Page 357 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Chapter VI
we can neither affirm nor deny it, inasmuch as the all-perfect and unique Cause of all things transcends all affirmation, and the simple pre-eminence of Its absolute nature is outside of every negation – free from every limitation and beyond them all.”74
In 1953 Rothko stated the following about his paintings: “Either their surfaces are ex- pansive and push outward in all directions, or their surfaces contract and rush inward in all directions. Between these two poles you can find everything I want to say.”75 As a means to a visual epilogue of our final exploration, we have zoomed-in and photographed the portrait of Christ’s figure in the composition of Resurrection at the chapel of the church of Chora in Constantinople. This segment of the fresco is photographed as seen by the observer – within the given slightly dim afternoon light of the interior of the chapel (image 76). In view of this image, we are not certain whether Christ is emerging from or disappearing into the dimness of space: the viewer is separated from the painted surface by the indefinable volume of space – which becomes an integral part of the ac- tual composition and evokes a puzzling kind of spatial interaction. The analogy to the peculiar atmosphere of this photograph is observed in Rothko’s work shown in image 77, where we are not certain whether we are approached by or whether we sink into the strange anti-absence of the absolute otherness. In this sense, a number of Rothko’s classic paintings can be understood as timeless pulsating portals which tend to absorb the view- er, reminding us therein of the Late Byzantine experience.
74 For the English translation of Mystical Theology see: http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeII/MysticalTheology. html For the original in Greek see:
Περὶ μυστικῆς θεολογίας: Corpus Dionysiacum, II. De mystica thelogia, hrsg. von G. Heil und A. M. Ritter, Patristische Texte und Studien 36, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 1991, 139–150 (= PG 3, 997–1064).
75 In his essay entitled “Rothko: Color as Subject,” John Gage includes this citation. See: John Gage, “Rothko: Color as Subject,” in Mark Rothko, ed. Jeffrey Weiss (Washington: National Gallery of Art, in association with New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), 252.
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