Page 135 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Chapter II
attempt to render the closed eyecups. As seen in image 27, the irises can still be discerned. However, in observing this phenomenon, we should not forget that in the early Chris- tian period the crucified Christ was depicted with eyes open. Draginja Simić-Lazar states that the open eyes of the dead Christ in Kalenić could be explained firstly as an influence of Western models,25 and less likely, as an influence of the early Christian models.26
Notwithstanding these two possibilities, in our opinion, it is also possible that due to the special attention which in rendering of portraits the artist at Kalenić gave to the gaze of the eyes, in rendering the dead Christ, he/she undermined or perhaps even temporar- ily forgot the fact that in this scene Christ is actually dead. If as an exercise of thought we imagine the latter scenario to be true, then the open eyes of dead Christ in Kalenić appear as an ‘accidental’ Fayum aspect – as the main characteristics of Fayum portraits are their burial purpose and the existence of life after death implied through the intense gaze of the eyes. Our exercise of thought is encouraged by the fact that Christ’s irises which were initially painted are positioned in such a way that they seem to be conveying a particularly exalted state (image 27).
The iconographic similarities between the frescoes at Kalenić and the mosaics at the church of Chora in Constantinople, have long been noted.27 Also, as mentioned earlier, the likelihood of the influence of certain trends from the painting of the early 15th centu- ry Russia on Kalenić’s painters is undisputed.28 Further, that which can be said with ab- solute certainty is that, judging by the maturity of their style, the unknown authors of the frescoes at Kalenić were not indecisive in respect of the variety of their influences, but have incorporated these into a uniform and distinct conception – one that was stu- diously envisaged and thereafter skillfully realised.
Having said this, in regards to Kalenić frescoes, our specific aim in this chapter is to gradually address their relationship to the otherworldly light manifest in the impressive frescoes of Perivleptos in Mistra. In order to do this, we must go back in time, by approx- imately half a century: we must go back from the time of creation of the Kalenić frescoes (c.1418–1427) to the time of creation of the frescoes at Perivleptos (c.1350–1375).
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25 In scenes of the Crucifixion in the Western tradition Christ’s eyes could either be open or closed.
26 Draginja Simić-Lazar, Kalenić et la dernière période de la peinture byzantine (Skopje: Matica Makedonska, 1995), 200. 27 See: Svetozar Radojčić, Kalenić (Beograd: Publishing House Jugoslavija, 1964), X.
28 For example, David Talbot-Rice notes the similarity between the paintings of the Morava school and those pro-
duced in various centres in Russia at the same time. See: David Talbot-Rice, Byzantine Painting: The Last Phase (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968), 183–184.
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