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INTRODUCTION When Otto Demus published his Byzantine Mosaic Decoration Aspects of Monumental Art in Byzantium (148), it was noted that this was the first work to examine Byzantine mosaics in close relationship to their architectural context and to the religious outlook they served. Demus concentrates on the Middle Byzantine system of mosaic decoration (i.e., from the end of the ninth to the end of the eleventh century), for it was then, after the termination of the Iconoclastic Controversy which had begun around the second quarter of the eighth century, that Byzantine art and thought seem to have achieved harmonic balance. However, in a section of the book not drawn upon for the following selection, Demus surveys the sources of the Middle Byzantine system, its historical genesis and aftermath, providing the reader who turns to the entire work a good overview of Byzantine art in broader perspective. Of particular interest to the reader of this selection from DemusÕs study is the explan~tion of the nature and significance of the icon, its place in the total decorative scheme of the Byzantine church, and the reciprocal relationship between image and viewer.For further reading on Byzantine art there are D. V. AinalovÕs The Hellenistic Origins of Byzantine Art (161), first published in Russian in 100; Kurt Weitzmann, Greek Mythology in Byzantine Art (151); Ernst Kitzinger,The Hellenistic Heritage in Byzantine Art, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, XVII (16), 8115; two works by John Beckwith, The Art of Constantinople (161) and Early Christian and Byzantine Art (170); two popular, well-illustrated works, Andre Grabar, Byzantine Painting (15), and David Talbot Rice, The Art of Byzantium (15); Richard Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture (165); 0. M. Dalton, Byzantine Art and Archaeology (165), a reprint of a work published in 111, but still useful for its survey of a wide range of Byzantine art forms; Otto Demus,
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The Mosaics of Norman Sicily (150); Kurt Weitzmann, The Fresco Cycle of S. Maria di Castelseprio (151); L. Ouspensky and V. Lossky, The Meaning of Icons (16); and David and Tamara Talbot Rice, Icons and Their History. C. R. MoreyÕs Early Christian Art, nd ed. (15), has valuable sections on the art of Ravenna; and Cyril MangoÕsMaterials for the Study of the Mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul, Dumbarton Oaks Studies, VIII (16), is useful for its treatment of the existing mosaics and the publication of documents relating to them. S. K. KostofÕs The Orthodox Baptistry of Ravenna, a fine monograph on an important monument of Ravennate art, stresses the relationship it bears to the art of Byzantium. In The Dome A Study in the History of Ideas (150), Earl Baldwin Smith traces the origins and~meaning of this important feature of both Byzantine and Islamic architecture. If they are considered as isolated works, Byzantine monumental paintings lose something of their essentialvalue. They were not created as independent pictures. Their relation to each other, to their architectural framework and to the beholder must have been a principal concern of their creators. In the case of church decorationthe field in which Byzantine art rose, perhaps, to its greatest heightsthe single works are parts of an organic, hardly divisible whole which is built up according to certain fixed principles. In the classical period of middle Byzantine artthat is, from the end of the ninth to the end of the eleventh centurythese principles seem to form a fairly consistent whole, in which certain features are permissible and even necessary, while others, considered out of keeping with them, are avoided. This system was not purely a formalistic one; it was the theologianÕs concern as much as the artistÕ~1 But its iconographical and its formal sides are but different aspects of a single underlying principle which might be defined, crudely perhaps, as the establishment of an intimate relationship between the world of the beholder and the world of the image. This relationship was certainly closer in Byzantine than it was in Western mediaeval art.~ Byzantium the beholder was not kept at a distance from the image; he entered within its aura of sanctity, and the image, in turn, partook of the space in which he moved. He was not so much abeholder as aparticipant. While it does not aim at illusion, Byzantine religious art abolishes all clear distinction between the world of reality and the world of appearance.The complete realization of the formal and iconographic scheme which grew out of this fundamental principle is, however, an ideal or, at least, an optimal case. The nearest approach to this ideal, the classical solution, is embodied in the mosaic decorations of the great monastic churches of the eleventh century. The principles followed in these monuments of Imperial piety and munificence differ widely from those which underlie early Christian and pre-Iconoclast Byzantine, and still more Western medi~vaJ decorations.The first thing which strikes the student of middle Byzantine decorative schemes is the comparatively narrow range of their subject-matter. They show a lack of invention and imagination all the more remarkable when we realize that there existed at the same time in Byzantium a powerful current of highly imaginative art which had its source in the naive imagery of the people. But this current seems to have found expression not so much in monumental painting (save in the provincial hinterland) as in the illustration of popular religious literature, homiletic or allegorical, even of Scriptural books such as the Psalter or liturgical compositions such as the Akathistos. In illustrating such texts as these the miniaturists could draw on the store of