Page 37 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Chapter I
The task of our comparison was not to determine or prove that El Greco based his Visitation on some Cretan version of the scene at Kurbinovo – although of course we do not exclude such a possibility. The following comparisons shall be similar in this regard. What we wish to focus on through these comparisons is the actual potentiality of El Greco’s later work to absorb and thus embody the Byzantine painting experience – with- out implying that El Greco had a particular Byzantine model in mind when he painted each of these works.
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Female portraits require special attention in El Greco’s painting. They often express an exalted spiritual state where the gestures of hands aim to stress the sanctity of the depicted moment. For example, such is the portrait of The Repentant Mary Magdalene with the Cross, shown in image 3. Notwithstanding the obvious Western style of these portraits, their unassuming Hellenistic aspects seem to be the catalyst for their other- worldly aura. For example, this can be observed to an extent in the characteristic, in- tensely meditative gaze of the eyes in such portraits, which seems to lead back to the burial portraits of Fayum. The famous Fayum portraits, from the Fayum region in Egypt, such as the one shown in image 5, date between the 1st and the 3rd century AD and are justly considered as an aesthetic predecessor of Byzantine portraiture.
For example, dating to the late 7th and early 8th century, the portrait, probably of St Elizabeth in the church of Ekatontapyliani on the island of Paros in Greece is one of many fine examples of the continuous intrinsic influence of the Fayum portraits in Byz- antine painting (images 4 and 6). The notably exaggerated and schematised almond-shaped eyes of St Elizabeth and her small silence-imbued lips are coupled with a wondrous ex- pression which is both humanistic and spiritual. This portrait may be considered as an irregularly early example of the first phase of Byzantine humanism.
Our visual comparison can now extend further, incorporating also another two ex- amples of female Byzantine portraits, from the 9th and 13th centuries respectively, as well as a selected female portrait by El Greco, dated between 1587 and 1596. In particular, five portraits are juxtaposed: a female portrait from the Egyptian region of Fayum, St Eliza- beth from Ekatontapyliani, Mother of God from the conch of the apse of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, The Virgin from the mosaic of Deesis in Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, and The Repentant Mary Magdalene with the Cross by El Greco. Despite the obvious dif- ferences among these portraits, the emphasis which is given to the gaze of the eyes con- nects them in quite a unique and mystagogical way. In the comparison between the Virgin from the mosaic of Deesis (image 8) in Hagia Sophia and The Repentant Mary Mag-
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