To the Issue Concerning a Byzantine Iconostasis in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, the 19th – Beginning of the 20th Centuries

The purpose of the article is to discover the issue of creating the Byzantine iconostasis in the artistic decoration of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra in the 19th – early 20th centuries a case study of the Great Pechersk Church (the Dormition Cathedral). The methodology is based on complex using historical and cultural analysis, and art study analysis. Scientific novelty. Milestones of creating the Byzantine style iconostasis in the Dormition Cathedral during the 19th – Early 20th centuries have been discovered. The cultural and artistic basis for implementing the idea of Byzantine iconostasis in 1845–1847, 1890–1900s has been revealed according to the text and visual records introduced into scientific circulation. The dominant role of the main iconostasis for the image of side-altars’ new iconostasis has been determined. The conservatism of religious personages who wanted to preserve the features of the previous iconostasis (height, number of tiers, the old icons, etc.) has been proved. It is determined that the sacred value of some icons was more important as a stylistic priority and it barely led to the replacement of the material of the iconostasis (silver instead of marble that traditional for Byzantine iconostases). Published photos of the Big iconostasis and the approved draft of the main iconostasis with the author of autographs (photos from the collection of the National Reserve “Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra”). It has been found out distinguished Ukrainian art historian H. Pavlutskyi in one of them. The autonomy of the iconostases style of the mural paintings style in the Great Pechersk Church decoration has been proved. Conclusions. The attempt to realize the idea of the Byzantine iconostasis in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra’s Great Church in 1845–1847 created a precedent of the inconsistency of the artistic style of iconostasis and mural painting. The Byzantine style iconostasis hypothetically could exist in the spacious Baroque plastic art. Conversely, the complex of Baroque iconostases existed independently of the wall form performed in accordance with the Byzantine tradition at the turn of the 19th and the 20th century. The polemic pointed around the main iconostasis, a new іmage of other iconostases designed in a complex with it. The baroque tradition was implemented in the new iconostasis projects. The monks perceived a change in mural paintings but they considered some icons by sacral constants in the Great Church. The Big iconostasis without upper tiers with the Byzantine cross was the victory of the Baroque tradition. The preservation of Baroque iconostases was a testimony of their stylistic autonomy from the mural painting decorated in Byzantine style. Key words: sacral culture, Orthodoxy, Byzantine art, Baroque art, iconostasis, sacral mural painting, KyivPechersk Lavra, Dormition Cathedral.

Sicilian Byzantine Icons through the Use of Non-Invasive Imaging Techniques and Optical Spectroscopy: The Case of the Madonna dell’Elemosina

The iconographic heritage is one of the treasures of Byzantine art that have enriched the south of Italy, and Sicily in particular, since the early 16th century. In this work, the investigations of a Sicilian Icon of Greek-Byzantine origin, the Madonna dell’Elemosina, is reported for the first time. The study was carried out using mainly non-invasive imaging techniques (photography in reflectance and grazing visible light, UV fluorescence, infrared reflectography, radiography, and computed tomography) and spectroscopic techniques (X-ray fluorescence and infrared spectroscopy). The identification of the constituent materials provides a decisive contribution to the correct historical and artistic placement of the Icon, a treasure of the Eastern European historical community in Sicily. Some hidden details have also been highlighted. Most importantly, the information obtained enables us to define its conservation state, the presence of foreign materials, and to direct its protection and restoration.

Byzantine Art and Perception

Byzantine art preferred chameleonic materials such as gold, glass, jewels, and variegated marbles with which to make images and shape architectural space. When set in shifting diurnal light and the flicker of candles, the variegated surfaces of the icon and ecclesiastical interiors produced a spectacle of shifting appearances, or poikilia. Both before and after Iconoclasm, ekphrasis explicitly trained the viewer’s perception to interpret these phenomena as manifestations of the ephemeral dwelling of the metaphysical in matter. Focusing on three examples—the ambo and apse mosaics in Hagia Sophia and the portable icon of the Archangel—this essay explores how the perception of animation of the icons and architectural interior emerge out of the synergy among material images, imagined visions, and ekphrasis.

The Byzantine Arts and Byzantine Literature

This chapter examines the relationships between literary and visual forms in Byzantium. Both in the Early and in the later Byzantine periods there were clear parallels between the ways that literary and visual compositions were structured, whether through the rhetorical techniques of repetition, variation, and acrostic in Early Byzantine art, or through comparison and antithesis along with the selective realism of ekphrasis and ethopoiia, after Iconoclasm. These parallels involved both fundamental principles of design and organization and more isolated instances of quotation, raising the complex question of whether one medium can be said to have exerted influence on the other, or whether the same forms occurred in literature and the visual arts as parallel expressions of common habits of thought.

Magic and Byzantine Art

The term magic has been long understood as problematic. Studies of Byzantine magic have rapidly developed over the past several decades, and have come to suggest various ways of understanding the term. Two Early Byzantine amulets, serving as case studies, display conventional linguistic structures, including persuasive analogy, speech-acts, and show-acts. These linguistic structures and ways of organizing information operate equally in religious, medical, and philosophical examples. Accordingly, art and texts of ritual power exemplify intersecting communities of thought and are useful for interpreting various types of social practices. Magic studies are interdisciplinary, and as such they open new directions for the history of Byzantine art, Byzantine religion, Byzantine mentalities, Byzantine women, Byzantine Jews, and even a history of the Byzantine “individual.”

Italy, the Crusader States, and Cyprus

The Roman and Byzantine heritage provided a background for art in Italy from the time of Justinian until the Renaissance. Mosaics in Norman Palermo and medieval Venice served as hallmarks of polities striving to advertise their imperial pedigrees, while reliquaries and diplomatic gifts adorned in the Byzantine techniques of enamel and encrustation offered a link with venerated traditions. Later stylistic borrowings from Byzantium (known as maniera greca) marked Italian religious imagery. Byzantine art was also a major source in Crusader art as well as in Cyprus, which was a Byzantine province with close ties to Constantinople. In the Holy Land and medieval Greece the Byzantine past remained active in both architecture—secular and religious—as well as in painting.

Spolia in Byzantine Art and Architecture

This article discusses the use of spolia in Byzantium from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. The varied practices of reuse are analyzed by presenting examples from sacred and secular environments, ranging from monuments in Constantinople (serpent column, obelisk) and Nicopolis (ambo) to architectural fragments and sculpted reliefs in fortifications (Nicaea) and churches (Skripou, Merbaka, Little Metropolis Athens). Some twenty possible motivations for reuse are proposed. The problems of establishing precise meanings and the changing meanings over time are addressed. Finally, the article suggests some future directions for research, including object biography and an aesthetics of spolia.

South Slavic Lands

The reception of Byzantine art among the South Slavs began with their conversion to Christianity in the ninth century. Bulgaria and Serbia were the largest medieval states, covering most of the territory of the Balkan Peninsula. With the development and strengthening of political power of these kingdoms, more influences from Byzantium penetrated the state administration and society. Art production mostly relied on the patronage of local rulers, nobles, or prelates, who were able to bring the best artists from Byzantine centers or those trained in Byzantine workshops. This resulted in the intermingling of Byzantine traditions and skills and local patrons’ desires for creating artistic programs and objects with political and national content.