antique, sub-antique and Oriental imagery which lent itself to an associative elaboration of the written word. No such freedom was either claimed by or permitted to the artists who, as the representatives of official hieratic art, adorned the mosaic-decorated churches of the Byzantine middle ages. The moralistic vein which so greatly influencedthe decoration of Western cathedrals, with their didactic and ethical cycles, was likewise entirely outside the Byzantine range. The occupations and labours of the months, for instance, the personified virtues and vices, the allegories of the liberal arts, the expression of eschatological fears and hopes, all that makes up the monumental speculum universale of Western decorations,1 we shall look for in vain inside the magic circle of middle Byzantine mosaic compositions. These latter are to be taken as the Byzantine ChurchÕs representation of itself rather than of Greek or Eastern Christianity; as the product of abstract theology rather than of popular piety. There is nothing original, nothing individual, about middle Byzantine decorations if they are considered from the Western point of view, that is, with regard to their contents. The individual pictures do not aim at evoking the emotions of pity, fear or hope; any such appeal would have been felt as all too human, too theatrical, and out of tune with the tenor of religious assurance which pervades the ensembles and leaves no room for spiritual and moral problems. The pictures make their appeal to the beholder not as an individual human being, a soul to be saved, as it were, but as a member of the Church, with his own assigned place in the hierarchical organization. The stress is not laid on the single picture in isolation that iscommon form to the beholder, since it follows a strict iconographic type, like the suras of the Koran in Islamic decoration, which all the faithful know by heart. The point of interest is rather the combination of the single 170 items of the decoration, their relationship to each other and to the whole. It is in this arrangement that we must look for the unique achievement of middle Byzantine decoration. The single pictures were more or less standardized by tradition; the ever-new problem for the theologian and for the artist was the building up of the scheme as a whole. This is true not only of the content of the pictures, but also of their visual qualities. . . . A majestic singleness of purpose runs right through the Byzantine schemes. Their authors seem to have had as their main aim to represent the central formula of Byzantine theology, the Christological dogma, together with its implications in the organization and the ritual of the Byzantine Church. There are no pictures which have not some relation to this central dogma representations of Christ in His various aspects, of the Virgin, of Angels, Prophets, Apostles and Saints arranged in a hierarchical order which also includes temporal rulers as ChristÕs vicegerents on earth. Historical cycles and subjects from the Old and the New Testaments, or from apocryphal and legendary writings, are inserted in this hierarchical system not so much for their independent narrative value as for their importance as testimonies to the truth of the central dogma. THE THEORY OF THE ICON Every single picture, indeed, is conceived in this sense, and middle Byzantine pictorial art as a whole draws its raison deitre from a doctrine which developed in connection with Christological dogma. This doctrine was evolved during the Iconoclastic controversy of the eighth and ninth centuries. The relation between the prototype and its image, argued Theodore of Studium and John of Damascus, is analogous to that between God the Father and Christ His Son. The Prototype, in accordance with Neoplatonic ideas, is thought of as producing its image of necessity, as a shadow is cast by a material object, in the same way as the Father produces the Son and the whole hierarchy of the invisible and the visible world. Thus the world itself becomes an uninterrupted series ofimages which includes in descending order from Christ, the image of God, the Proorismoi (the Neoplatonicideas), man, symbolic objects and, finally, the images of the painter, all emanating of necessity from their various prototypes and through them from the Archetype, God. This process of emanation imparts to the image something of the sanctity of the archetype the image, although differing from its prototype ,cai-Õ oi~u~av (according to its essence), is nevertheless identical with it KcW i~rr6uÕrcwtv (according to its meaning), and the worship accorded to the image (r~pouic6vÕqa~s TqrIJTtIci7) is passed on through the image to its prototype.The Christological theme, however, dominated the doctrinal basis of Byzantine theory regarding images not only per analogiam but also in a more direct manner. One of the arguments against pictures and statues put forward by the Iconoclasts had been that any representation of Christ was impossible, since every representation (n~ptypa4n~) must either depict Him as a mere Man, thereby denying His Godhead and falling into the anathematized error of Nestorius; or with His two natures, divine and human, intermingled (~6ats~, thus following the heresy of Eutyches. The charge of heresy, however, was returued by the Iconodules, who maintained not only that it was possible to represent Christ without falling into heresy, but that denial of this, possibility was itself a heresy. Christ would not have manifested Himself in human form if that form were indeed unfit to receive and express the Divine nature. To deny that He could be represented in the form He took in His Incarnation was to doubt the Incarnation itself and with it the redeeming power of the Passion. The Incarnation could not be considered complete, or ChristÕs human nature genuine, if He were not capable of