treasure houses. Such a reading, however, emerges visually; the essays do not examine it.
One misses, too, a consistent template for the catalogue entries. In some cases the texts are very rich in their physical analysis of the works, in others quite perfunctory. That this concern emerges is a response to one of the catalogue’s signal strengths: its engagement with the works as material objects. The physical descriptions, on the other hand, are sometimes skewed in translation. Nonetheless, the images are visually and intellectually stimulating, inviting a kind of particularized admiration that we rarely concede to what we regard too often simply as bodiless "images"—as if icons could somehow be understood through the lens of mechanical or photographic reproduction.
The entries deserve attention on further fronts. One is historical: Detailing objects’ provenance and restoration history, they offer insights into the past of such precious survivors as the Hermitage’s icon of the Mother of God surrounded by prophets (B90). Another is functional: An entry such as the one on the jeweled ornaments known as zapony (R50) explains their function vividly—behind the tulip and ivy-shaped gems one senses the legendary vine in Solomon’s temple laden with the golden leaves of pious givers. A third reason is aesthetic: Rarely are ritual objects offered with the acute aesthetic passion of Yuri Piatnitsky’s entries.
A fourth is candor: The entries can be quirky—as in the identification of a panel with a three-nail Crucifixion as belonging to the Middle Byzantine period (B27)—but they are also frank and disarming, presenting questionable works or issues openly. (See the arguably authentic fragmentary Gospel Book resembling the twelfth-century Tetraevangelion, Athens, National Library 93 [B62], or the delicate dance around the issue of Cypriot painters in the entry on the templon beam of St. Eustratios [S61], an issue that is bound to be affected significantly by the Sinai icons published here.)
The icons from Sinai form the fulcrum of the exhibition and catalogue. Introduced by the moody and beautiful tenth-century panel of St. Nicholas (S54), the majority of the works cluster in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It is striking—indeed, rather sobering—to see how much they tell us that we simply did not know. Functionally, for example, a full-length icon of John Chrysostom (S56) turns out to belong to a full suit of twelve such icons that must have adorned the apse of the basilica at Sinai, occupying the place assumed in painted churches by frescoed figures of the Holy Fathers.
None of the twelve has been published, and no comparable suit—to my knowledge—exists. Similarly interesting is the templon beam of St. Eustratios (S61). Its brilliant, garruluous scenes of Eustratios’s posthumous interventions in the lives of upscale patrons contrast sharply with the more austere scenes on St. Catherine’s Vita icon (S60). The Eustratios beam is complemented with Athonite beams (B86, B88, B89), offering an especially rich insight into the painted templon beam.
Formally challenging, in turn, are two other unpublished icons, a pair of Holy Doors showing the Annunciation (S55) and a half-length Archangel Michael (S62). Flawlessly preserved, they exhibit a refined classicism that is peculiarly disturbing. Playing on the tension between classical volume and iconic pattern, the icons reflect an almost pre-Raphaelite self-consciousness that sits strangely with our conception of Byzantine art. Equally striking is the sheer mastery of the huge icon of the warrior-saints Sergios and Bacchos (S63). Though it violates Byzantine hierarchy to place the Mother of God on its battered reverse, the icon cannot be given its “Crusader” label dismissively.
Such functional, formal, and qualitative insights are enhanced by technical observations of the works. Some backgrounds are gold; others, even of superb paintings, are silver with a yellow glaze. Either can show the burnished lightbursts so distinctive to Sinai icons. Some panels are excavated to provide protective borders; other panels have had their borders added. Some are fully wrapped in linen beneath their paint; others have fabric only on their figural surfaces.
Paint surfaces within a single panel may be built up very differently, as in the faces of Mary and Christ in the “Blachernitissa” (S57). Such close observation makes one yearn for a fuller analysis of the two imposing icons of Elijah and Moses (S58, S59); they are signed identically in Greek and Arabic by one “Stephanos who is depicting you,” yet they are painted very differently. The questions raised by these ten icons—of form, function, content, thematic hierarchy, and technique—show how valuable this exhibition and catalogue are.
It will be our instinct to locate the catalogue’s importance in the Sinai icons alone, evading the later chapters’ proprietary claim. Yet ever since the 1964 exhibition we have sought a view of Byzantium that was not just visual and formalist, speculative and neutral, offering objects of virtue that are able to affect our styles but not our lives. Months after the Hermitage exhibition, another vast Byzantine exhibition opened in three cities: Athens, Thessaloniki, and Mistras.
