Page 49 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Chapter I
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The main characteristics of the late 13th century Palaiologan frescoes are the classi- cism of form and a distinct tendency towards abstraction. Although the Palaiologan painting at the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th century has formally a lot in common with the painting style of the Komnenian period, it should undoubtedly be ap- preciated as a category of its own. The meticulous elaboration of specific aesthetic prin- ciples led the artists of the early Palaiologan period towards compositional and thematic solutions for which the bible themes were no longer the only source.
Additionally, certain depictions of human figures are reminiscent of those in every- day life, relating therein the ordinary and the vernacular to the divine and the inconceiv- able. The reversed or relative perspective, which is particularly characteristic of the Palaiologan painting, was in the preceding periods of Byzantine art conveyed mostly through rendering the figures which are in the backgrounds of compositions as of the same size with or illogically proportioned in relation to the ones depicted in the first plan.32 In the Palaiologan period, the reversed perspective is most clearly expressed in the drawing of the architectural features. These architectural features, contrary to the forms in natural perspective, expand towards the distance.
We observe how the buildings and other geometrical forms are sometimes seen from more than a single angle. The architectural motifs, as well as landscape features, con- struct a setting for each of the scenes. Thus, in the painting of the Palaiologan period, in the emphasised reversed perspective, the lines close in towards the observer, or more precisely, it is implied that they commence from the point of view of the observer and expand into the background of the composition. In this way the observer, as a main point of reference, becomes absorbed by the blue sky in the background of the frescoes, as if merging into a space of the fourth dimension, where the body is less bodily than in the third dimension.
Also, it seems that the monochromatic surface of the sky in Byzantine frescoes pro- duces a prevailing mystical effect in the overall interior of many Byzantine churches – and this is in itself a major aspect of the tendency towards abstraction in Late Byzantine painting. The narrative and by all means a dream-like character of the Palaiologan paint- ing is undoubtedly complemented by the aforementioned effect. Unlike the painters who
32 Mainly after the period of Iconoclasm, the reversed or relative perspective was also conveyed by placing those figures which belong to the second plan of the composition simply above those which belong to the main plan, without the naturalistic differentiation of their size. Also, generally in Byzantine painting, figures of main importance within a composition, such as the figure of Christ and the Virgin, are often deliberately depicted as bigger than those which are right next to them.
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