We’ve lost a world of Byzantine art and architecture throughout history, yet what remains reminds us of a culture steeped in spiritual values and traditions.
It all began in 330, when Emperor Constantine established the Eastern Roman Empire in Byzantium, a city on the shores of the Bosphorus Strait, midway between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, where Asia and Europe meet. He renamed it Constantinople, now known as Istanbul.
For over a millennium—from around the 4th century until 1453—the Byzantine Empire left stupendous Christian art and architecture. These divine works divided the devout, causing the destruction of many works and the loss of many lives. In 726, when Emperor Leo III (circa 675–741) tore down the Christ Chalkites icon on the Chalke (bronze) Gate of the Great Palace of Constantinople, it was the first public imperial act of iconoclasm (icon breaking).
The emperor believed he was protecting Christians when he removed the Christ Chalkites icon. It was an act that instigated decades of violent iconoclasts from 726 to 787, and again from 814 to 842. The iconoclasts almost wiped out an entire world of Byzantine art.
The polymath John of Damascus (circa 675–749) spoke out against the iconoclasts in his “Apologia of St. John of Damascus Against Those Who Decry Holy Images”:
“Of old, God the incorporeal and uncircumscribed was never depicted. Now, however, when God is seen clothed in flesh, and conversing with men, (Bar. 3.38) I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. I will not cease from honouring that matter which works my salvation. I venerate it, though not as God.”
Sacred Substance Over Style
Byzantine iconographers led a devout life of prayer, fasting, and meditation. They set their personal artistic styles aside and re-created standardized iconography steeped in centuries-old liturgy and traditions. Experts dating these icons usually have to identify the materials used, as artisans didn’t sign the sacred works.For those unfamiliar with the icon tradition, the figures seem naive. But the stylization was intentional. According to “The Mitchell Beazley Library of Art: Vol. II. The History of Painting and Sculpture Great Traditions”:
“[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.”
Each figure had to feel divine and not be made in the extant image of man. According to “The Oxford Companion to Art”: ”Byzantium shuns earthly man, the individual, and aspires to the superhuman, the divine, the absolute. By stylization it destroys humanity in art and transfuses forms with the numinous quality of symbols.”
When figurative works were forbidden during the Byzantine Iconoclasm, church artisans turned to the natural world, painting and carving low-relief ornate decorative elements such as swirling grape vines and foliage. Mosaics and frescoes dominated church decor along with stone capitals, cornices, screens covered in openwork carving, low-relief carving, or champlevé enamel work (carved recesses filled with enamel).
Christ Pantocrator
Every Orthodox church has a Christ Pantocrator or a variant of it; it’s the most commonly portrayed icon.’ The Greek term “Pantokrator” (Latinized as “Pantocrator”) is a translation of the Hebrew “El Shaddai,” which literally translates as “Almighty” or “Ruler of All.” Although, in the book “His Name Is One: An Ancient Hebrew Perspective on the Names of God,” Bible translator Jeff A. Benner notes: “Because of the vast difference between the ancient Hebrews’ language and our own, as well as the differences in the two cultures, an exact translation [of El Shaddai] is impossible.”Christ Pantocrator is often seen on the dome of the Catholicon (the central building of the Eastern Orthodox Church).
The earliest known Christ Pantocrator icon dates from the sixth century, in St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, Egypt. Sinai’s remote location saved the icon from destruction during the Iconoclasm.
Painted in encaustic (hot wax paint), this half-length portrait is steeped in sacred meaning. The artisan rendered Christ realistically. Encaustic painting almost mirrors the handling of oil paint, allowing artisans to show luminous forms and to breathe lifelike qualities into their works. Yet Christ’s asymmetrical facial features aren’t natural. They’re deliberately made to depict Christ’s dual nature: his humanity and divinity. His left eye stares toward the viewer, and his right eye focuses on the heavens. A golden nimbus, with a faint red cross and stars eroded by time, surrounds Christ’s head.
Christ raises his right hand in a blessing gesture, with his fingers signing the letters I, C, and X: the Greek christogram “IC XC” of “ΙΗϹΟΥϹ ΧΡΙϹΤΟϹ.” Christ is flanked by the letters “IC” (Jesus) and “XC” (Christ). He tucks a jewel-encrusted Book of the Gospels under his left arm.