being depicted in the form of man. The fact that a picture of Christ can be painted furnishes a proof of the reality and completeness of His Incarnation. A painted representation of Christ is as truly a symbolic reproduction of the Incarnation as the Holy Liturgy is a reproduction of the Passion. The latter presupposes the former, and the artist who conceives and creates an image conforming to certain rules is exercising a function similar to that of the priest.Three main ideas of paramount importance for the whole subsequent history of Byzantine art emerge from this reasoning on the doctrine of images. First, the picture, if created in theright manner , is, a magical counterpart of the prototype, and has a magical identity with it; second, the representation of a holy person is worthy of veneration; thirdly, every image has its place in a continuous hierarchy.To achieve its magical identity with the prototype, the image must possesssimilarity (ravÕr6Õn~srij~ 6~oWx~r~os). It must depict the characteristic features of a holy person or a sacred event in accordance with authentic sources. The sources were either images of supernatural origin (dXupo~oh)ra), contemporary portraits or descriptions, or, in the case of scenic representations, the Holy Scriptures. The outcome was a kind of abstract verism, governed by a sacred iconography which laid down, enforced and preserved certain rules. In the case of representations of holy persons, this verism made for portraiture in the sense of attaching distinguishing features to a general scheme of the human face and form; in that of scenic representations, for plausibility in the rendering of an action or a situation. If this was done according to the rules themagical identity was established, and the beholder found himself face to face with the holy persons or the sacred events themselves through the medium of the image. He was confronted with the prototypes, he conversed with the holy persons, and himself entered the holy places, Bethlehem, Jerusalem or Golgotha.The second idea, that of the venerability of the icons, follows logically from that of magical identity.4 The image is not a world by itself; it is related to the beholder, and its magical identity with the prototype exists only for and through him. It is this that distinguishes the icon from the idol. To establish the relation with the beholder, to be fit to receive his veneration, the picture must be visible, comprehensible, easy to recognize and to interpret. Single figures must be identified either by unmistakable attributes or by an inscription. So that they may receive their due veneration from the beholder they must face him, that is, they must be represented in frontal attitude; only so do they converse fully with the beholder (Fig. 6). In a scenic image, which likewise must be characterized by an inscription (to fix its v~roai-aws or meaning, which in this case is not a person but an event), everything must be clear for the beholder to perceive. Details must not detract from the main theme; the principal figure must occupy the most conspicuous place; meaning, direction and result of the action must be plainly shown; actors and counter-actors must be separated into clear-cut groups. The compositional scheme which best answers these demands is the symmetrical arrangement, which at the same time is in itself thesacred form par excellence.Frontality, however, cannot always be achieved in scenic representations its rigid observance by all the participants in a scene would make the rendering of an event or an action all but impossible. No active relationship between the figiires could be established z6. Virgin and Child with Saints, main apse, Torcello, Cathedral. Mosaic, Late izth Century (Alinari-Art Reference Bureau) under such a limitation, and the law of plausibility, the demand for authenticity, would thus be violated. This was indeed a dilemma for an art which did not know or at any rate recognize pictorial space. Apart from spatial illusionism, the most natural way of rendering an active relation between two or more figures on a flat surface would have been to represent them in strict profile. The figures would then have faced each other, their looks and gestures would have seemed to reach their aims. But this would have severed their relation with the beholder.5 The attempt was indeed made in such scenes as the Annunciation, the Baptism, the Transfiguration, the Entry into Jerusalem, the Crucifixion, the Doubting of Thomas and the Ascension scenes in which action counts for less than the representation of glorified existenceto depict at least the main figures in frontal attitudes. But in other scenes, where action is the main theme, this was impossible. For such cases, and for almost all the secondary figures in scenic representations, Byzantine art made use of a compromise between the attitude appropriate to action, the profile, and the attitude appropriate to sacred representation, the full face. The three-quarter view, combining both attitudes, was introduced; and this even became the dominant mode of projection in Byzantine art. Its ambivalent character allows of either interpretation within the picture as a profile, in relation to the beholder as a frontal view.In this system there is hardly any place for the strict profile a figure so represented has no contact with the beholder. It is regarded as averted, and thus does not share in the veneration accorded to the image. Consequently, in the hierarchical art of icon painting, this aspect is used only for figures which represent evil forces, such as Satan at the Temptation, Judas at the Last Supper and the Betrayal. From the point of view of form, the face drawn in strict profile is for the Byzantine artist only half a face showing, as it does, only a single eye. It is drawn exactly like a face in three-quarter view in which