Overzealously Byzantine, Part I: Late Art

One of the most important ways that the Byzantine Empire has gone overlooked is in its arts and their effects on the supposed "renaissance" which I guess single-handedly, magically revitalized the Greco-Roman heritage. Only one thing: the Byzantine Empire was one of the direct links to that heritage, and til now, has gone largely ignored. This portion of the my look at Byzantine art focuses on its latter stages, the ones which unshrouded the antique for those of the West and flooded them with the mystery and humanity.

However, Kitzinger writes of Byzantine art,

...there is another side to Byzantine art, a side perpetually nourished and reinvigorated by Byzantium's Greco-Roman heritage, thanks to which figures may appear in lively action, in three-dimensional corporeality, and in spatial settings. Frescoes such as those of Castelseprio and Sopocani, and miniatures such as those of the Joshua Roll or the Paris Nicander Manuscript are just as 'Byzantine' as Vasari's [loathed] row of saints....

And also

There are, for one thing, certain media which became prominent in Western art during the 12th and 13th centuries and which were wholly or largely imported from Byzantium. One such medium is wall mosaic, a forgotten art in the West... another is panel painting... a third medium which should be mentioned is stained glass.... Then there is the Byzantine canon of iconographic themes and types, which all along had exerted great and authoritative influence in the West.... Finally, mention must be made of the West's perennial fascination with the splendor and luxuriousness of Byzantine sumptuary arts, a fascination powerfully stimulated during this period through reliquaries and other precious objects brought back by the Crusaders....

The author goes on to cite the movement of artists as more important than, say, the movement of artistic objects in influencing Western arts. But even more important than all must be the stylistic influences imported and/or paralleled. Apparently Wilhelm Koehler is the authority here. In a lecture given at Dumbarton Oaks, according to Kitzinger, Koehler "pointed up the essential unity of what had until then been treated as more or less disparate phenomena in various branches of pictorial arts in Italy, in France, in England, and in Germany; it focused on style as the crucial area of contact between East and West during this period; and it penetrated beyond the mere definition of stylistic features to an understanding of what motivated Western artists in adopting these features."

I will try to summarize these breakthroughs as best I can, but I am condensing from a dense tract. Among the stylistic influences, then, is the 'damp fold' or "soft clinging drapery which so often is seen enveloping the limbs of painted or carved figures of this period" and "it becomes apparent that behind this purely formal device lies a new interest in the human form and its organic structure and movement; it signifies, to use Koehler's own words, 'a new type of human being.'" (see figure 1)

I agree.


Figure 1

Then there is the "dynamic" style which until recently had not been properly appreciated as the full-fledged Byzantium contribution to the arts and world that it was-- itself, well-defined. One example can be seen in the resplendent Monreale, created by Greek artists and later reflected in Austria, Saxony, Rhineland, France and England. See figure 2. This style particularly touched England, which formed from this style its manic ways of "expressing extremes and emotional agitation."

Figure 2

Although many Western artists modified dynamic style, or other Byzantine influences, into their own unique interpretations, and many proto-renaissance movements of Italy and France during medieval times surely remain vital to explain the 'progress' (a notion I actually reject) of Western art,

It was Byzantine art with its continuous and living challenge which had provided the principal schooling for the great and decisive breakthrough in the early 13th century. In successive stages, it had held before Western eyes an ideal of the human form, first as a coherent and autonomous organism, then as an instrument of intense action and emotion. This was what enabled the West finally to make its own terms with the classical past, and to create its own version of humanistic art. Ultimately Byzantium's role was that of a midwide, a pace-maker.

The author stands back and feels the current of artistic spirit here, concluding that,

[Byzantine influence] was not the dead hand of tradition. It reflects a series of live impulses from a living art. These impulses entered the main stream of the Italian development, and far from retarding or interrupting that development played an important, if indirect, part in bringing about its climax.

Finally, "the spell which Byzantine art held for so long-- and in Italy so much longer than in the North-- was due to its sustained quest for human values."

And yet, the essence of Byzantine art remains somewhere hidden in the past. Part II: Middle Art will provide more clues as to the identity and the meaning of Byzantine art, going beyond looking at its mere artistic influence on the West.