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Sight and the Byzantine Icon Body bar (print) issn 2057–5823 and bar (online) issn 2057–5831 Religion Article Sight and the Byzantine icon Angeliki Lymberopoulou Abstract This article addresses the sense of sight through case studies drawn from Byzan- tine art, the art of Orthodox Christianity. Vision is central to Orthodox worship, facilitated by images known as icons. By enabling the visualization of the invis- ible divine, the importance of icons is paramount in enhancing the faithful’s religious experience. Keywords: sight; Byzantine art; Byzantine icons; orthodoxy Affiliation The Open University, UK. email: [email protected] bar vol 2.1 2018 46–67 doi: https://doi.org/10.1558/bar.36484 ©2018, equinox publishing SIGHT AND THE BYZANTINE ICON 47 This article addresses a very specific visual manifestation of Christianity, known as Byzantine art, the art of Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy was the official religion of the Byzantine Empire from 1054, following the schism that saw the emergence of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. While the Byzan- tine Empire no longer exists, regions and lands that were directly under its control and/or influence still adhere to Orthodoxy (e.g. Greece, most of the Balkans, Russia and a large part of the population of the Central and Eastern European countries). I start the article by looking at the role played by vision in Byzantine worship, focusing on icons. Then I consider the broader role of the senses in Orthodox veneration in the public space of a church, demonstrating how vision is intertwined with touch, hearing, smell and taste to enhance the experience of being in the presence of and revering the divine. I end the article by studying veneration in the private domestic sphere – focusing on a case study of an ivory scene, to highlight the ‘multisensory’ images in the presentation of different stages of the Gospels’ narrative. Byzantine icons By far the most reproduced iconographic subject in Byzantine art is the Virgin and Child. Among the various reproductions the most famous and revered type is the so-called Hodegetria (‘she who shows the way’). The name of the type relates to the place where the original icon was kept – in the monastery of the Hodegoi (‘guides’) in Constantinople. From the eleventh century onwards, all sources invariably identify the Hodegetria icon found in the monastery with the acheiropoietos icon created by Saint Luke (a point to which we shall return). The icon was destroyed in 1453 when Constantinople fell to the Ottomans (Angelidi and Papamastorakis 2000:378, 385; see also Woods 2013:136 and n. 4). As is always the case with Byzantine art, it challenges sight to move beyond what meets the eye. In the Hodegetria type, the Virgin is depicted frontal and half-length (see Figure 1 for an example, now in a private collection). Her left arm, which is bent at the elbow, seems to support the Christ-Child, while she points at Him with her right hand. This is a very simple, two-dimensional, flat – one could even argue almost uninspiring – representation of the central figure of Christianity and His Mother. However, it would be wrong to dismiss it as such, for the icon, in all its simplicity, visualises a wealth of theological issues and acts as a window that opens up and invites us, through our sight, into a spiritual world. The flatness of the background helps towards achiev- ing this goal, as well as the fact that it lacks any hint of physical surround- ings – as viewers we simply do not know where the scene is set. It is also 48 ANGELIKI LYMBEROPOULOU Figure 1: The Virgin Hodegetria, fifteenth century (?), panel painting, 58 x 46 cm, pri- vate collection. Photograph courtesy of AXIA-Yanni Petsopoulos. void of depth, suggesting that what we see is a divinity that neither resides in nor follows the laws of our natural world. We are, paradoxically, seeing the invisible. Turning to the Christ-Child, we might note that it is extremely difficult to ascertain His age. He is supposed to be a baby (certainly no more than a toddler), but He looks more like a miniature grown man. Closer observation reveals that His Mother’s left arm, which we assume physi- cally supports Him, actually does not. Christ effectively defies the most basic law of nature – gravity – and floats in the air. The icon thus prompts the faithful to comprehend that Christ may have a human form, but He is more spirit than flesh. This fundamental and crucial element of Christ’s divinity is captured visually in this simple manner in which Byzantine icons of the Virgin and Child show Him being (not) supported by His Mother’s arm. Finally, Mary with her free right hand points at Him; she puts Him on display for the faithful viewer. This visual indication of Christ resonates with the context of the original icon of the type, which was, as mentioned SIGHT AND THE BYZANTINE ICON 49 above, kept in the monastery