Page 43 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Chapter I
More specifically, the White Angel seated on the tomb of Christ appears as a classical Greek sculpture transcribed pictorially into a fresco (image 24). With the left hand the angel points to the empty tomb of Christ, while his left wing, although directed in the opposite direction, seems to be an extension of that movement. The pointing left hand is placed across the torso of the angel while the left wing opens into space towards the frightened myrrh-bearers (the two Marys) – heralding therein the Resurrection of Christ. The sleeping soldiers are depicted below the figure of the angel, almost as if belonging to a separate composition.
Within the organisation of the composition, the position of the angel’s expressive and distinctly Hellenistic portrait24 is not at all accidental. In particular, the seated figure of the angel is positioned in such a way, that its outer contours to the lower right roughly mark the middle of the composition, while the outer contours of the torso to the right are closer to the left side of the composition. In this way, the angel’s portrait which crowns the steady axis of his seated figure is distinctly placed away from the centre of the com- position and near the empty tomb of Christ, while the actual centre of the composition is where the movement of the angel’s left wing starts to expand towards right: the wing in motion heralds the Resurrection which is witnessed in view of the absence of Christ from the tomb. The Resurrection of Christ is further conveyed by the full presence of the angel’s saintly gaze – which is directed at the observer.
One could suggest that, the portrait of the White Angel at Mileševa recapitulates the entire history of Ancient Greek as well as Byzantine portraiture up until that period. More particularly, in view of this portrait we are simultaneously reminded of the sculp- tural portraits of Greek gods, the expressive Fayum burial portraits, the portraits in the Hellenistic mosaics, and of course, the Byzantine portraits of the previous periods. More importantly, with their pensive expression, the widely opened eyes of the White Angel tangibly project the existence of a concealed reality, one which is communicable only to those who see spiritually. Thus, although this portrait has its typological roots in the distant past of the Greek art, through the gaze of its eyes it becomes an eschatological prosopography that heralds not just the Resurrection of Christ, but also the final Resur- rection of all believers, and indeed of the fallen human nature. Given its pronounced
usually rendered in Byzantine art by the scene where Christ raises up Adam and Eve from the tomb, with the broken gates of limbo at His feet; the empty tomb was more usual in the West. But there are Eastern prototypes for the Mileše- va rendering, as for example in paintings at Karabas Kilisse in Cappadocia which date from 1061.” See: David Talbot-Rice, Byzantine Painting: The Last Phase (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968), 41.
24 By using the term Hellenistic, in this particular instance we are referring to the style of portraits of the Hellenis- tic mosaics. In other instances we use the term Hellenic in order to refer to phenomena which relate to the aesthetics of the Ancient Greek art in a broader sense.
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