Byzantine Holy Images - Transcendence and Immanence. The Theological Background of the Iconography and Aesthetics of the Chora Church

361 Pages·2010·149.725 MB·English

by  Anne Karahan

ORIENTA LIA LOV ANIENSIA
ANALECTA
---176---
BYZANTINE HOLY IMAGES
TRANSCENDENCE AND
IMMANENCE
The Theological Background of the
Iconography and
Aesthetics of the Chora Church
by
ANNE KARAHAN
UITGEVERIJ PEETERS en DEPARTEMENT OOSTERSE STUDIES
LEUVEN - PARIS - WALPOLE, MA
2010
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
© 2010, Peeters Publishers & Department of Oriental Studies
Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3000 Leuven/Louvain (Belgium)
All rights reserved, including the rights to translate or to
reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form.
ISBN 978-90-429-2080-4
D/2010/0602/67
To the memory of my mother
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1
PHOTO CREDITS . . . 3
REFERENCE TO IMAGES IN THE PRESENT VOLUME . 3
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Hypothesis and Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Continuity in the Christian Orthodox Tradition 8
Cappadocian Impact . . . . . . 10
Theory, Method and Terminology 15
The Mystical Commentary 25
Previous Research . . . . . . . . . 26
Outline ........... ... . 31
Historical Background of the Chora Monastery 31
CHAPTER I
QUEST FOR IMAGES OF 'THE RIGHT BELIEF' . . . . . . . 35
Theological Prerequisites for Byzantine Holy Images 36
Beauty ............... . 39
Holy Logoi and Religious Language 44
Dogma as Verbal or Painted Icon 47
Agraphos versus Eggraphos 49
Auditory and Ocular Perception . 51
Icons and the Negative View of Public Disputation 53
A Byzantine Canon of Sacred Images 54
The Typological Portrait ...... .. ... .. . 55
The Issue of Material Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
The Role and Path of Veneration of Holy Icons 57
Divine - Human . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Incarnation and Deification . . . . . . . . 67
The Purpose of the God of Revelation 68
Creation and Cosmic Order . . . . . . . . . 69
Energeia and Ousia - Creation ex Nihilo 71
The Anthropocentric Perspective . . . . 72
No Gender - the True Nature of Adam 73
Macrocosm and Microcosm 74
The Image of God in Humankind 75
The Church as Image . . . . . . . 80
VIII CONTENTS
CHAPTER II
TRANSCENDENCE AND IMMANENCE: A COMMUNION . . . . . . . 83
The Annunciation to the Virgin at the Well . . . . . . 85
Ancient Egyptian Stone Sculpture - a Conceptual Parallel 87
The Prominent Role of Fountains and Wells . . . . . 89
Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Hagia Sophia - Exuberant Light and Massive Body 91
Koimesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Grisaille . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
The Scroll of Heaven - the End of the Assignment of Created
Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Uncreated and Created . . . . . 109
Fire - Enlightenment or Death 115
Halos and Medallions . . . . . . 118
Tripartite Windows: a Materialized Dogma 122
The Paradox of Making an Image of the Transcendent Divine 123
Light and Color - the Transfigured God in Glory 124
Form and Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Abstraction or Concretion in Holy Images . . . . 129
Abstraction and Concretion in Sculpture 135
Angels - Spiritual Presence and Corporeality 138
CHAPTER ill
NARRATION ........ . 143
Balance versus Unbalance - Kinetics versus Statics 146
The Three Wills of Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
The First Seven Steps of the Virgin . . . . . . . 147
The Anastasis - Ascension to Revelation of God's True
Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
The Massacre of the Innocents . . . . . . . . . 160
The Idols Falling from the Walls of the Temple 164
John the Baptist Bearing Witness of Christ 165
The Temptation of Christ 166
The Last Judgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Movement of Good . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Measured Motion as an Imprint of Ethos 174
Concluding Remarks on Balance and Kinetics 175
Economy - Action and Theology - Constitution 178
Patent versus Latent Kinetics 180
Latent Kinetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
CONTENTS IX
Evil - an Unnatural State 184
Evil and Punishment . . 186
Satan - a Seedy Fellow in Byzantine Holy Images 187
In Quest of Evil Immateriality . . . . . . 188
Sin and Redemption . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Personalized Aspiration for Redemption 190
Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple 193
The Nativity . . . . . . . . . . 195
Anachronic Narration . . . . . 198
Heaven Reflected on Earth . 199
Time - Eternity . . . . . . 202
Antithesis . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Corporeality - Nude or Clothed 207
CHAPTER IV
THE ORTHODOX LEGACY . . 211
Patristic Authority and the Significance of Dogma 211
Apophatic Theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Mystical Theology . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Truth through the Logos - Being as Life 218
Cataphatic Theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Apophatic and Cataphatic Didactics in the Chora Church 221
The Ladder of Cataphatic Theology 224
Divine Darkness . . . 226
Three Divine Paths . . . . . . . . . 228
The Trinity Dogma 231
Personhood-Ousia, Hypostasis and Homoousios 233
The Trinity and the Old Testament . . . . . . . . 235
The Trinity and the New Testament . . . . . . . 236
Trinitarian Legacy and Two Natures in Painting . 237
Unique, Simple and Pure . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Multiplicity or Homogeneity as a Device in Holy Images 243
The Notion of Theotokos and the Chora Church . . . . . . . . 247
The Purity of the Theotokos - Redemption of Humankind 251
Theotokos in Fourteenth-Century Byzantium . 252
Ephesos (431) and Chalcedon (451) . . . . . . . 253
The Council of Ephesos (431) - Starting Point 253
Antioch versus Alexandria . 254
The Council at Ephesos 431 . . . . . . . . . . 255