Entitled Byzantine Hours, it also broke through traditional frames of reference, not of time now, but of genre, offering objects of virtue drawn from life, all beautiful—thus not ethnographic or archaeological—but not necessarily designed to function within the genre of “art”: clothing, toys, tools, wedding wreaths. As Sinai, Byzantium, Russia located Byzantium in a given regime of patronage, Byzantine Hours embedded it in the texture of a particular urban lifestyle, set in cities the Byzantines themselves had known, moving into the very streets, spaces, and workplaces of Byzantine life. Both are invitations to abandon the spectator neutrality of 1964 and step into a more living engagement with Byzantium. [College Art Association].
REVIEW: This massive book was published to accompany an exhibit that traveled earlier this year from the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg to Londons Courtauld Gallery. Based on works at the Russian Orthodox Monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai desert, the book includes religious art both ancient and modern, right up to the kitschy Easter eggs of the last czars. The show was by all evidence a blockbuster. [Publisher’s Weekly].
REVIEW: This exhibition catalogue offers a magnificent and comprehensive catalogue of Orthodox art, art treasures and masterpieces rarely seen outside of Russia. These works are drawn from two sources: the Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai (the oldest monastery in the world) and the Hermitage museum, St Petersburg. The material included ranges from icons and paintings to jewelry, enamels, illuminated manuscripts, ivories, textiles, coins and precious metalwork of all kinds. A hard book to put down!
READER REVIEWS:
REVIEW: A beautiful book in every sense of the word, which I shall treasure for many a year. The illustrations and text give a wide introduction to Christian Orthodox iconography, their symbolism and interpretation.
REVIEW: Excellent book. Great art and very thorough commentaries. Its very important for those who are interested in rare art treasures, icons, and illuminated manuscripts. Its an awesome addition to any library: public or private. Thanks.
REVIEW: Its a fabulous book. A treasure trove of Orthodox art and antiquities. Highly recommended.
REVIEW: Great Book and information on iconography.
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:
REVIEW: Saint Catherines Monastery lies on the Sinai Peninsula, at the mouth of a gorge at the foot of Mount Sinai, in the city of Saint Catherine, Egypt in the South Sinai Governorate. The monastery is controlled by the autonomous Church of Sinai, part of the wider Eastern Orthodox Church, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Built between 548 and 565, the monastery is one of the oldest working Christian monasteries in the world. The site contains the worlds oldest continually operating library, possessing many unique books including the Syriac Sinaiticus and, until 1859, the Codex Sinaiticus. A small town with hotels and swimming pools, called Saint Katherine City, has grown around the monastery.
According to tradition, Catherine of Alexandria was a Christian martyr sentenced to death on the breaking wheel. When this failed to kill her, she was beheaded. According to tradition, angels took her remains to Mount Sinai. Around the year 800, monks from the Sinai Monastery found her remains. Although it is commonly known as Saint Catherines, the monasterys full official name is the Sacred Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount Sinai. The patronal feast of the monastery is the Feast of the Transfiguration. The monastery has become a favorite site of pilgrimage.
The oldest record of monastic life at Sinai comes from the travel journal written in Latin by a woman named Egeria about 381-384. She visited many places around the Holy Land and Mount Sinai, where, according to the Hebrew Bible, Moses received the Ten Commandments from God. The monastery was built by order of Emperor Justinian I (reigned 527-565), enclosing the Chapel of the Burning Bush (also known as "Saint Helens Chapel") ordered to be built by Empress Consort Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, at the site where Moses is supposed to have seen the burning bush. The living bush on the grounds is purportedly the one seen by Moses. Structurally the monasterys king post truss is the oldest known surviving roof truss in the world. The site is sacred to Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
A mosque was created by converting an existing chapel during the Fatimid Caliphate (909-1171), which was in regular use until the era of the Mamluk Sultanate in the 13th century and is still in use today on special occasions. During the Ottoman Empire, the mosque was in desolate condition; it was restored in the early 20th century. During the seventh century, the isolated Christian anchorites of the Sinai were eliminated: only the fortified monastery remained. The monastery is still surrounded by the massive fortifications that have preserved it. Until the twentieth century, access was through a door high in the outer walls. From the time of the First Crusade, the presence of Crusaders in the Sinai until 1270 spurred the interest of European Christians and increased the number of intrepid pilgrims who visited the monastery. The monastery was supported by its dependencies in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Crete, Cyprus and Constantinople.
