Page 24 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Byzantine Painting through Contemporary Eyes
tion in the 20th century Modern painting.14 It should be noted that within its broader scope our book argues for precisely the opposite.
In light of what has been said so far, it can be surmised that in spite of the tremendous progress made in the field of Byzantine aesthetics, the painting of Late Byzantium is today mainly perceived and appreciated as an artistic experience limited to the antiquar- ian connoisseur or the over-specialised scholar. In our view, the diachronic character of Late Byzantine painting is best demonstrated if we succeed in literally seeing the Late Byzantine experience in the painting of our most recent past, or even more particularly, if we succeed in tangibly observing the traces of the Late Byzantine experience in the examples of 20th century abstract painting. This of course requires not only a methodo- logical way of seeing but also a creative way of seeing.
How should Byzantine painting be described in respect to its style? This is the ques- tion from which any studious observer should begin their enquiry. The impressive mag- nitude of the more recent literature, although in itself a positive phenomenon, obliges us to be particularly selective in citing a possible answer to this question. Our choice is to turn to Gervase Mathew, who outlines the four main aspects of the aesthetics of Byzan- tine Art, as follows:
“a. A recurrent taste for classical reminiscence, which expressed a conscious inher- itance of a Graeco-Roman past;
b. An essentially mathematical approach to beauty, which led to an emphasis not only on exact symmetry but on eurhythmos and balanced movements;
c. An absorbed interest in optics, which led not only to many experiments in perspec- tive but to a concentration on Light – conceived as in itself incorporeal, though finding expression in contrasted colours;
d. And finally a belief in the existence of an invisible world of which the material is the shadow – so that an image presupposes the Imaged just as a shadow presupposes the human body that casts it, and is as closely linked to it. A scene is not a mere representa- tion of something that has once happened but a mimesis, a re-enactment.”15
14 In particular, in the conclusion of this book Kordis states: “The observed abstract mood (in Byzantine painting) does not seem to have a connection with the equivalent tendencies of Modern painting, where the attrition of the nat- ural form by rule serves the expressionistic inquiries and expresses beyond the form some spiritual, ideological or emotional content.” Our translation of: «Ἡ παρατηρούμενη ἀφαιρετική διάθεση δὲ φαίνεται νὰ έχει σχέση μὲ ἀνάλο- γες τάσεις τῆς μοντέρνας ζωγραφικῆς, ὅπου ἡ φθορὰ τῆς φυσικῆς μορφῆς ὑπηρετεῖ, κατὰ κανόνα, ἐξπρεσσιονιστικές ἀναζητήσεις καὶ ἐκφράζει κάποιο ἐπέκεινα τῆς μορφῆς πνευματικό, ἰδεολογικό ἢ συναισθηματικὸ περιεχόμενο.» See: Γιώργος Κόρδης, Ὁ Χαρακτῆρας καὶ ὁ Λόγος τῶν Ἀφαιρετικῶν Τάσεων τῆς Βυζαντινῆς Ζωγραφικῆς (Ἀθήνα: Ἐκδόσεις Ἁρμός, 2007), 76.
15 Gervase Mathew, Byzantine Aesthetics (London: John Murray, 1963), 1. 22