Page 34 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Byzantine Painting through Contemporary Eyes
Our hope is that the relevant analyses in this chapter will practically demonstrate that the topic of El Greco’s later work is where the historical and aesthetic enquiry into the significance of Byzantine painting commences most properly. Such an anachronistic hypothesis is the main reason for starting our present discussion with El Greco and then returning to the work of his Byzantine predecessors, especially those of the Late Byzan- tine period. The period between 1204 (the Crusaders’ conquest of Constantinople) and 1453 (the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople and the final collapse of the Byzantine Empire) is conventionally regarded as the Late Byzantine period. However, in the par- ticular context of the discussion of the development of Late Byzantine painting, we often tend to make a background reference to examples of Byzantine painting from the period of the Komnenian dynasty (1081–1185), which ruled during the later phase of the Middle Byzantine period (843–1204).
As we already indicated, our analytic enquiry shall not be limited to merely formal aspects, but shall aspire to infiltrate through the surface of selected examples of painting – in order to unveil that which we might term as naked content. This naked content is synonymous with the unity of the artistic creation, a unity which, as Manolis Chatzida- kis states, is absolutely indivisible.3 More particularly, Chatzidakis rightly points out that the understanding of an artwork in terms of separate formal elements is purely conven- tional.4 However, Chatzidakis claims to be adhering precisely to such a conventional approach, as he puts it, “for the sake of clarity of formulation and easiness of under- standing.”5
The basic scope of Chatzidakis’ aforementioned text is to critically examine whether Greek (Byzantine) art explains all of the personal characteristics of El Greco’s work (By- ron’s view) and whether it constitutes his initial root (Prevelakis’ view).6 The answer that Chatzidakis eventually provides is that in art history El Greco’s case is highly unique7 and that in his later work the significance of his knowledge of Greek (Byzantine) paint- ing should not be sought in the relationship which can be observed among particular de- tails, but in far more essential principles: “in the perception regarding the meaning of art.”8
3 Μανόλης Χατζηδάκης, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος Κρης: Κείμενα 1940–1994 (Μορφωτικό Ίδρυμα Εθνικής Τραπέ- ζης, 1995), 53–54.
4 Ibid.
5 See Chatzidakis’ text entitled Comparative Morphology: Iconography, Colour, Light, Form, Space, Proportions included in: Μανόλης Χατζηδάκης, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος Κρης: Κείμενα 1940–1994 (Μορφωτικό Ίδρυμα Εθνικής Τραπέζης, 1995), 53–54.
6 Ibid., 53. 7 Ibid., 79–82. 8 Ibid., 81.
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