Page 137 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Chapter II
The Byzantine painters of the late period adhered to a depiction of a reversed or rel- ative perspective which has its furthermost roots in Egyptian art. Giotto inherited the narrative disposition, a certain level of expressiveness, and certain structural norms of Byzantine painting. However, Giotto did not inherit the Eastern roots of the Byzantine artistic tradition. This is most obvious in his attempt to depict natural perspective – which is quite foreign to Byzantine painting.
Accordingly, a comparison of Giotto’s Lamentation, painted around 1303–1305, with the Byzantine scene of Lamentation in Nerezi (1164), provides a particularly clear under- standing of what was said above (images 3 and 2). In Giotto’s composition, two of the figures have their backs turned towards the observer, while one of them blocks a part of the depiction of Christ. In the composition of Lamentation in Nerezi, like a piece of a written text, the entire scene is envisaged and rendered in relation to the observer. The composition of Lamentation in Nerezi, was completed in 1164, less than a hundred years before the commencement of the Palaiologan epoch (1261–1453), during which the con- cept of the inner light eventually acquired a new dimension.
More particularly, our view is that in the frescoes of Perivleptos in Mistra, as well as in those of Kalenić, the concept of inner light, which was nurtured throughout the entire history of Byzantine painting, is effectively transformed into the notion of the omnipres- ent light: as if the painters who experienced the uncreated Taborian Light through the Prayer of the Mind have passed that light on to the entire surface of the fresh mortar – therein transcending the singularity of individual forms.
The difference to the frescoes of the previous phase of the Palaiologan painting (1261– c.1295) becomes particularly clear when we compare the mid 14th century composition of Baptism in Perivleptos to the late 13th century composition of Baptism painted in Prota- ton by a painter known to us as Manuel Panselinos (Manuel Panselinos is most likely a later pseudonym for the main painter who painted at Protaton). In Panselinos’ Baptism, shown in image 7, the palette is cooler and there is a stronger emphasis on the volumet- ric dynamism among the forms, which deliberately enhances the narrative character of the composition. As can be seen in image 7, the narrative starts systematically from the far left, where St John the Baptist is depicted to be addressing a group of figures, which includes a depiction of Christ in its centre. In the scene of Baptism in Perivleptos, shown in image 6, the analogous place (to the far left) hosts a far simpler depiction of Christ conversing with St John, whereas a small group of figures is depicted below them.
Also, it can be observed that in spite of the attention that it gives to detail, the narra- tive in the Baptism of Perivleptos is closer to insinuation than description. For example, unlike in Panselinos’ Baptism (image 7), in the Baptism at Perivleptos (image 6), the two
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