From Byzantium to El Greco: Greek Frescoes and Icons (Royal
Academy, till 21 June)
Glowing images
Alistair Hicks
Joshua Reynolds may have failed to summon the Aegean blue to the patch of sky above his head in Burlington House's courtyard, but the Academy has recreated the sense of plunging into the cool dark interior of a Greek church. The visitor to the Diploma Galleries is not struck with a dramatic change of temperature, nor are his nos- trils incensed with exotic East- ern smells, but he is cast into darkness. The only light appears from the dull gold glow of the icons. Every effort has been made to encour- age the leap across the Great Chasm between the East and West.
So gloriously presented, there can be no dis- pute that icons are objects of great beauty; they command an instant awe irrespective of their religious function. However, it is an exhibition that demands several visits. Similar- ities with main- stream art may be emphasised, but there is no escaping the context of these paintings. They are intended to aid con- templation. The artist had a captive audi- ence. Contemporary viewers were not going to take one look and walk on.
The traditional view of icons as the fossilisation of the classical tradition is attacked. Most of the works on display were painted before 1500. The majority of them, therefore, were made by artists who lived before the height of the Venetian Renaissance. Prominence is given to the Cretans and others under the sway of Venice after the collapse of the Byzantine Empire (1204).
Far more comparisons can be made between the early examples in the exhibi- tion and contemporary art from major Western centres. The Raising of Lazarus from the first half of the 12th century has a remarkable number of connections with works from Rome, Florence and even Trondheim! This exhibition delights in showing the cross-fertilisation of influ- ences. The Byzantine may have gradually lost its stranglehold on art outside the Eastern Church, but the Cretan icon pain- ters in the 15th century were certainly not painting in a cultural vacuum. After the fall of Constantinople (1453), Crete became the centre of the Greek art world. There was considerable demand for export. There are re- cords showing
Sanctuary doors, Sts George & Demetrius, 15th century orders from merchants for hundreds of im- ages of the Vir- gin for the Flem- ish market. This diverse patron- age ensured an awareness not only of Italian art but Gothic as well.
The bold adv- ances of the Cre- tan icon The En- try into Jeru- salem from the last quarter of the 15th century over a depiction of the same title from Kastoria circa 1400 must be attributed to developments in Tuscany. True the handling and conception are still far more rigid than Duc- cio's Maesta of 150 yearg be- fore, but there were painters in Siena in the lat- ter half of the 15th century who would have shared many of the icon-painter's priori- ties. Men like Sano di Pietro, Giovanni di Paolo and Il Vechietta were known as conservatives, but they were pursuing what they considered to be central themes of art. At best history has allotted them a dishon- ourable mention, but their own times did not judge them so harshly. Until the High Renaissance most of Italy was supporting artists who would have had much in common with the Cretan painters. Christ and the Samaritan Woman from the last quarter of the 15th century is compared in the catalogue with Ambrogio Lorenzetti (who probably died from the plague in 1348), but his well-known landscape in Good and Bad Government was well ahead of its time. Few would actually claim that the icon-painters of the 15th century were great innovators. Indeed The Dormition of St Sabbas is presented in this show as 'A typical example of Cretan painting that strictly follows the traditional style'. Yet it is not totally removed from the wild world of Hieronymus Bosch of roughly the same time It is difficult not to be awed by the icons. Even to the post-Christian spectator they have a distant dignity and majesty. This is overcome by the intensity of the works. Standing in front of The Virgin Kardiotissa, the double-sided icon of The Virgin Hodegetria and St Nicholas, or even the small British Museum St John the Baptist, the presence bores into you. They are not afraid of confrontation, of encouraging one's eyes to play ping-pong with the image. A full circle has been turned since these images were made. Twentieth- century painters now rely on this same concentration of attention. It is no accident that perspective and the exactitude of a Copyist have lost their importance once more.
A brave attempt has been made to include frescoes in this exhibition, but sadly it only gives a very poor indication of the glories of Byzantine wall painting. Some magnificent sanctuary doors, how- ever, make the point that virtually every available space in Greek churches was taken up by some form of visual stimula- tion. A few magnificent frescoes from the 15th century would have established with- out doubt that Byzantine art of that time was very much alive and absorbing new influences. As Manolis Chatzidakis of the Athens Academy writes, 'In Crete, 95 per cent of the surviving Byzantine wall paint- ings — about 900 in all — which vary greatly in quality, were painted in the 14th and 15th centuries — that is, during the Venetian period.' Having established the vitality of this period of Greek icon paint- ing, it might have been interesting to dwell more on the questions that the tradition of icon painting, which survived well into the 19th century, asks of the way we view the history of art.
The exhibition acts as a sensational advertisement for Greece. Maybe the organisers are hoping that once we have been enticed to those white-washed vil- lages and have attemped to escape the mid-day sun by diving into a church, we will then demand of art historians why experimentation has been placed on the highest pedestal. Perhaps the powers that be would just like us to enjoy ourselves?
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