Page 147 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Chapter II
III
Perivleptos and Kalenić: Sisters in Hesychasm
As in regards to the history of the Hesychast Debate, that which is of central significance for our present chapter is the information that in the 14th and 15th centuries the light of the transfigured Christ (who at the point of His Transfiguration shone in front of the apostles in the actual three-dimensional space) was internally and spiritually experi- enced by certain monks, and most plausibly also by painters – who themselves lived as monks. Consequently, the work of these painters, which in our view undoubtedly man- ifests the influence of the hesychast teaching, invites us to interpret their spiritual vi- sion, both aesthetically and theologically, as well as to enquire into the relevance of that vision for the painting of our own epoch. As we shall demonstrate below, Hesychasm in Late Byzantine fresco painting is a phenomenon where art, without the immediate, ac- tivist-like concern for politics, absorbs both the political and the overall cultural experi- ence into a higher sphere of meaning.
Two or three painters worked together in Kalenić, and they have successfully unified their individual inclinations and tendencies of expression into a harmonious whole.58 In spite of the simultaneous use of cooler nuances, unassumingly, the considerably warm earthy palette, the evenness of the presence of an atmospheric light, and the weightless- ness of figures, are the characteristics which speak of the connection between the fres- coes at Kalenić (1418–1427) and those at Perivleptos (1350–1375) in Mistra. If the reader compares the scene of Nativity at Perivleptos in Mistra (see image 15 in the next chapter entitled Modernism of the Frescoes of Mistra) to the scene of The Wedding in Cana at Kalenić, shown in images 12, 13 and 14, they will detect the similarity not only in the pal- ette but also in the softness of the movement of figures, as well as in the elegance of form. More than anything, the mystic effect of the omnipresent light is a particularly noteworthy similarity here.
Vojislav Djurić (1974) argues that, no Byzantine artist, before the Kalenić painters, managed to give material quality to light through the means of the softness of modeling and a mist in the atmosphere.59 However, such a claim would only seem correct had the
58 This observation is originally made by Vojislav Djurić. See: Vojislav Djurić, Vizantijske Freske u Jugoslaviji. Dru- go izdanje (Beograd: Jugoslavija, 1975), 101.
59 Ibid., 103.
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