The monastery, along with several dependencies in the area, constitute the entire Church of Sinai, which is headed by an archbishop, who is also the abbot of the monastery. The exact administrative status of the church within the Eastern Orthodox Church is ambiguous: by some, including the church itself,[9] it is considered autocephalous, by others an autonomous church under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem. The archbishop is traditionally consecrated by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem; in recent centuries he has usually resided in Cairo. During the period of the Crusades which was marked by bitterness between the Orthodox and Catholic churches, the monastery was patronized by both the Byzantine emperors and the rulers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and their respective courts. On April 18, 2017, an attack by the so-called Islamic State group at a checkpoint near the Monastery killed one policeman and injured three police officers.
The monastery library preserves the second largest collection of early codices and manuscripts in the world, outnumbered only by the Vatican Library. It contains Greek, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Hebrew, Georgian, and Aramaic texts. In May 1844 and February 1859, Constantin von Tischendorf visited the monastery for research and discovered the Codex Sinaiticus, dating from the 4th Century, at the time the oldest almost completely preserved manuscript of the Bible. The finding from 1859 left the monastery in the 19th century for Russia, in circumstances that had been long disputed. But in 2003 Russian scholars discovered the donation act for the manuscript signed by the Council of Cairo Metochion and Archbishop Callistratus on 13 November 1869.
The monastery received 9000 rubles as a gift from Tsar Alexander II of Russia. The Codex was sold by Stalin in 1933 to the British Museum and is now in the British Library, London, where it is on public display. Prior to September 1, 2009, a previously unseen fragment of Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in the monasterys library. In February 1892, Agnes Smith Lewis identified a palimpsest in St Catherines library that became known as the Syriac Sinaiticus and is still in the Monasterys possession. Agnes and her sister Margaret Dunlop Gibson returned with a team of scholars that included J. Rendel Harris, to photograph and transcribe the work in its entirety. As the manuscript predates the Codex Sinaiticus, it became crucial in understanding the history of the New Testament.
The Monastery also has a copy of the Ashtiname of Muhammad, in which the Islamic prophet Muhammad is claimed to have bestowed his protection upon the monastery. The most important manuscripts have since been filmed or digitized, and so are accessible to scholars. A team of imaging scientists and scholars from the USA and Europe is using spectral imaging techniques developed for imaging the Archimedes Palimpsest to study more than one hundred palimpsests in the monastery library. The library will be extensively renovated for some time.
The complex houses irreplaceable works of art: mosaics, the best collection of early icons in the world, many in encaustic, as well as liturgical objects, chalices and reliquaries, and church buildings. The large icon collection begins with a few dating to the 5th (possibly) and 6th centuries, which are unique survivals; the monastery having been untouched by Byzantine iconoclasm, and never sacked. The oldest icon on an Old Testament theme is also preserved there. A project to catalogue the collections has been ongoing since the 1960s. The monastery was an important center for the development of the hybrid style of Crusader art, and still retains over 120 icons created in the style, by far the largest collection in existence. Many were evidently created by Latins, probably monks, based in or around the monastery in the 13th century.
REVIEW: The Collapse of Rome and the Rise of Byzantine Art (500-1450 A.D.). What is Byzantine Art? Between Emperor Constantine Is Edict in 313, recognizing Christianity as the official religion, and the fall of Rome at the hands of the Visigoths in 476, arrangements were made to divide the the Roman Empire into a Western half (ruled from Rome) and an Eastern half (ruled from Byzantium). Thus, while Western Christendom fell into the cultural abyss of the barbarian Dark Ages, its religious, secular and artistic values were maintained by its new Eastern capital in Byzantium (later renamed Constantinople after Constantine).
Along with the transfer of Imperial authority to Byzantium went thousands of Roman and Greek painters and craftsmen, who proceeded to create a new set of Eastern Christian images and icons, known as Byzantine Art. Exclusively concerned with Christian art, though derived (in particular) from techniques and forms of Greek and Egyptian art, this style spread to all corners of the Byzantine empire, where Orthodox Christianity flourished. Particular centres of early Christian art included Ravenna in Italy, and Kiev, Novgorod and Moscow in Russia. For more detail, see also: Christian Art, Byzantine Period.