the half-averted side has been suppressed. This method of constructing a profile gives the face a curious quality of incompleteness. Formally, something is missingjust as the otherwise indispensable relation to the beholder is left out as regards the meaning. But the evil figures must not receive the venerating gaze of the beholder, and they themselves must not seem to be looking at him iconographic theory and popular fear of theevil eyeÕ~ go hand in hand. Outside the strictest school of Byzantine iconographv the pure profile is also, though seldom, used for secondary figures. Full hack views do not occur at all in the classical period of middle Byzantine art; for to the Byzantine beholder such figures would not bepresent at all.As a result, the whole scale of turning is toned down in classical Byzantine art. It is as if the figures were somehow chained to the beholder; as if they were forced as much as is compatible with their actions into frontal positions. The generally lowered key gives, on the other hand, a heightened importance to the slightest deviations from strict frontality. The eye, expecting frontal attitudes, registers deviations in posture and glance much more strongly than it would if frontality were the exception, as it is in Western art. The projection used in scenic images is, from the formal aspect, a qualified en face rather than a real three-quarter view.But even this three-quarter view, apparently, did not seem to the Byzantine artist an entirely satisfactory solution. The gestures and gaze of the figures still miss their aims they do not meet within the picture, half-way between figures engaged in intercourse, but in an imaginary point of focus outside, that is, in front of it. There is a dead angle between the actors in a scene, an angle which is not quite bridged even by oblique glances. The action takes on a stiff frozen air. To remedy this, to give plausibility and fluency to the representation, two correctives were applied, at first separately, in two different realms of Byzantine art, but from the twelfth century onwards more or less indiscriminately. On flat surfaces, especially in miniatures, ivories, and the like, movements and gestures were intensified in order to bridge the gap between the figures as the actors in the scene. In a field of art which made use of neither pictorial space nor psychological differentiation, gestures and movements could be intensified only, so to speak, from outside, by a heightening of tempo. Intensity of action was preferably conveyed by locomotion. The figures run towards each other with outstretched hands and flying garments. . . . There is a definite tendency in this method of rendt~ring action to point forward in time, to make the result of the action apparent together with the action itself, and so not only to connect the figures of one picture among themselves, but also to establish a relation between the successive pictures of a narrative cycle.This remedy, however, satisfactory and fertile as it was in illustrative pictures of small size, was hardly applicable to monumental paintings on the grand scale. The violent movements would have seemed too undignified, the whirling forms too contorted and coinplicated. Another means was therefore needed by the Byzantine decorators to bridge the dead angle and save the threatened coherence. The ~olution they found was as simple as it was ingenious. They placed their pictures in niches, on curved surfaces. These curved or angular surfaces achieve what an even, fiat surface could not the figures which on a flat ground were only half-turned towards each other could not face each other fully without having to give up their dignified frontality or semi-frontality. Painted on opposite sides of curved or angular niches, they are actually facing each other in real space, and converse with each other across that physical space which is now, as it were, included in the picture. The curvature in the real space supplies what was lacking in the coherence of the image (Fig. 7).The firm position of the painted figures in physical space makes spatial symbols in the picture itself unnecessary, No illusion is needed in pictures which enclose real space, and no setting is required to clarify the position of the figures. The whole of the 7. Annunciation, Church of the Dormition. Daphni Mosaic in squinch. C. iion (Alinari-Art Reference Bureau) spatial receptacles (such the pictures really are) can be devoted to the figures themselves and to such motives as are required from the iconographic point of view. Restrained gestures and movements are sufficient to establish the necessary contact. A large part of the golden ground can be left empty, surrounding the figures with an aura of sanctity. This golden ground in middle Byzantine mosaics is not a symbol of unlimited space; it need not be pushed back, as it were, in order to leave sufficient space for the figures to act. The~Õ move and gesticulate across the physical space which opens up in front of the golden walls. The shape and the confines of this physical space are not dissolved, but rather stressed and clarified, by the solid coating of gold. The setting of the gold is close and firm, producing a metallic surface whose high lights and shades bring out the plastic shape of the niche.There is no need, in this formal system, for the figtires engaged in intercourse of whatever kind to approach close to each other. On the contrary, they had to be placed at some distance apart in order that they might be brought opposite each other by the curving of the ground. The resulting distances and empty spaces are filled with a tension, an air of expectancy, which makes the event depicted even more dramatic in the classical sense than violent action and gesticulation, or a closely knit grouping, could have made it. The crÕsurx contribute also to the legibility, to