Page 325 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Chapter VI
thetics – in many ways similar to that defined by John Panteleimon Manoussakis in his doctoral thesis.48 More particularly, Manoussakis deliberately avoids the conventional usage of the term “aesthetics” and uses the word in its original Greek sense: aisthano- mai.49 However, given that this is the meaning that the term “aesthetics” has in Kant’s first Critique, Manoussakis provides the following explanation of the way in which his theological aesthetics differs from Kant’s aesthetics:
“In the very beginning of that section of The Critique of Pure Reason entitled ‘Tran- scendental Aesthetics,’ Kant defines ‘aesthetics’ as ‘sensibility,’ that is, ‘the capacity (re- ceptivity) for receiving representations through the mode in which we are affected by objects’ (A19). Following Kant’s definition, then, we could describe Theological Aesthet- ics as precisely that field which Kant’s ‘Transcendental Aesthetics’ had always excluded: that field that would consider God as a possible ‘object’ of experience (B73). A field that would explore the possibility of God to be given; an ‘intuition’ of God, if you like – be it maximalistic or minimalistic – an intuition that would not be immediately paired with understanding to produce concepts, but rather, it will leave behind whatever concepts understanding has formed in order to relocate the encounter with God in this capacity to receive – a capacity performed by our senses.”50 Thus, through the adherence to the above formulated theological aesthetics, in continuation of this chapter we shall aim to interpret a deeper level of a Byzantine-like theological content of Rothko’s paintings of the classic period.
On the Hybrid-Byzantine Light in Rothko’s Colour
“In Byzantium, for a period of one hundred and eighteen years, the exercise of plastic realisations was forbidden by Christian law, and the destruction of – that is, vandalism against – the great artistic productions of that era, as well as the destruction of the Hel- lenistic sculptures which previous emperors had revered and enshrined, was considered an act in the service of God. The Turks, from another quarter, whitewashed the beautiful frescoes and pulled down the mosaics in the great church of Sophia.”51
48 John Panteleimon Manoussakis, God after Metaphysics: A Theological Aesthetic, (Indiana University Press, 2007).
49 The term aesthetics is of Greek origin: aisthisi (αίσθηση) translates to sense, whereas aisthanomai (αισθάνομαι) literally means: I feel – by the means of the senses. See: John Panteleimon Manoussakis, God after Metaphysics: A The- ological Aesthetic, (Indiana University Press, 2007), 2.
50 Ibid.
51 Mark Rothko, The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art, edited by Christopher Rothko (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004), 7.
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