Page 126 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Byzantine Painting through Contemporary Eyes
doxy. In fact, more precisely, according to Orthodox theology, the eschaton does not constitute the end of history but is actually ‘located’ before and beyond time and history as we know it. In this sense, the borrowing of the old models from the past in the realm of Byzantine art may likely be related to an attempt to come closer to a more holistic, eschatological perception of history and transcendental being.
Scholars who had overlooked this aspect of Orthodox eschatology have plainly at- tributed the style of Palaiologan painting with conservatism and introversion. For exam- ple, Cyril Mango has argued: “Instead of turning to the West, Byzantine painters went back to their own past and found models, largely, it would seem, among the classicising manuscripts of the tenth century which were themselves copies of much earlier manu- scripts of the fifth and sixth centuries. To speak, therefore, of a Palaeologan Renaissance is rather misleading in that the term ‘renaissance’ implies an enlargement of horizons and a liberation of the spirit, whereas Palaeologan art bespeaks an antiquarian involution.”8
We would argue that Mango has neglected to observe the parallel between the ten- dency of the Byzantine artists and architects to seek inspiration in the earliest of aesthet- ic models and the tendency of the Eastern Orthodox Church and society to turn to hes- ychast ideals after each period of spiritual or political crisis. As we stated earlier, Vasić has noted this parallel in his studies on Hesychasm, which were published more than half a century earlier. Further, as stated by Vasić, the revival of Hesychasm in Serbia oc- curred after overcoming the crises between the Serbian and the Greek Church in the period between 1374 and 1375.9 Vasić observes that the choice of the very ancient three- conch plan of the church of Lazarica (built between 1377 and 1381, see image 1) most likely owes to the fact that its founder, Tsar Lazar of Serbia, due to the very strong influ- ence of the Church, earnestly propagated the hesychast teaching and wanted to apply it in all domains, and wanted, in Vasić’s words: “to dive into the deepest possible past, where, in the time of St Savvas the Sanctified, in Syria, the three-conch plan of the church is found, and thus the place in the heavenly kingdom most firmly assured.”10 In much the same manner, when at the beginning of the Palaiologan epoch (1261), Byzantine painters started to increasingly adhere to Hellenistic motifs and emphasise the classicism of the human figure, this had to do more with the embrace of a sacred – and indeed of the dis- tinctly Greek – kind of archetype than with a mere borrowing of an old model.
8 Cyril Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980), 279.
9 Miloje M. Vasić, Žiča i Lazarica: Studije iz Srpske Umetnosti Srednjega Veka (Beograd: Izdavačka Knjižara Gece Kona, Knez Mihailova Ulica 1, 1928), 218.
10 Our translation. See: Miloje M. Vasić, Žiča i Lazarica: Studije iz Srpske Umetnosti Srednjega Veka (Beograd: Izda- vačka Knjižara Gece Kona, Knez Mihailova Ulica 1, 1928), 218.
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