of the Guides in Constantinople, whose main task was to show the way to others. The representation of the Virgin here thus underlines a fundamental precept of Christianity: that is, Christ is the one and only way that leads to salvation and eternal life. The Virgin Mary encapsulates this profound message with a very simple hand gesture. And while the viewers of this image observed the divine – depicted in a simple manner so rich in meaning – the divine figures themselves also observed the viewers, placing them under their auspices. In other words, while the invisible is seen, it also watches and encompasses the viewers in its gaze. Icons form the most characteristic religious ‘trade mark’ of Ortho- doxy – this is despite the prolonged and controversial debate within the Byzantine Empire known as Iconoclasm (literally ‘the breaking of icons’), which started in the eighth century and ended in the ninth. Those oppos- ing images, who were known as the iconoclasts, believed that there was no difference between Christian imagery and the representation of ancient Greek and Roman deities: in other words, these were two sides of the same coin, idolatry. The iconoclasts supported their objections with passages from the Bible, such as Exodus 20:4–5, Leviticus 16:1 and Deuteronomy 5:8 and 27:15, where the production of images is explicitly forbidden. Their opposition, the iconophiles (literally ‘the friends of the icons’), believed that the devotion of each faithful viewer is not directed towards the mate- rial image, but rather to the actual saintly person and/or event it depicts. Their champion was the fourth-century bishop and theologian Saint Basil, who had stated that the ‘honour given to the icon passes to the prototype’, used as defence of the icons during Iconoclasm by Saint John of Damascus (c. 675–c. 749; see primarily Brubaker 1998; and also Acheimastou-Pota- mianou 1987:37; Evans 2004:459 with n. 83; Maguire 1996:138). According to Saint John, ‘everywhere we use our senses to produce an image of the Incarnate God himself and we sanctify the first of the senses (sight being the first of the senses), just as by words hearing is sanctified. For the image is a memorial’ (Richardson, Woods and Franklin 2007:364, with references to the original sources; see also Anderson 1980:25). He thus pointed to our need for a visual ‘vehicle’ which could aid the human intellect to compre- hend divinity, divine nature and divine environment – all concepts that are abstract, spiritual and do not follow the laws of nature. At the end of Iconoclasm, the iconophiles emerged victorious and the succeeding period witnessed the steady rise of images in devotional contexts. The preferred medium for producing icons was painting, which enabled the Christian visualisation of divinity to distance itself from the three-dimensional sculpture that was so closely associated with ancient Greek and Roman religion. Over the years the word ‘icon’ has become 50 ANGELIKI LYMBEROPOULOU practically synonymous with panel painting. It should be noted, however, that icons can be produced in any medium – wall painting, mosaic, manu- script, ceramic, stone, ivory, etc. Graham Harvey argues that for some people (especially those identify- ing as “believers”) religion is especially about cognition: the encourage- ment of correct believing or correct understanding (Harvey 2013). One could argue that perhaps this principle lay at the heart of Iconoclasm. It is beyond the scope of this article to analyse Byzantine Iconoclasm consid- ering past and present debates around the subject (Brubaker and Haldon 2011; see also Cunningham 2014). Nevertheless, regardless of where one might stand after such analysis, the fact remains that what we have come to identify as ‘Iconoclasm’ had a profound effect and lasting consequences on the presentation and appearance of Byzantine icons; in other words, its aftermath bears significantly on how they were visually perceived from the ninth century onwards. By the end of Iconoclasm, Byzantine culture was in need of preventative measures against potential future controversies around the representation of divinity. Thus, in order to ensure that the devotion was passed to the actual saintly person and/or event depicted, as was fervently argued by the iconophiles, Byzantine artists tried to remain as faithful as possible to the very first iconographic representation for a particular person and/or event. It was felt that this close reproduction would ensure authenticity, as well as guarantee identification and safeguard against idolatry. However, it left little – if any – room for artistic imagination and innovation. Parentheti- cally, this is one of the main reasons why Byzantine art is often considered repetitive and unimaginative, a misconception about stylistic features which, in reality, has nothing to do with technical ineptitude of the artists, but can be traced to theological debates.
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