the plausibility of the image. The main figure is clearly discernible, because comparatively isolated, and presents itself unmistakably as the main object of veneration.But the venerability of the icon did not affect its composition alone; it also influenced the choice of material. Controversy about thematter (i?vq) of the images played a large part in the Iconoclastic struggle. It was but natural that, to counter the arguments of the Iconoclasts regarding the incongruity of representing the Divine in common and cheap material, the Iconodules should have chosen the most precious material for this purpose. Mosaic, with its gemlike character and its profusion of gold, must have appeared, together with enamel, as the substance most worthy of becoming the vehicle of divine ideas. It is partly for this reason that mosaic played so important a part in the evolution of post-Iconoclastic painting, and indeed actually donfinated it. It allowed of pure and radiant colours whose substance had gone through the purifying element of fire and which seemed most apt to represent the unearthly splendour of the divine prototypes. ARCHITECTURAL AND TECHNICAL CONDITIONS These prototypes themselves, to the Byzantine mind, stand to each other in a hierarchic relation, and so their images must express this relationship. They must occupy their due place in a hierarchy of values in which the image of the All-Ruler occupies the central and most elevated position. Clearly, a hierarchical system of images based on the principles which governed the Byzantine ChurchÕs own organization could be fully expressed only through an architectural framework that furnished a hierarchy of receptacles within which the pictures could be arranged. A purely narrative sequence of pictures, in the Western sense, or a didactic scheme could be displayed on almost any surface in almost any arrangement. Whether it was used to decorate portals, fa~ades, interior walls or stained-glass windows did not greatly matter. But a Byzantine programme always needed a special framework, namely that in which it had grown up, and which it was developed to suit. This framework was the classical type of middle Byzantine ecclesiastical architecture, the cross-in-square church with a central cupola.6The shaping of this architectural type was a lengthy process, and the final solution was arrived at by several concurring paths. The essential idea seems to have been conceived as early as the sixth century. Architects with widely different traditional backgrounds approached the problem from different sides. . . . There is evidence of a conscious search for a final solution in accord with the liturgical needs and the ~sthetic ideals of the time. Local differentiations gave way before the quest for this ideal type; and, when finally elaborated, it was never abandoned, and remained the basis of the whole of the subsequent development. Even changes of scale did not greatly affect the dominant idea. The final type, fully evolved by the end of the ninth century, was something strangely perfect, something which, from the liturgical and from the formal points of view, could hardly be improved upon.7 This high perfection might have resulted in sterility, had not the central architectural idea been flexible enough to leave room for variation.The plan was, in short, that of a cruciform space formed by the vaulted superstructure of transepts arranged crosswise and crowned in the centre by a higher cupola. The angles between the arms of the cross are filled in with lower vaulted units, producing a full square in the ground-plan but preserving the cross-shaped space in the superstructure. Three apses are joined to the square on the east and an entrance hall (sometimes two) stands before it on the west. . . . The cupola always dominates the impression. Even the modern beholder directs to it his first glance. From the cupola his eye gradually descends to the horizontal views.This process of successive apperception from the cupola downwards is in complete accord with the aesthetic character of Byzantine architecture a Byzantine building does not embody the structural energies of growth, as Gothic architecture does, or those of massive weight, as so often in Romanesque buildings, or yet the idea of perfect equilibrium of forces, like the Greek temple. Byzantine architecture is essentially ahanging architecture; its vaults ~ from above without any weight of their own. The columns are conceived ~sthetically, not as supporting elements, but as descending tentacles or hanging roots. They lack all that would make them appear to support an appropriate weight they have no entasis, no crenellations, no fluting, no socles; neither does the shape of the capitals suggest the function of support. This impression is not confined to the modern beholder it is quite clearly formulated in contemporary Byzantine as8 The architectonic conception of a building developing downwards is in complete accord with the hierarchical way of thought manifested in every sphere of Byzantine life, from the political to the religious, as it is to be met with in the hierarchic conception of the series of images descending from the supreme archetype.The cross-in-square system of vaults is indeed the ideal receptacle for a hierarchical system of icons. Each single icon receives its fitting place according to its degree of sanctity or importance. . THE ICON IN SPACE To describe these mosaics, en cased in cupolas, apsides, squinches, pendentives, vaults and niches, as flat, or two-dimensional, would be inappropriate. True, there is no space behind thepicture-plane of these mosaics. But there is space, the physical space enclosed by the niche, in front; and this space is included in the picture. The image is not separated from the beholder by theimaginary glass pane of the picture plane behind which an illusionistic