Page 51 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Chapter I
Fourna, who explains in his Painter’s Manual that he learned how to paint by adhering to the style of: “Master Manuel Panselinos of Thessaloniki who shines like the moon, from both the holy icons painted by him and the lovely churches on the sacred mountain of Athos; who, ever shining in this art of painting like the golden, radiant, moving moon, surpassed and overshadowed all old and new painters with his wonderful art, as is clear- ly shown by the images painted by him on walls and panels.”35 The reference to the moon is owed to the painter’s supposed name, Panselinos, which means “full moon.”
Panselinos’ style is one of broad contours and widely rendered forms. The architec- tural features, as well as the depictions of the landscape, are rendered with an intention to provide a specific structure to each of the compositions; these features often empha- sise the reciprocity of approximate symmetry, as well as dynamically correspond to the depicted movement of the figures. Thus, Panselinos’ compositions are characterised by a geometric kind of balance and motion. These compositions are never rigid, as in each case, they are imbued with the eurhythmos which is conveyed through the depicted body movements, similarly to the composition of the Dormition of the Virgin at Sopoćani (image 28). Yet, Panselinos’ work is quite distinct.
The classical sculpturality in Panselinos’ work is most obvious in the way the render- ings of the folds and creases of the clothing simultaneously depict both the shape and the movement of the body. The delicate metallic sheen of the clothing conveys the vol- ume and plasticity of each depicted figure, and often comes to emphasise a particular part of the body or its movement. The individual garments of each figure are rendered with three or more tones of colour. Beginning with the darkest, each of these layers is lighter than the previous and applied in a characteristically broad, yet rather calligraph- ic manner.
Panselinos blends the colour tones with a delicate sense for chromatic harmony. In the rendering of the plastic form he progresses from the darker tones to the lighter ones with incredible softness – which wondrously complements the eurhythmos of the clear linear drawing. Indeed, the claim that the line constitutes the rhythm while the colour constitutes the harmony in Byzantine fresco painting is most valid in view of Panselinos’ frescoes. Although plastic and lucid in a sculptural sense, the drapery on the figures gives the effect of an otherworldly translucency, one which bespeaks not some kind of imagi- nary but a different existence of the body – the existence of a transfigured human body.
The analogies with El Greco’s later work are clearly apparent in the non-naturalistic treatment of light, light which is in both cases itself corporeal (despite the seemingly
35 Ibid., 24.
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