Sailing to Byzantium II

Key Terms: icon, iconography, iconoclasm, Byzantine, mosaic,

Byzantine Art and Architecture

Berlinghiero, Madonna and Child, 1230

from the Web Gallery of Art, a definition of Byzantine art: The art of the Byzantine Empire, which had its capital in Constantinople (Byzantium), from the 5th century to the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. Based largely on Roman and Greek art, Byzantine art also absorbed a wide of influences, notable from Syria and Egypt. Byzantine art was essentially a spiritual and religious art, its forms highly stylized, hieratic and unchanging (central images were thought to derive from original portraits). It also served to glorify the emperor. Among its most distinctive products were icons, mosaics, manuscript illuminations, and work in precious metals. The strong influence of the Byzantine style on medieval Italian painting can be seen in the works of Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto.

A different definition governs the use of byzantine in popular conversation. There, we use byzantine to mean complicated to the point of deceptive or at least confusing. That definition probably comes out of the Renaissance distaste for Byzantine art.

byzantine
a. Of, relating to, or characterized by intrigue; scheming or devious: "a fine hand for Byzantine deals and cozy arrangements" (New York).
b. Highly complicated; intricate and involved: a bill to simplify the byzantine tax structure.

Then, some terms important to understanding Byzantine Art.

Words associated with the Byzantine that you should know.
Icon:
a. An image; a representation.
b. A representation or picture of a sacred or sanctified Christian personage, traditionally used and venerated in the Eastern Church.

Iconography
a. Pictorial illustration of a subject.
b. The collected representations illustrating a subject.

Iconoclasm

1. the practice of destroying images, especially those created for religious veneration.

2. the practice of opposing cherished beliefs or traditional institutions as being founded on error or superstition.

3. the doctrines underlying these practices. — iconoclast, n. — iconoclastic, adj.

Orthodoxy the condition, quality, or practice of conforming, especially in religious belief.

Then, let's get even more confusing, for matters of taste prove fickle. By the late 19th century, the Byzantine Art had swung back into favor, not with all but with many. So much so that William Butler Yeats used the style to express Beauty, Permanence, Imagination, an Ideal of Art, Monument to unageing intellect in his poem "Sailing to Byzantium."

How does architecture achieve meaning? In the case of Byzantine, architects sought to use the church as a metaphor for the ideal christian, plain but perfectly ordered on the outside: 

The Mauseleum of Galla Placidia, in Ravenna, 425-450 CE, exemplifies the ideal of Byzantine architecture. Unassuming, yet perfectly detailed on the outside, and on the plan of a cross, and, on the inside: 

Ceiling of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna
dazzling with jewels and gold as the christian soul is supposed to be.

\

San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy, 547 CE, Byzantine

Early Christian style, full of poetic secrecy and cryptic symbols, gave way to Byzantine art by about 400 ce. The artwork of the Eastern Roman Empire, generally called the Byzantine Empire because Emperor Constantine I relocated the capital city to Constantinople, on the site of the ancient city of Byzantium, now known as Istanbul, Turkey. 

For the Modern Irish Poet William Butler Yeats, Byzantine art stood for an ideal of perfection and permanence. Listen to Yeats reading his poem "Sailing to Byzantium" from 1928. In this segment you'll here the full poem read by the author followed by a second reading briefly annotated by images and commentary by me. 

Sailing to Byzantium
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;




And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

Baptism of Christ Mosaic, Arian Monastery, Ravenna, 550 ceO sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Dome Mosaic, , Ravenna, 6th c

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

William Butler Yeats, 1928
here's a straightforward page for help with the poem, but make sure you draw your own conclusions, too.


Next, we'll look at the largest monument of Byzantine Architecture, the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (another key work!). Constructed from 532-537 ce, the Hagia Sophia, or Church of Holy Wisdom, remained a Christian place of worship until 1453, when Turks re-consecrated it as an Islamic Mosque, which it remained until becoming a museum to its own history in 1935 which it remains today.