picture begins it opens into the real space in front, where the beholder lives and moves. His space and the space in which the holy persons exist and act are identical, just as the icon itself is magically identical with the holy person or the sacred event. The Byzantine church itself is thepicture-space of the icons. It is the ideal iconostasis; it is itself, as a whole, an icon giving reality to the conception of the divine world order. Only in this medium which is common to the holy persons and to the beholder can the latter feel that he is himself witnessing the holy events and conversing with the holy persons. He is not cut off from them; he is bodily enclosed in the grand icon of the church; he is surrounded by the congregation of the saints and takes part in the events he sees. .If, however, the icons were to exist in, and to share, a space which is normally the domain of the beholder, it was more than ever necessary to place them in individual receptaclesin spatial units which are, as it were, excrescences of the general space. Moreover, since the images are not links in a continuous chain of narrative, they must not flow into one another they must be clearly separated and each must occupy its own place in the same manner as the events and persons they represent occupy distinct places in the hierarchical system. The formal means to this end is the separate framing of each single receptacle. The single units are set off either by their characteristic shapes as spatial units, especially in the upper parts of the building, or, in the lower parts, by being embedded separately in the quiet colour foil of the marble linings. This marble entablature with its grey, brown, reddish or green hues covers practically all the vertical surfaces of the walls in middle Byzantine mosaic churches, leaving for the mosaics only niches in which they are placed like jewels in a quiet setting. Nothing is more alien to the monumental mosaic decorations of these churches in the central area than the almost indiscriminate covering of the walls with mosaic pictures which is found in the twelfth century in Sicily, Venice and other colonial outposts of Byzantine art. In Byzantium itself the mosaics never lose the quality of precious stones in an ample setting. The icons never cease to be individually framed spatial units; their connection with one another is established not by crowded contiguity on the surface but by an intricate system of relations in space. THE IDEAL ICONOGRAPHIC SCHEME OF THECROSS-IN-SQUARE CHURCH These relations were governed, in the classical period of the tenth and eleventh centuries, by formal and theological principles. .We can distinguish three systems of interpretation which are found interlinked in every Byzantine scheme of decoration of the leading, centralized type.The Byzantine church is, first, an image of the Kosmos, symbolizing heaven, paradise (or the Holy Land) and the terrestrial world in an ordered hierarchy, descending from the sphere of the cupolas, which represent heaven, to the earthly zone of the lower parts. The higher a picture is placed in the architectural framework, the more sacred it is held to be. The second interpretation is more specifically topographical. The building is conceived as the image of (and so as magically identical with) the places sanctified by ChristÕs earthly life. This affords the possibility of very detailed topographical hermeneutics, by means of which every part of the church is identified with some place in the Holy Land. The faithful who gaze at the cycle of images can make a symbolic pilgrimage to the Holy Land by simply contemplating the images in their local church. This, perhaps, is the reason why actual pilgrimages to Palestine played so unimportant a part in Byzantine religious life, and why there was so little response to the idea of the Crusades anywhere in the Byzantine empire. It may also account for the fact that we do not find in Byzantium reproductions of individual Palestinian shrines, those reproductions of the Holy Sepulchre, for instance, which played so important a part in Western architecture and devotional life. .The third kind of symbolical interpretation was based on the Calendar of the Christian year.10 From this point of view, the church is animage of the festival cycle as laid down in the liturgy, and the icons are arranged in accordance with the liturgical sequence of the ecclesiastical festivals. Even the portraits of the saints follow to some extent their grouping in the Calendar, and the arrangement of larger narrative cycles is frequently guided by the order of the Pericopes, especially as regards the scenes connected with Easter. Thus the images are arranged in a magic cycle. The relationship between the individual scenes has regard not to thehistorical time of the simple narrative but to thesymbolic time of the liturgical cycle. This cycle is a closed one, repeating itself every year, during which, at the time of the corresponding festival, each image in turn comes to the front for the purpose of veneration, to step back again into its place for the rest of the year when its magic moment has passed. The profound contrast between this conception of time and that implicit in Western decorative schemes is obvious in the latter a series of scenes illustrates an historical sequence of events, with its beginning and end clearly marked and with a definite direction parallel with the unrolling of the story. In the strict arrangement of Byzantine decorations the time element is symbolical; it is inter-linked with the topographical symbolism of the building, and therefore closely connected with the spatial element. -The flow of time is converted into an ever-recurring circle moving round a static centre. These two conceptions of time correspond to the two dominant architectural types the Western to the basilican