Some experts speculate that the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet—alpha and omega—are on the architectural recess behind Christ. These letters refer to Christ’s omnipotence and his proclamation in the Bible that he is the alpha and the omega: the beginning and ending of everything.
Church Icons
Between 867 and 1204 (just before the Crusaders’ sacking of Constantinople), a Macedonian Renaissance occurred. Byzantine artisans restored and repaired the churches and buildings damaged during the Iconoclast era, making great sacred works of art, objects, and architecture.Europe admired these sacred Byzantine treasures and the golden city of Constantinople. Even the empire’s enemies adored its style, such as the Norman king Roger II of Sicily (1095–1154), who imported Byzantine artisans to create the mosaics in Cefalù Cathedral.
One of the best-known Christ Pantocrator mosaics is the 13th-century Deesis (Christ flanked by the Virgin and St. John the Baptist) of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. It’s an intercession icon, wherein the Virgin and St. John the Baptist pray to Christ asking him to save humanity.
In the late 1930s, the Byzantine Institute of America restored the mosaics after they’d been rediscovered under layers of plaster and not seen since around 1840. According to icon painter Bob Atchison’s website, the plaster damaged and eroded some of the mosaics.
Created between 1261 and 1300, the Deesis mosaic replaces a much earlier work that was destroyed. The artisan rendered each figure realistically, even using the natural light entering the church window on the left as the light source in the mosaic. “One of the things about the mosaic of the Deesis is the light rakes across the surface and dives into transparent glass cubes. This both lightens them in color and charges them up with an unearthly energy,” wrote art restorer George Holt, of Bennington College, Vermont, in 1939.
The Byzantine Institute of America painted a full-scale replica of the Deesis mosaic, which now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City.
The Deesis icon later featured in the Deesis tier of the iconostasis. An iconostasis is a tiered wall of icons between the nave and the sanctuary in Orthodox churches.
In churches, Byzantine artisans later replaced mosaics and encaustic painting in favor of cheaper fresco painting.
Some 13 centuries after the Sinai Christ Pantocrator, a 19th-century fresco on the apse of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem echoes the icon. Christ wears a red tunic (chiton) and a blue cloak (himation). He tightly holds the Gospels in his arm and makes a blessing gesture with his other hand. A rainbow halo surrounds his golden nimbus, and three Greek letters on the cross mean “He Who Is.” In the Orthodox Arts Journal, Father Steven Bigham explains that these words were uttered to Moses on Mount Sinai when he asked to whom he was speaking. The original Hebrew words have been translated in Greek as “Yahweh.”
Portable Icons
In addition to the large church icons, artisans made smaller works for personal devotion, from simple stone carvings to elaborate jewelry and intricate ivory triptychs.
An early 12th-century, double-sided, gold cloisonné enamel pendant with the Virgin on one side and Christ Pantocrator on the other, demonstrates Constantinople artisans’ skills. The Met calls it “one of the most beautiful and technically accomplished personal devotional objects to survive from Byzantium.”
The same elements of Christ Pantocrator seen in the earlier examples of the icon are all present, but here they’re deftly set in gold cloisonné enamel. The letters “OB” and “TA,” above and below Christ, respectively, indicate “OBTA” (King of Glory).
The ivory “Harbaville Triptych,” at the Louvre Museum in Paris, shows the Deesis with saints. Between 940 and 960, a Byzantine artisan carved it in high relief and with incredible detail. The Deesis shows Christ Enthroned (a version of Christ Pantocrator) in the center, flanked by St. John the Baptist and the Virgin, who make their prayer for humanity just as in the Hagia Sophia Deesis mosaic. Busts of two angels hover around Christ’s head. The artisan labeled each figure, such as the five apostles standing below the Deesis.
Few Byzantine figurative artworks survived the Iconoclast period, but the divine and eternal language of icons endures throughout the Christian world.
According to “The Mitchell Beazley Library of Art: Vol. II. The History of Painting and Sculpture Great Traditions”:
“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 [southeastern Europe], while in Italy the Byzantine strain (mingling with Gothic) persisted in the new art founded by Duccio and Giotto.”
Anyone can appreciate these wondrous Byzantine treasures. Byzantine icons have lit many a divine flame in devout and faithful hearts.
