The Imperial Arts

Images of Byzantine emperors served not only to glorify those depicted, but also as media through which subjects articulated their relationships both to individual sovereigns and to the state. The predominant materials, compositional strategies, and social dynamics that constrained such expressions changed substantially over the course of Byzantine history. After the Late Antique system of dedicating monumental bronze statues collapsed in the seventh century, a more flexible set of practices emerged, whose primary expressions were two-dimensional schemata. In the last empire’s last centuries, diplomatic considerations encouraged the production of scenic tableaux, while the closed series of portraits predominated after 1453. The transactional nature of imperial portraiture, the distinction between individual and office, and the representation of emperors as subjects of historical knowledge will repay further research.

Mediating presence: curtains in Middle and Late Byzantine imperial ceremonial and portraiture

Curtains constituted a standard component of the scenography of imperial ceremonies during the Middle and Late Byzantine period. This paper explores how curtains were used to control and ritualise sensory and perceptual access to the sacred person of the emperor and to manipulate emotive response to ritual performances. It also enquires into the way in which curtains, both as material objects and as symbols, were employed by those staging imperial ceremonies in order to articulate and communicate messages regarding the nature of the emperor's authority and his special status vis-à-vis his subjects. Paradoxically, the performative and symbolic potential that ensured the curtains’ use in imperial ceremonies led to their exclusion from the representation of the emperor in imperial portraiture, since post-Iconoclastic art did not admit veiled secrets.