type,11 with its rhythmic movement from entrance to apse, from beginning~ to end; the Byzantine to the domed centralized building which has no strongly emphasized direction, and in which the movement has no aim, being simply a circular motion round the centre.All three Byzantine systems of interpretation, the hierarchical cosmic, the topographical and the liturgico-chronological, are so closely accommodated to the dominant architectural type of the cross-in-square church that they must, in fact, have been elaborated for such a building. Only within this framework could a scheme devised after these principles be satisfactorily placed. Every attempt, therefore, to adapt such a programme to other types of architecture must have met with great difficulties, and must consequently have resulted in a weakening of the original concepts, as can actually be seen in the provinces. THE THREE ZONES The most obvious articulation to be observed in a middle Byzantine mosaic decoration is that which corresponds to the tripartition into heaven, paradise 6r Holy Land, and terrestrial world. Three zones1 can be clearly distinguished first, the cupolas and high vaults, including the conch of the apse; second, the squinches, pendentives and upper parts of the vaults; and thirdly, the lower or secondary vaults and the lower parts of the walls. These three zones are, in most cases, separated by plastic cosmetesnarrow bands of carved stone or stucco which run round the whole edifice.The uppermost zone, the celestial sphere of the microcosm of the church, contains only representations of the holiest persons (Christ, the Virgin, Angels) and of scenes which are imagined as taking place in heaven or in which heaven is either the source or the aim of the action depicted. Byzantine art from the ninth to the end of the eleventh century made use of only three schemes of cupola decoration the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, and the Glory of the Pantocrator, the All-Ruler. This peculiarity distinguishes the strict scheme of the Middle Ages from early Byzantine as well as from Italo-Byzantine decoration. In the five cupolas of the Justinianic church of the Apostles in Constantinople,Õ for instance, there had been five different representations, each forming part of the narrative cycle which filled the whole church. After the Iconoclastic controversy, however, and in connection with the subsequent emergence of the symbolic interpretation of the church building, the cupolas were strictly set apart from the narrative cycle. From the ninth century onwards they contained only representations in which the narrative character had been displaced entirely by the dogmatic content. The three themes above-mentioned dominated Byzantine cupola decorations after the Iconoclastic controversy to such an extent that others were scarcely thinkable; even the small cupolas of entrance halls were decorated with them. . .The second of the three zones of the Byzantine church is dedicated to the Life of Christ, to the pictures of the festival cycle. It harbours the monumental calendar of the Christological festivals and is the magical counterpart of the Holy Land. The cycle of feasts was gradually developed by selection from an ample narrative series of New Testament scenes. It is very probable that the decorations which immediately followed the re-establishment of icon worship did not include any festival icons in the naos. But the austere ideal of the early post-Iconoclastic period was relaxed in the course of the tenth and eleventh centuries. . . . The growth of the festival cycle can also be followed in contemporary ecclesiastical literature there the number rises from seven to ten, twelve, sixteen and even eighteen pictures, the full development being reached from the twelfth century onwards.Õ4 The classical cycle of the eleventh century comprised, at least in theory, twelve feasts, the Dodekaeorta; Annunciation, Nativity, Presentation in the Temple, Baptism, Transfiguration, Raising of Lazarus, Entry into Jerusalem, Crucifixion, Anastasis (Descent into Hades), Ascension, Pentecost and Koimesis (Death of the Virgin). To this series were frequently added, in pictorial cycles, a few images which elaborated the story of ChristÕs Passion, namely the Last Supper, the Washing of the ApostlesÕ Feet, the Betrayal of Judas, the Descent from the Cross and the Appearance to Thomas. Other developments were attached to the story of ChristÕs infancy (the story of His parents, the Adoration of the Magi, the Flight into Egypt, etc.) and to that of His teaching (the cycle of the miracles and parables). .The third and lowest zone of centralized decorations does not contain any scenic images single figures alone make up theChoir of Apostles and Martyrs, Prophets and Patriarchs who fill the naos with their holy icons.15 These figures are distributed in accordance with two iconographical principles which intersect each other one that of rank and function, the other that of calendrical sequence. It is the former of these which predominates. Sainted priests and patriarchs are placed in or near the main apse, in a hierarchical order which descends from the Patriarchs of the Old Testament, by way of the Prophets and the Doctors of the first centuries of Christianity, down to the humble priests of the Eastern Church. The Martyrs fill the naos, arranged in several groups the holy Moneyless Healers (the Anargyroi) next to the sanctuaries, the sacred Warriors on the pillars and the arches of the central cupola, and the rest mostly in the transept, distributed in groups according to the dates of their festivals in the liturgical calendar. The third category comprises the holy Monks, who are placed in the western part of the church, guarding the entrance of the narthex and the naos. Holy women and canonized emperors are depicted in the narthex. But this