Page 150 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Byzantine Painting through Contemporary Eyes
It thus comes as a surprise that Delvoye argues, in an implicitly negative sense, that it was Hesychasm that inhibited the Byzantine art from following the path of the Renais- sance painters in the West. He states: “In the domain of art, as well as theology, the movement of sensitivity and contemplation, whose most complete expression was Hes- ychasm, had resulted in the distanciation of Byzantium from the emancipation attempts of the West.”67
Our understanding of the phenomenon of the hesychast influence in Late Byzantine painting is assisted significantly by an observation of Gabriel Millet. Millet insightfully associated the three overlapping rhomboid features, which often occur in the 14th centu- ry and thereafter within the mandorla in the scene of Transfiguration (image 8), with the hesychast movement. Millet has interpreted these features as a reference to the Holy Trinity by stating that the great defender of Hesychasm, Grigorios Palamas, writes in his homily no. 34, that the three persons of the Holy Trinity have the coalescent and unified light.68 We observe that the motif of the overlapping rhomboid features did not remain strictly limited to the theme of Transfiguration but can also be encountered in other themes rendered in the 14th and 15th century. For example, we observe these features in image 10 which shows a 15th century fresco of The souls of the righteous in God’s hand in Resava: the three separate layers of the geometrically rendered light imply that the Tri- adic Light absorbs the righteous into one. In this, the hand of God, as well as the depic- tions of the souls as infants within this hand, constitute a symbolism which bespeaks a higher reality – the reality of the uncreated Light.
After Millet, David Talbot-Rice has also made observations of the likelihood of the hesychast influence in the frescoes of Perivleptos, as well as in Late Byzantine painting generally.69 Moreover, Talbot-Rice analyses the scene of Nativity in Perivleptos and ob- serves the following: “The same outlook is to the fore in the Nativity, which is mystical, even abstract, in treatment. The essential properties of the scene – the crib, the rocks, the
67 Our translation. The original excerpt in French reads as follows: “Le courant de sensibilité et de pensée dont l’hésychasme fut l’expression la plus achevée eut pour conséquence, dans le domaine de l’art comme dans celui de la théologie, d’éloigner Byzance de l’effort libérateur de l’ Occident.” The Greek translation of the same excerpt reads as follows: «Το ρεύμα ευαισθησίας και στοχασμού, του οποίου η πιο ολοκληρωμένη έκφραση υπήρξε ο Ησυχασμός, είχε ως συνέπεια στον τομέα της τέχνης, όπως και της θεολογίας, να απομακρύνει το Βυζάντιο από την απελευθερωτική προσπάθεια της Δύσεως.» See: Charles Delvoye, L’art Byzantin (Arthaud, 1967), 351.
68 «συμφυές καὶ ἑνιαῖον φώς» See: Gabriel Millet, Recherches sur l'iconographie de l'Évangile aux XIVe, XVe et XVIe siècles, d'après les monuments de Mistra, de la Macédoine et du Mont Athos (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1960), 230.
69 For example, in his book entitled Byzantine Painting: The Last Phase, Talbot-Rice states: “At times indeed it would seem that the idea of a mystic, uncreated light, which was at the basis of the religious teachings of a group known as the Hesychasts, was reflected in the art of the age, and the effects of their approach are to be seen not only on Mount Athos, where Hesychasm had its most ardent followers, but in the larger cities also, and not least in Constantinople.” See: David Talbot-Rice, Byzantine Painting: The Last Phase (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968), 150.
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