Hagia Sophia, 360 ce, Byzantine Cathedral, Istanbul, Turkey

interior of the Hagia Sophia, described in a long ekphrasis by Paul the Silentiary, thus: "The roof is compacted of gilded tesserae from which a glittering stream of golden rays pours abundantly and strikes men's eyes with irresistible force. It is as if one were gazing at the midday sun in spring, when he gilds each mountain top." 


Icons, Iconography, Iconoclasts.

Empress Theodora and her Attendants, Apse Mosaic, San Vitale, Ravenna, 550 ce. (399)

Russian orthodox church in Pennsylvania that Andy Warhol's family attended.

St Sava Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church NYC

In this segment, you'll see the keywork the Basilica-style church of San Vitale in Ravenna.For an expansion on this material, and introduction to the materials for next week, watch the following video.
As you look at the following segment, consider the differences you see in artistic styles from the Roman emphasis on colossal architecture to Christian emphasis on clear narration of specific stories. Make good notes, and pause the video several times to take time to describe some Early Christian artworks. After watching this video, you should know a bit about the emergence of art associated with early Christianity in the Roman Empire and the 'Ancient Near East' (that is, present day Turkey, Syria, and Iraq).

Early Christian Introduction from betsy towns on Vimeo.

Great resource on Early Christian Art here

More info on Byzantine art.

Stylistic Analysis and so many containers

 

Stylistic Analysis: we're taking a break from looking at art through the lenses history, geographically and chronologically; today we turn to STYLE and PURPOSE. 

Paraphrasing philosopher Berel Lang,  Style is not only not a science, it's a version of fiction – a narrative form ... in which one feature is an ingredient in all the others. In other words, to decisively name a style like "Old Kingdom Egyptian" or "Minoan", we'd have to see the feature we're identifying in all of the objects. Nonetheless, looking at stylistic attributes help us hone the tools of observation, finding connections and contrasts that can help build our capacities to see and ask questions. Here's the link to the exercise

Technique

• Was the object or image built up by adding material, or was it created by carving away material?
• What kind of paint or finish was added to the material?
• Does the technique seem methodical or spontaneous? How so?

Color

• What colors are present? How are the colors arranged?
• Do the colors appear saturated or muted?
• Are the colors warm or cool?
• Do the colors complement one another or does one clash with the others?
• 
  

Texture

• Does the material have a physical texture? How would you describe it? What creates the texture?
• Does the material simulate or imply texture in some way, even if on a flat surface? How so?

Line

• Are contour lines present?
• How would you describe the quality and direction of the lines (for example, heavy or thin, rough or smooth, short or long, horizontal, vertical, or diagonal)?
• How do lines create movement or a sense of direction?
• What are any figures depicted looking at or gesturing towards?

Shape

• Are the figures naturalistic or abstract?
• Are the forms geometric or organic?
• How do shapes repeat throughout the composition?
• For figures, are the proportions distorted, elongated, or idealized?
• What kinds of shapes are formed from the negative space?
• 
  

(Probably for another day, another analysis: Composition

• How are all the different components of the object or image arranged?
• What do you notice first, and why?
• How does the work lead you through the composition?
• Is the composition symmetrical or asymmetrical? If asymmetrical, is the composition balanced in some way?)

*Questions from UNC-Chapel Hill's writiing center

Counting Containers

I'm tying today's work to containers because I spent an awful lot of time in museums in the last 6 months, and I became overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of 2-3000 year old containers in museums. Why and How? 

Canopic Jars, Late Period New Kingdom Egypt, ~650 bce stone

From wikipedia-- regarding the jars with iconographic heads, particularly those with religious significance from the late period. 