The style that characterized Byzantine art was almost entirely concerned with religious expression; specifically with the translation of church theology into artistic terms. Byzantine Architecture and painting (little sculpture was produced during the Byzantine era) remained uniform and anonymous and developed within a rigid tradition. The result was a sophistication of style rarely equalled in Western art.
Byzantine medieval art began with mosaics decorating the walls and domes of churches, as well fresco wall-paintings. So beautiful was the effect of these mosaics that the form was taken up in Italy, especially in Rome and Ravenna. A less public art form in Constantinople, was the icon (from the Greek word eikon meaning image) - the holy image panel-paintings which were developed in the monasteries of the eastern church, using encaustic wax paint on portable wooden panels. [See: Icons and Icon Painting.] The greatest collection of this type of early Biblical art is in the monastery of St Catherine in Sinai, founded in the 6th century by the Emperor Justinian. And see also, the Byzantine-influenced Garima Gospels (390-660) - worlds most ancient illuminated gospel manuscript - from Ethiopia.
During the period 1050-1200, tensions grew up between the Eastern Roman Empire and the slowly re-emerging city of Rome, whose Popes had managed (by careful diplomatic manoeuvering) to retain their authority as the centre of Western Christendom. At the same time, Italian city states like Venice were becoming rich on international trade. As a result, in 1204, Constantinople fell under the influence of Venetians.
This duly led to a cultural exodus of renowned artists from the city back to Rome - the reverse of what had happened 800 years previously - and the beginnings of the proto-Renaissance period, exemplified by Giotto di Bondones Scrovegni Chapel frescoes. However, even as it declined, Byzantine influence continued to make itself felt in the 13th and 14th centuries, notably in the Sienese School of painting and the International Gothic style (1375-1450), notably in International Gothic illuminations, like the Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, by the Limbourg Brothers. See also Byzantine-inspired panel-paintings and altarpieces including Duccios Stroganoff Madonna (1300) and Maesta Altarpiece (1311).
Using early Christian adaptations of late Roman styles, the Byzantines developed a new visual language, expressing the ritual and dogma of the united Church and state. Early on variants flourished in Alexandria and Antioch, but increasingly the imperial bureaucracy undertook the major commissions, and artists were sent out to the regions requiring them, from the metropolis. Established in Constantinople, the Byzantine style eventually spread far beyond the capital, round the Mediterranean to southern Italy, up through the Balkans and into Russia.
Rome, occupied by the Visigoths in 410, was sacked again by the Vandals in 455, and by the end of the century Theodoric the Great had imposed the rule of the Ostrogoths on Italy. However, in the sixth century the Emperor Justinian (reigned 527-65) re-established imperial order from Constantinople, taking over the Ostrogothic capital, Ravenna (Italy), as his western administrative centre. Justinian was a superb organizer, and one of the most remarkable patrons in the history of art. He built and re-built on a huge scale throughout the Empire: his greatest work, the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, employed nearly 10,000 craftsmen and labourers and was decorated with the richest materials the Empire could provide. Though it still stands gloriously, hardly any of its earliest mosaics remain, thus it is at Ravenna that the most spectacular remnants of Byzantine art in the sixth century survive. See: Ravenna Mosaics (circa 400-600).
Within the dry brick exterior of S. Vitale in Ravenna, the worshipper is dazzled by a highly controlled explosion of colour blazoned across glittering gold. Mosaic art and beautifully grained marble cover almost all wall surfaces, virtually obliterating the architecture that bears them. The gold, flooding the background, suggests an infinity taken out of mortal time, on which the supernatural images float. In the apse, wrapped in their own remote mystery, Christ and saints preside unimpassioned. Nevertheless, in two flanking panels of mosaic, one showing the Emperor Justinian with his retinue and the other, opposite, his wife Theodora with her ladies, there persists a clear attempt at naturalistic portraiture, especially in the faces of Justinian and Theodora. Even so, their bodies seem to float rather than stand within the tubular folds of their draperies.
