Glorious celebration
Tom Rosenthal
Byzantium: Faith and Power 1261-1557 Metropolitan Museum, New York until 4 July phis exhibition of Byzantine art is the third in a trilogy of broad, sweeping, historical shows at the Metropolitan. In the 1970s they presented the early stages in Age of Spirituality; in 1997 The Glory of Byzantium gave us the middle Byzantine period from 843 to 1261; the current show is an attempt to rehabilitate the final period, thought by many to represent a historic political decline.
After the Fourth Crusade conquered Constantinople in 1204, it effectively terminated more than eight centuries of Byzantine art and culture. It was not until the successful general Michael VIII Palaeologus recaptured Constantinople in 1261 that Byzantine art re-established itself and flourished for the next 300 years, spreading through Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, Russia, Egypt, etc. It is items from this geographical area that make up the Met's current visual feast.
The tone of the art and artefacts is set by a contemporary account of the triumphal entry into Constantinople of Palaeologus in 1261: 'The emperor entered the Golden Gate in a godly rather than an imperial manner. For he walked on foot, with the icon of the Mother of God preceding him... ' Virtually everything on display is religious, devotional: a celebration of an all-powerful Church and the extraordinary zeal of its adherents, and of the richness of the art that inspired and fuelled that zeal. And it isn't just the anticipated icons that move one, even though the icons — mostly in dazzling condition — dominate several
MOMS.
Indeed, this is one of the finest displays of major icons — in most cases either remarkably preserved or at least very skilfully restored — that I've ever seen. Even the Russian examples, for me among the least interesting, are of superb quality and include a majestic work depicting Saints Boris and Gleb. Both of them princes, they were treacherously murdered by their halfbrother and are shown in their pomp as elaborately dressed warriors and martyrs. This icon perfectly illuminates a contemporary mediaeval text: 'You are our weapon, you double-bladed swords, defence and bulwark of the Russian land.'
Perhaps even more affecting is a tiny, exquisitely carved eight-inch-high piece of bone, mounted in silver gilt; a portable icon of the same two saints, executed more than half a millennium ago and immaculately preserved, except that Gleb's left foot has been broken off. The absence of any attempt to create an artistic prosthesis makes this now flawed masterpiece even more significant as an ideal exemplar of the archetypal Byzantine fusion of art and religious belief.
The exhibition has many virtues. Its even-handed representation of paintings, sculptures, carvings, jewellery, coins, medals, frescoes, chunks knocked off buildings, clerical vestments, amulet rolls, miraculously intact glass vases from mid13th-century Syria, even an entire massive chandelier, dramatically hung from the Museum's ceiling, all this gives a unique insight into the length and richness of the period and its huge geographical span. The display is exemplary and indicates the vast financial resources of the Met and its several substantial sponsors for this particular show.
Even the vestments all repay close attention. There are two intensely dramatic sakkoi — a saldcos was an elaborate robe worn on feast days, and then only by patriarchs and a few high-ranking archbishops. The Vatican Sakkos and the so-called Minor Sakkos of Metropolitan Photios are, despite their distinctly showy flamboyance, extraordinarily beautiful in their combination of compelling design, brilliant religious imagery and quite staggering execution in silk, satin, silver and silver-gilt, and coloured thread with pearls.
There are also instructive hybrid examples of paintings which combine Islamic imagery with Byzantine techniques, an entirely appropriate sample page from the Belles Heures of the Due de Berry and a shrewdly selected group of paintings by European masters to show the influence of late Byzantine art and iconography. These include works by Bellini, Van Dyck, Van der Weiden, Mabuse, Gerard David and Memling, whose 'Christ Giving His Blessing' of 1481 is alone worth the price of admission.
This is one of those rare shows where one could profitably spend several weeks studying and absorbing the nearly 400 exhibits from some 30 countries. For those who can't travel to New York, Yale University Press has published the immensely scholarly, 650-page catalogue which, at a hefty £50, is, relative to any recent novel or biography, formidable value with over 800 superb illustrations, mostly in colour. The faith and power of Byzantium have thus been gloriously presented.
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