"Following the Nineteenth Dynasty canopic jars stylistically were carved to represent the four sons of Horus. Each of Horus's sons, along with a companion goddess, were responsible for protecting a particular organ and represented a cardinal direction:^[15]

• Hapi: the baboon-headed god representing the North was protected by the goddess Nephthys and was assigned to the lungs;
• Duamutef: the jackal-headed god representing the East was protected by the goddess Neith and was assigned to the stomach;
• Imseti: the human-headed god representing the South was protected by the goddess Isis and was assigned to the liver;
• Qebehsenuef: the falcon-headed god representing the West was protected by the goddess Serket and was assigned to the intestines"







Canopic Jars, Ancient Egypt, ~600 bce

Amphorae in the tomb of Tutankhamun, ~1327

Wine Amphora, ~1500 BCE, Ancient Egypt

Vessels in the Etruscan Museum, Rome

Wine Amphora, Pompeii, 79 CE, Ancient Rome

      

Possibly made by Brygos, Greek Potter, Rhyton drinking cup in the shape of a dog's head, between 490-470 BC.

Villa Giulia, Etruscan Museum, Rome

Villa Giulia, 

Krater from Dipylon Cemetary, 730-735 bce, terra cotta, 43" tall

Ancestral Puebloan,  900-1150, North American Southwest, Mesa Verde Colorado: 

• Basketmaker III (500 - 750 CE)
• Pueblo I  (750 – 900 CE)
• Pueblo II  (900 – 1150 CE)
• CLASSIC PUEBLO PERIOD (1100 - 1300 CE)/Pueblo III
  

Animal Vase, terra cotta,  ~850-1150 CE, Ancestral Puebloan, 

Ancestral Puebloan, North American Southwest, Mesa Verde Colorado: 

• Basketmaker III (A.D. 500 - 750)
• Pueblo I  (A.D. 750 – 900)
• Pueblo II  (A.D. 900 – 1150)
• CLASSIC PUEBLO PERIOD (A.D. 1100 - 1300)/Pueblo III

Worth 1000 Words: Discovering Lascaux

One day in 1940, four teenagers,

Marcel Ravidat, 











Jacques Marsal, 










Georges Agniel, 

Simon Coencas, 

And a dog named Robot

adventured in search of legendary treasure in the French woodlands. Robot took the adventure a step further getting stuck in a hole beneath the roots of a recently-fallen oak. Pulling Robot to safety, the boys discovered that the hole went on and on. They slid one by one down a tunnel, deep into a cave. At 14, Jacques was the youngest, and reported his terror at sliding down the deep shaft (what beasts would they find? How would they get out?) and his incredible awe on arrival.

Two of the discoverers with their teacher Laval and paleontologist Abbe Breuil after the cave opening had been greatly widened. Can't find the photographer to credit!

At the bottom of the shaft, they found a cavern 100 feet long and 20 wide, painted with layers of animals that pranced to life as if freshly conceived across the ceiling of the great hall of the cave of Lascaux, what would come to be known as “The Sistine Ceiling of the Paleolithic.”

Lascaux photograph Sisse Brimberg National Geographic, Sistine Ceiling photo Wikipedia. 

The boys returned day after day, soon relinquishing their vow of secrecy, for treasure they had found. They introduced commerce to the site, charging admission first to their friends, and then to a wider audience. 

The "young heroes", with their teacher and famous paleontologist Abbe Breuil. Can't find the photographer to credit!
Marsal became so obsessed with protecting the cave that his parents finally gave him permission to set up a tent and guard the site day and night from potential vandals (or would they be street artists, or graffiti-makers? )

The boys brought their teacher, Leon Laval, an amateur paleontologist, who described the experience like this:  “Once I arrived in the great hall accompanied by my young heroes, I uttered cries of admiration at the magnificent sight that met my eyes.... Thus I visited the galleries and remained just as enthusiastic when confronted with the unexpected revelations which increased as I advanced. I had literally gone mad.” 

Mad for the past: Amateur paleontologist Leon Laval. And what he saw. (source)


The cave captured the imagination of the time; their visual similarity to the work of artists of that time caused Picasso’s gasp, “we have invented nothing.” Their fluidity of line, gestural liveliness and direct power belied their age, which, it soon emerged, was between 15 and 20,ooo years old, when Neanderthals and modern humans coexisted in Europe and lived as hunter gatherers.