In S. Vitale, and in Byzantine art generally, sculpture in the round plays a minimal part. However, the marble capitals (dating from the pre-Justinians era) are carved with surprising delicacy, with purely oriental, highly stylized vine-scrolls and inscrutable animals. A rare example of Byzantine figurative sculpture is an impressiye head, perhaps that of Theodora, in which the Roman tradition of naturalistic portrait art lingers. To the East, Justinians most important surviving work is in the church, (slightly later than S. Vitale), of St Catherines Monastery on Mount Sinai. There, in the great Transfiguration in the apse, the figures are again substantial presences, suspended weightlessly in a golden empyrean. The contours, however, are freer, less rigid, than at S. Vitale, and the limbs of the figures are strangely articulated - almost an assemblage of component parts. This was to become a characteristic and persistent trait in the Byzantine style.
Elsewhere (notably at Thessaloniki) there were other vocal variations of style in mosaic. Relatively little remains in the cheaper form of fresco, and still less in manuscript illumination. A very few 6th century illuminated manuscripts, on a purple-tinted vellum, show a comparable development from classical conventions towards an austere formality, though pen and ink tend to produce greater freedom in structure and gesture. In the famous Rabula Gospel of 586 from Syria, the glowing intensity of the dense imagery may even bring to mind the work of Rouault in the twentieth century. Ivory panels carved in relief have also survived, usually covers for consular diptychs. This type of diptych consisted of two ivory plaques, tied together, with records of the departing consuls office listed on their inner surfaces. The carvings on the outside, representing religious or imperial themes, have the clarity and detachment characteristic of the finest mosaics, and are splendidly assured.
In the 8th and 9th centuries the development of the Byzantine style was catastrophically interrupted in all media. Art was not merely stopped in its tracks: there was a thorough, wide-ranging destruction of existing images throughout the Byzantine regions. Figurative art had long been attacked on the grounds that the Bible condemned the worship of images; in about 725 the iconoclasts (those who would have religious images destroyed) won the day against the iconodules (those who believed they were justified) with the promulgation of the first of a number of imperial edicts against images. Complicated arguments raged over the issue, but iconoclasm was also an assertion of imperial authority over a Church thought to have grown too rich and too powerful. It was surely owing to the Church that some tradition of art did persist, to flower again when the ban was lifted in 843.
The halt to iconoclasm - the destructive campaign against images and those who believed in them - came in 843. The revival of religious art that followed was based on clearly formulated principles: images were accepted as valuable not for worship, but as channels through which the faithful could direct their prayer and somehow anchor the presence of divinity within their daily lives. Unlike in the later western Gothic revival, Byzantine art rarely had a didactic or narrative function, but was essentially impersonal, ceremonial and symbolic: it was an element in the performance of religious ritual. The disposition of images in churches was codified, rather as the liturgy was, and generally adhered to a set iconography: the great mosaic cycles were deployed about the Pantocrator (Christ in his role as ruler and judge) central in the main dome, and the Virgin and Child in the apse. Below, the main events of the Christian year - from Annunciation to Crucifixion and Resurrection - had their appointed places. Below again, hieratic figures of saints, martyrs and bishops were ranked in order.
The end of iconoclasm opened an era of great activity, the so-called Macedonian Renaissance. It lasted from 867, when Basil I, founder of the Macedonian dynasty, became absolute ruler of what was now a purely Greek monarchy, almost until 1204, when Constantinople was disastrously sacked. Churches were redecorated throughout the Empire, and especially its capital: in Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, mosaics enormous in scale took up the old themes and stances, sometimes with great delicacy and refinement.
Despite the steady erosion of its territory, Byzantium was seen by Europe as the light of civilization, an almost legendary city of gold. Literature, scholarship and an elaborate etiquette surrounded the Macedonian court; the 10th century Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos sculpted and himself illuminated the manuscripts he wrote. Though his power continued to diminish, the Emperor had enormous prestige, and the Byzantine style proved irresistible to the rest of Europe. Even in regimes politically and militarily hostile to Constantinople, Byzantine art was adopted and its medieval artists welcomed.
In Greece, the Church of the Dormition at Daphni, near Athens, of about 1100, presents some of the finest mosaics of this period: there is a grave, classic sense of great delicacy in its Crucifixion, while the dome mosaic of The Pantocrator is one of the most formidable in any Byzantine church. In Venice, the huge expanses of S. Marco (begun 1063) were decorated by artists imported from the East, but their work was largely destroyed by fire in 1106, and later work by Venetian craftsmen is in a less pure style.
