Byzantine Art - 3 Iconographic Programs
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In Byzantine Art there are three periods: the first is from the time of Emperor Justinian (VI century); the second is after the iconoclastic crisis, and is the best in creations of iconographic themes (IX to XII centuries); and the last is a rebirth, from the XIV century, which is truncated by the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, but continues to persist in the following centuries in Orthodox countries.
Theory of light. Light wants to evocate the celestial Jerusalem. Mix of greek (harmony and beauty of the elements as a whole) and hebrew (beauty in the individual: light) elements.
Saint Basil. Beauty is harmony and composition. Plotinus. Elements as individual. All with christian finality is beautiful. Imperfect (man). Perfect (God). Pankalía (all is beautiful). Symbolism and theocentrism.
Pseudo Dionisio Aeropagita says all that is beautiful is good. The world takes the divine beauty. Beauty is harmony and light. Cult to images because it is a transit to know God.
To study the religious iconography, first have to identify the image, then the scene where it is, and finally, the cicle to that scene belongs. Acheropoietas, no made by man hand. Mandylion is the cloth where Christ impress his face. It is said too the Saint Luca painted the Virgin.
Conventionalisms. Golden background for celestial light. Tables without framework, and when is, the divinity attacks it. Illusion that is the icon who sees you. Virgin with red (encarnation) maphorrium of three stars (trinity). Pantokrator as emperor with a letter and blessing. Archangels.
Pantokrator: Jesuchrist Maiestas, omnipotent and powerful. With beard. Stare. Appears in cruciferous nimbus. Left hand is holding the Gospels. With the other hand blesses using the Trinitarian formula (three fingers together) used in the West, opposite the Oriental custom of bringing together two fingers as reaffirmation of the dual nature of Christ.
Crucifixion: represented with four nails and with open eyes as proof that God is alive.
Trinity: the problem is to representate God. Christ is a man, and the Holy Spirit is a dove, but there wasn't representation for God. They started to representate God as a hand in the sky (Dextera Dei) or an eye. Soon, the Theophany of Manre, three angels that came to Abraham to say him that he was going to have a son with his wife Saray being both old, became into the Trinity.
Deesis: Christ on the cross (Crucifixion) or in the heavenly throne (Pantokrator), flanked by the Virgin and St. John the Baptist, who intercede for humanity.
Virgin: there are several ways to representate the Virgin.
Kyriotissa: the Virgin is the throne of a child that is blessing. No interaction between the mother and the son. Hieratism.
Theotokos: similar to Kyriotissa but the relationship between mother and son begins. Usually offer some symbolic object: apple (New Eve), globe (omnipresence of Christ), or flower (fertility).
Hodegetria: points out the baby with the right hand as path to salvation.
Eleousa: are divided in three. The mother is interacting with the son.
Glykophilousa: funeral sense. The faces of mother and son are together, but the sad eyes of the Virgin presages the fate of his son.
Galaktotrophousa: the Virgin breastfeeding the child.
Blacherniotissa: she stands with arms in prayerful attitude, shows a circle in her womb, which is the child.
Ubication in the temples
The Pantokrator is in the central dome, with the Tetramorphos, the Four Evangelists: Matthew (angel), Luca (bull), Mark (lion) and John (eagle).
The Virgin is in the central apse, that can even symbolize Bethlehem (Belen).
In the lateral walls are characters that are prefiguration of Christ in the Old Testament, like Adam, Abel, Melchizedek, Abraham...
In the lateral apses there are scenes related with the sacrifice to God, like the sacrifice of Isaac, for example.
In the central nave there are representations of the great feasts of the Christian liturgy (Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter ...). In the lateral naves, you could find martyrs, saints, bishops, prophets, distributed hierarchically, ie the closer to the altar, greater importance or devotion.
Finally, in the nartex, appear scenes from the life of the Virgin, coming mainly from the apocryphal Gospels. Can be included the Final Judgment.
Music: Lament for the Fall of Constantinople
Photos taken in Google images.
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