order is by no means rigid; it allows of variation according to the dedication of the particular church and to its architectonic type. . . . An eternal and holy presence is manifest in the paintings of the highest zone, to the suppression of all narrative and transient elements. There, the timeless dogma is offered to the contemplation of the beholder . . . a sacred world, beyond time and causality, admitting the beholder not only to the vision but to the magical presence of the Holy. In the middle zone the timeless and the historical elements are combined in accordance with the peculiar character of the festival icon, which simultaneously depicts an historical event and marks a station in the ever-revolving cycle of the holy year. . . . Isolated as holy icons and, at the same time, related to their neighbours as parts of the evangelical cycle, the paintings in the second zone are half picture and half spatial reality, half actual scene and half timeless representation. But in the lowest stratum of the church, in the third zone, are found neither narrative scenes nor dogmatic representations. The guiding thought in this part of the decorationthe communion of All Saints in the Churchis realized only in the sum of all the single figures. They are parts of a vast image whose frame is provided by the building of the church as a whole. NOTES ~J. Sauer, Die Symbolik des Kirchengebaudes und seiner Ausstattung in der Auffassung des Mittelalters, Freiburg i. B., 10.For a summary of this doctrinal controversy, see K. Schwarzlose, Der Bilderstreit, em Kampf der griechischen Kirche urn ihre Eigenart und Freiheit, Gotha, 180; L. Br~hier, La querelle des images, Paris, 104; N. Melioransky,Filosofskaya storona ikonohorchestva, Voprosy Filosofli, etc. II, 107, p. 14 if; L. Duchesne,LÕiconographie byzantine dans un document grec du IXe s., Roma e Oriente, vol. V, 1111, pp. if., 7 if., 4 if.; A. v. Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, Tiibingen, 1, p. 75 if.; C. A. Ostrogorski,La doctrine des saintes icones et le dogme christologique (Russian), Seminariuin Kondakovionum, I, Prague, 17, p. 5 if.; Idem,Die erkenutnistheoretisehen Crundlagen des byzantinisehen Bilderstreites (Russian with German r~sum6), Ibid., LI, Prague, 18, p. 48 if.; Idem, Studien zur Ceschichte des byzantinischen Bilderstreites, Breslau, 1; Idem,Rom und Byzanz in Kampfe um die Bilderverehrung (Russian with German risum~), Sem. Kondak., VI, Prague, 1, pp. 7 if.; E. J. Martin, History of the Iconoclastic Controversy, London, 10; C. Ladner,Der Bilderstreit und die Kunstlebren der byzantinisehen und abendlandischen Theologie, Zeitschrift frr Kirchengeschichte, III, F., I, vol. 50, 11, p. 1 if.; V. Grumel,R~cherches r6centes sur lÕiconoclasme, Echos dÕOrient, XXIX, 10, p. if.What follows here is a very simplified summary of the main Christological arguments used in the controversy.~ thought can be traced hack to the writings of Germanos, at the end of the seventh century. See Ostrogorski, La doctrine, etc., bc. cit., p. 6.~ ideas, that of magical identity and that of venerability, had become firmly established in one branch of popular religions art in the fifth and sixth centuries, long before the beginning of the Iconoclastic controversy. See K. Holl,Der Anteil der Styliten am Aufkommen der Bilderverehrung, Philothesia, P. Kleinert zu seinem 70. .Geburtstag, Berlin, 107, p. 54 if. The popular belief was that the spiritual force of the venerated Stylites and their power to aid were immanent in their representations. This seems to have been the origin of the belief in the miracle-working power of images.~ problem is similar to that of representing an action on the stage. But there the solution is renderÕed easier by the fact that the figures are in motion.more recent bibliography on this subject will be found in the articleKreuzkuppelkirche, by W. Zaloziecky, in WasmuthÕs Lexikon der Baukunst, and in various papers by N. Brunov (Byz. Zeitschrift, 7, 17, p. 6 if.; , 110, p. 48; 0, 10, p. 554 if., etc.).~ things, indeed, have kept their form so perfectly and unchangingly as the Byzantine cross-in-square church. An analogy from a different field may illustrate this stationary perfection and completion the violin, whose shape, once perfected, could not be improved upon. Its form is not affected by its scale, whether simple violin or double-bass, just as the form of the Byzantine church remains the same throughout its whole range, from tiny chapel to vast cathedral.8 See, for example, the 18th Homily of Gregory of Nazianzus, and ProcopiusÕs description of the Haghia Sophia in Constantinople.~ Simeon of Thessalonike, in Migue, Patrologia Graeca, tom. 155, col. 8 if. 10 The sources of this interpretation are quoted in C. Millet, R&herches, sur lÕiconographie de ULvangile, Paris, 116, p. 5 if.~ the Western conception, see the writings of A. Schmarsow, especially hisKompositionsgesetze in den Reichenauer Wandgemalden, Rep. fur Kunstwiss., vol. XXXVII, 104, p.61 if., and Kompositionsgesetzein der Kunstdes Mittelalters, Leipzig, 115.1 This division of the architectural decoration into horizontal zones is in strict accordance with Byzantine and early Christian, as opposed to antique, cosmography. See D. Ainalov, Ellenisticheskiya osnovy eizantiyskago iskusstva, St. Petersburg, 100; and Rep. fhr Kunstwiss., XXVI, 10, p. 6.A. Heisenberg, Grabeskirche undApostelkirche, II, Leipzig, 108. The Pantocrator programme of the central cupola was the result of later changes. See N. Malicky,Remarques sur la date des mosaiques de lÕ6glise des Stes Ap6tres k Constantinople, Byzantion, III, 16, p. 1 if. with bibliography.C. Millet, R&herches, op. cit., p. 16 if., with texts.After PhotiusÕs description of the Nea of Basil I. See 0. Wulif, Altchristliche und byzantinische Kunst, II, Potsdam, 14, p. 551.
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