In the cathedral on the nearby island of Torcello, however, The Virgin and Child, tall, lonely, and solitary as a spire against the vast gold space of the apse, is a 12th century survival. In Sicily, the first Norman king, Roger II (ruled 1130-54), was actively hostile to the Byzantine Empire yet he imported Greek artists, who created one of the finest mosaic cycles ever, in the apse and presbytery at Cefalu. The permeation of Byzantine art into Russia was initiated in 989 by the marriage of Vladimir of Kiev with the Byzantine princess Anna and his conversion to Eastern Christianity. Byzantine mosaicists were working in the Hagia Sophia at Kiev by the 1040s, and the Byzantine impact on Russian medieval painting remained crucial long after the fall of Constantinople.
Goldsmithing and precious metalwork were another Byzantine speciality, notably in Kiev (circa950-1237), where both cloisonné and niello styles of enamelling were taken to new heights by Eastern Orthodox goldsmiths. The secular paintings and mosaics of the Macedonian revival have rarely survived - their most spectacular manifestation was lost in the burning of the legendary Great Palace in Constantinople during the Sack of 1204. Such works retained much more clearly classical features - the ivory panels of the Veroli casket are an example - but such features are to be found, too, in religious manuscripts and in some ivory reliefs (sculpture in the round was forbidden as a concession to the iconoclasts). The Joshua Roll, though it celebrates the military prowess of an Old Testament hero, reflects the pattern of Roman narrative columns of relief sculpture such as Trajans Column in Rome; the famous Paris Psalter of about 950 is remarkably Roman both in feeling and iconography: in one illustration the young David as a musical shepherd is virtually indistinguishable from a pagan Orpheus, and is even attended by an allegorical nymph called Melody.
The importance of Byzantine murals on the development of Western medieval painting should also not be under-estimated. See, for instance, the highly realistic wall paintings in the Byzantine monastery Church of St. Panteleimon in Gorno Nerezi, Republic of Macedonia. In 1204, the city of Constantinople was sacked by Latin Crusaders, and Latins ruled the city until 1261, when the Byzantine emperors returned. In the interim, craftsmen migrated elsewhere. In Macedonia and Serbia, fresco painting was already established, and the tradition continued steadily. Some 15 major fresco cycles survive, mostly by Greek artists. The fresco medium doubtless encouraged a fluency of expression and an emotional feeling not often apparent in mosaic.
The final two centuries of Byzantium in its decay were troubled and torn with war, but surprisingly produced a third great artistic flowering. The fragmentary but still imposing Deesis in Hagia Sophia in Constantinople may have been constructed after the Latin domination, rather than during the 12th century. It has a new tenderness and humanity which was continued - for instance in the superb early 14th century cycle of the monastic church of Christ in Chora. In Russia, a distinctive style developed, reflected not only in masterpieces such as the icons of Rublev, but also in the individual interpretations of traditional themes by Theophanes the Greek, a Byzantine emigrant, working in a dashing, almost Impressionistic style in the 1370s in Novgorod. Though the central source of the Byzantine style was extinguished with the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453, its influence continued in Russia and the Balkans, while in Italy the Byzantine strain (mingling with Gothic) persisted in the era of Pre-Renaissance Painting (circa1300-1400) ushered in by the works of Duccio di Buoninsegna (circa1255-1319) and Giotto (1270-1337).
Icons (or ikons), generally small and so easily transportable, are the best-known form of Byzantine art. A tradition persists that the first icon was painted by St Luke the Evangelist, showing the Virgin pointing to the Child on her left arm. However, no examples that date from before the 6th century are known. Icons became increasingly popular in Byzantium in the 6th and 7th centuries, to some degree precipitating the reaction of iconoclasm. Although the iconoclasts asserted that icons were being worshipped, their proper function was as an aid to meditation; through the visible image the believer could apprehend the invisible spirituality. Condensed into a small compass, they fulfilled and fulfil the same function in the home as the mosaic decorations of the churches - signalling the presence of divinity. The production of icons for the Orthodox Churches has never ceased.