Bulls from Lascaux Great Hall, Pablo Picasso, Bull Prints, 1945

Getty image, stairs to original Lascaux, source. 

Soon 1200 visitors a day traipsed through the cave, every breath they expelled in their awe wreaked havoc on its wonders. The atmosphere changed drastically, causing mineral deposits to form on the paintings. To solve this problem, the custodians installed new climate controls with nearly disastrous results.  


Workers seeking to control the fungal and bacterial growth destroying the paintings. source. 

A virulent mold began to grow on the interior of the cave, threatening, in a matter of days, to destroy the paintings that had existed in silence for 20,000 years. So cave authorities poured four tons of quicklime on the cave floor, raising the temperature rapidly, causing moisture to condense on the walls and wash away some portions of paintings. Lascaux remains off limits today; only a handful of scientists and scholars get permission to enter the cave each year. Destruction seems to have stabilized, and lessons learned from the modern damage to Lascaux govern archeological practices strictly today. To accommodate our desire for amazement, authorities funded the creation of exact replicas of two of the ‘rooms’ of Lascaux 200 yards from the original cave.

Images from Lascaux II, carved in the same hillside as the original. source 

The cave contains 2,000 images, including more than 900 animals, abstract signs, and human figures.

Images of horses dominate. 

Ralph Morse—Time/ Life Pictures/Getty Images Inside Lascaux, 1947. Read more: http://life.time.com/culture/inside-lascaux-rare-photos/attachment/111142669/#ixzz24yTGnfSp

Stags and bovines follow in frequency, and there are a few images of felines, humans, rhinocerous.
 

There are no representations of reindeer or plants, though those were the primary food, nor  representations of landcape or dwellings. Many animals display a high degree of naturalism in their execution, and sophisticated use of perspective and composition. This skill combined with the way that artists layered image atop image over thousands of years builds the whole into what looked to modern eyes as a highly contemporary style. The unified but diverse palette of color, form, style and content make Lascaux as a whole an exceptional masterpiece. That hundreds or of hands painted it over thousands of years makes the artwork a human one, rather than an individual, and perhaps adds to its near-universal appeal.

Entering Lascaux cave you walk first into the great Hall of the Bulls, where a wide band of decoration at ceiling height shows 36 animals including 17 horses, auroxes, stags, a bear,  Holes near the ceiling suggest that the artists used scaffolding to reach the heights of the ceiling on which they worked.

Great Hall of the Bulls, Lascaux, wikipedia

At the end of the Hall, you enter the Axial Gallery, which houses some of the most sophisticated collections of art from any time.  Artists painted three large horses, in red, black, and ochre. 











The horses rock across the cave walls with a grace that defies their exaggeratedly plump proportions, some right side up, 














some upside down, some barely missed by what look like arrows. All have exquisitely well-rendered, small, graceful black heads and dainty black hooves. 















No artist rivaled the perspective achieved with the horses,  in 

The Crossed Bison, Photo: © Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images, http://life.time.com/culture/inside-lascaux-rare-unpublished/#1

the crossed bison, for about 20,000 years, until approximately 1500 c.e. with the Italian Renaissance.

Photo and text: © Norbert Aujoulat, CNP, Ministere de la Culture, 2004

Turning back from the axial gallery, one can bear off to the left to enter the passageway that leads on the right to the apseof  Lascaux , and on the left to the nave. That paleontologists named these sections of the cave after church architecture indicates their early theory, which further discoveries and study have reinforced, that the painted caves served a spiritual function. 

In a narrow, difficult to reach passage is one of the most mysterious paintings of Lascaux. Paleontologist Jean Clottes, describes the scene: “This scene consists of a man with a bird’s head, a composite creature, falling backwards in front of a charging bison. The bison, its hindquarters pierced by a barbed shaft, is disemboweled. A bird perches on a post. There is another barbed sign under the bird-man’s feet. Death—that of the bird-man and of the bison—is obviously a prominent theme of this mysterious panel, and the bird a significant motif.” Clottes’ focuses on the relationship between the hunt and death.