The dating of icons is thus fairly speculative. The discovery at St Catherines monastery on Mt Sinai of a number of icons that could be ordered chronologically with some certainty is recent. Many different styles are represented. An early St Peter has the frontal simplicity, the direct gaze from large wide-open eyes, that is found again and again in single-figure icons. It also has an almost suave elegance and dignity, allied with a painterly vigour that imparts a distinct tension to the figure. There is a similar emotional quality in a well-preserved Madonna and Saints, despite its unblinking symmetry and rather coarser modelling. Both surely came from Constantinople.
Immediately after the iconoclastic period, devotional images in richer materials, in ivory, mosaic or even precious metals, may have been more popular than painted ones. From the twelfth century painted icons became more frequent, and one great masterpiece can be dated to 1131 or shortly before. Known as "The Virgin of Vladimir", it was sent to Russia soon after it had been painted in Constantinople. The Virgin still indicates the Child, as the embodiment of the divine in human form, but the tenderness of the pose, cheek against cheek, is illustrative of the new humanism.
From the 12th century the subject matter of icons expanded considerably, though the long-established themes and formulae, important for the comfort of the faithful, were maintained. Heads of Christ, Virgins and patron saints continued, but scenes of action appeared - notably Annunciations and Crucifixions; later, for iconostases, or choir-screens, composite panels containing many narrative scenes were painted. Long after it had ceased in Constantinople with the Turkish conquest, production continued and developed in Greece and (with clearly discernible regional styles) in Russia, and in Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria.
In Russia, individual masters emerged even before the fall of Constantinople, along with important centres such as the Novgorod school of icon painting. The most famous Russian iconographer was the monk Andrei Rublev (circa1370-1430), whose renowned masterpiece, The Holy Trinity Icon (1411-25), is the finest of all Russian icons. He transcended the Byzantine formulae, and the mannerisms of the Novgorod school founded by the Byzantine refugee Theophanes the Greek. Rublevs icons are unique for their cool colours, soft shapes and quiet radiance.
The last of the great Russian icon painters of the Novgorod school, was Dionysius (circa 1440-1502), noted for his icons for the Volokolamsky monastery, and his Deesis for the Cathedral of the Dormition in Moscow. He was in fact the first celebrated figure in the Moscow school of painting (circa1500-1700), whose Byzantine-inspired icons were produced by the likes of Nicephorus Savin, Procopius Chirin and the great Simon Ushakov (1626-1686).
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ABOUT US: Prior to our retirement we used to travel to Eastern Europe and Central Asia several times a year seeking antique gemstones and jewelry from the globe’s most prolific gemstone producing and cutting centers. Most of the items we offer came from acquisitions we made in Eastern Europe, India, and from the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean/Near East) during these years from various institutions and dealers. Much of what we generate on Etsy, Amazon and Ebay goes to support worthy institutions in Europe and Asia connected with Anthropology and Archaeology. Though we have a collection of ancient coins numbering in the tens of thousands, our primary interests are ancient/antique jewelry and gemstones, a reflection of our academic backgrounds.
Though perhaps difficult to find in the USA, in Eastern Europe and Central Asia antique gemstones are commonly dismounted from old, broken settings – the gold reused – the gemstones recut and reset. Before these gorgeous antique gemstones are recut, we try to acquire the best of them in their original, antique, hand-finished state – most of them originally crafted a century or more ago. We believe that the work created by these long-gone master artisans is worth protecting and preserving rather than destroying this heritage of antique gemstones by recutting the original work out of existence. That by preserving their work, in a sense, we are preserving their lives and the legacy they left for modern times. Far better to appreciate their craft than to destroy it with modern cutting.
Not everyone agrees – fully 95% or more of the antique gemstones which come into these marketplaces are recut, and the heritage of the past lost. But if you agree with us that the past is worth protecting, and that past lives and the produce of those lives still matters today, consider buying an antique, hand cut, natural gemstone rather than one of the mass-produced machine cut (often synthetic or “lab produced”) gemstones which dominate the market today. We can set most any antique gemstone you purchase from us in your choice of styles and metals ranging from rings to pendants to earrings and bracelets; in sterling silver, 14kt solid gold, and 14kt gold fill. When you purchase from us, you can count on quick shipping and careful, secure packaging. We would be happy to provide you with a certificate/guarantee of authenticity for any item you purchase from us. There is a $3 fee for mailing under separate cover. I will always respond to every inquiry whether via email or eBay message, so please feel free to write.