The images in the Shaft of the Dead Man, image source: Reddit.  

People have also read the scene as a rite of passage involving totem animals with the bird-headed man suggesting a shaman; others see the scene as evidence the conception of the passage from life to death; another reading sees a sacrificial offering to the hunt. Astronomers find that the eyes of the bull, birdman and bird represent the three prominent stars of the Summer Triangle: Vega, Deneb and Altair, suggesting the cave may hold a map of the stars, full of animal constellations. Other scholars think the combination of animals and geometric patterns depict visions achieved in trance-dancing, a theory which explains the distribution of similar styles across the world.

Chauvet Cave (key work!)

Modern Relationships

30,000 years ago, artists painted on the walls of caves, and painted over paintings, and painted over those paintings, beginning a tradition of painting on walls that has lasted into today. Examples of graffiti exist around the world since the dawn of Cro-Magnon humans, in the Americas, Oceania, Africa and Asia. Later, we find graffiti in Parisian catacombs, 

the brothels of Pompeii, the great monuments of Egypt, nearly everywhen and everywhere.

 The boldly sprayed graffiti of the NY heyday in the late 1970s starring Fab Five Freddie 


and Jean-Michel Basquiat set the most recognizable style of street art, built on traincar graffiti from the 1920’s and  protest graffiti from WW II and Vietnam. In the nineties, artists like 


Barbara Kruger

 
and Jenny Holzer worked both the gallery and street scene on billboards and handbills in a hybrid of street art, gallery art, guerrilla social justice, and advertising. That work may have initiated the crossover between street art and so-called ‘fine art’ that we see in 

Banksy, 


Swoon, 

 and JR

Today’s street artists may share more than you might conceive with the nameless first artists of the deepest history. Contemporary street artists and cave painters work in a world of risk (In Lascaux, risks included asphyxiation, starvation, bodily harm, rockslides, and getting permanently lost in pitch blackness). Today, street artists may face bodily harm, at the hands of property owners or police, and they risk legal recriminations. They inhabit dark alleys, and make work without hope of profit. The best known street artists today make work that delves deeply consequential topics that impact viewers powerfully. Their work demands confidence and the ability to achieve quality quickly despite formidable circumstances. Stone Age paintings share all these traits, and one other: young adult men dominate the world of street art, and they made most of the Paleolithic cave paintings.

So

Why do artists creep about at night , often taking extraordinary risks, to make pictures on Walls for which they will receive no public credit? Why do they need to leave their mark on public property? Why the gesture to paint and paint over and paint over again without the promise of permanence (immortality of the artist) or money or fame? What 5 works of art should everyone know from Prehistory? What can they tell us? How can we read art? (you’ll probably need to draw on both today’s and Tuesday’s materials.)

Marcel Ravidat, Simon Coencas, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel in 2010. Not shown: Robot, deceased.  

many artists, Cave of the Hands, Cueva de los Manos, 7,300 bce to 700 CE,  Archaic

Hand Prints and possible Guanacos and human figures, Cueva de los Manos, 7300 bce-700 CE, Archaic, present-day Argentina, oldest art in South American Continent. 

Hand stencils from Laeng Sakapao (nmore info). Some hand paintings at this site are least 39,000 YA. 

 "

Lascaux cave paintings replica workshop. The original Lascaux cave was closed to the public in 1963, with the Lascaux II replica opening nearby in 1983. Here, a restorer, in a workshop in Montignac, is testing the bamboo projection method of forming a hand print outline (example shown at right). The Lascaux cave paintings in south-western France, around 17,000 years old, were painted by Cro-Magnon man, an early European culture of modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens), using red, brown and yellow ochre, and black manganese dioxide. They may have had religious and artistic significance. Photographed in 2010." Source

Leang Sukapao. at least 34kya.  Leang Sukapao holds the Oldest representational art yet found on the globe.