X CONTENTS
The Council of Chalcedon 451 - the Dispute . 256
The Opening of Chalcedon 257
The Definition . . . . . . . 257
FINAL REMARKS 259
ABBREVIATIONS 273
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 275
LIST OF PLANS, SECTIONS AND PLATES 295
INDEX OF MOTIFS 335
GENERAL INDEX . 339
SELECT INDEX OF GREEK WORDS 353
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is a revised version of my PhD thesis submitted in 2005 at the
f Department of Art History, Stockholm University, Sweden. Besides a
number of corrections, alterations, and additions, I have changed Greek
terminology into Greek transcription, and appended a General Index,
a Select Index of Greek Words, and an Index of Motifs.
Over the years a number of people have answered questions, encour
aged me, and come with wise queries. With her promptness to comment
upon drafts Madeleine von Beland was an invaluable mentor during my
formative academic years at the Department of Art History, Stockholm
University. Special thanks go to Samuel Rubenson, Center for Theology
and Religious Studies, Lund University, Sweden, who introduced me into
stimulating milieus of patristic studies in the Nordic countries, as well as
in Egypt, Syria and Turkey, and who also gave me the possibility to pre
sent parts of my work at the Centre for Advanced Study, at the Norwe
gian Academy of Science and Letters. Rubenson's constructive criticism
enhanced my theological awareness. I am also truly grateful to Torstein
Tollefsen, Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas,
Oslo University, Norway, for his genuine interest in my research and his
judicious, knowledgeable and constructive commentaries upon several
drafts of the the~is. Jostein Bprtnes, Department of Classics, Russian and
the History of Religions, Bergen University, Norway, and Charles Lock,
Department of English, Germanics and Romanics, Copenhagen Univer
sity, Denmark, have also given me valuable remarks of which I am
obliged.
Thanks are also due to Ulf Abel, formerly at the Nationalmuseum,
Stockholm, who introduced me to the Byzantinists in Sweden, and the late
Lennart Ryden, Department of Classical Philology, Byzantine Studies,
Uppsala University, Sweden. In accepting me to partake in the Nordic
PhD research course in Turkey 1995, Ryden gave me an opportunity to
meet with specialists and young Byzantinists that still remain my friends
and colleagues. Another outcome of the tour was a request from Karsten
Fledelius, Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, Copen
hagen University, that resulted in a paper at the XIX International Con
gress of Byzantine Studies, Copenhagen 1996. Early on also Per-Arne
Bodin, Department of Slavic Languages, Stockholm University, gave my
2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
research recognition by inviting me to submit a paper at a symposium on
hymnography, at Stockholm University 1997.
I moreover thank the members of the seminar at the Center for Theol
ogy and Religious Studies, Lund University for fruitful discussions and
hospitality. Many thanks go also to Ingela Nilsson, affiliated to the Swedish
Collegium for Advanced Study and Department of Linguistics and Philol
ogy I Byzantine Studies, Uppsala University, for her loyal support of my
research, and careful reading of and valuable comments on this study.
I have employed the services of The National Library of Sweden and
the Istituto Svedese di Studi Classici a Roma, whose staffs I kindly thank.
For tangible advices I thank Maria Jansson at the National Library. Many
thanks go also to the editorial committee of Peeters Publishers for pub
lishing my study in Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta. The responsibility
for any error remains, of course, my own.
The research for this book has been carried out with the help of grants
from Anna Ahlstroms och Ellen Terserus Stiftelse, Stiftelsen Langman
ska kulturfonden, Stiftelsen Lars Hiertas Mione, Ema och Einar Palm
grens fond, Hildur Odlunds Stiftelse, Wallenbergfonden for yngre
forskare, and Stockholm University. The completion of this manuscript
has been partly financed by Vera Sagers Stiftelse and Herbert och Karin
Jacobssons Stiftelse.
Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my husband Suat for
his unflagging support.
Anne Karahan
Stockholm, January 2009
PHOTO CREDITS
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the reproduction rights that have
been given from Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Photograph and Fieldwork
Archives, Washington, DC, to photos that accord with the following
Plates in Underwood 1966: [l], [3], [6], [7]-[46] (The southern dome),
[47], [49], [51]-[78] (The northern dome), [85], [87], [88], [89], [90],
[91], [98], [100], [102], [103], [106], [107], [108], [111], [115], [116],
[137], [185], [187], [201], [204], [204]-1, [204]-2, [204]-3 (the
Prophets), [204]-4, [204]-5, [204]-6, [206], [207], [209], [210],
[211]-[223] (Dome of the western bay), [211], [228], [229], [230], [231],
[234], [235], [236], [242], and [Tomb D]. Further reproduction rights
have been given from Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Photograph and Field
work Archives, Washington, DC to [Fig. I], and [Fig. II]. With regard to
[Fig. I] credit should also be given to Hirmer Verlag Miinchen. I am also
indebted to Princeton University Press, who has granted me permission
to reproduce copyrighted material [Fig. 1]-[Fig. 12], from "Plans and
Sections", UNDERWOOD, PAUL A.; THE KAR/YE DJAMI VOL. 1-3.
1966 Princeton University Press Reprinted by permission of Princeton
University Press.
REFERENCES TO IMAGES IN THE PRESENT VOLUME
Arabic numbering in squared brackets, e.g. the Anastasis, corresponds [201]
to the notation system in the most extensive work made on the Chora
church, Paul A. Underwood's four volume monograph, entitled The
Kariye Djami1 (vols. 1-3, 1966 and vol. 4, 1975). As these volumes are
available in most large libraries I have chosen to keep Underwood's nota-
tion system in order to avoid confusion, and to facilitate the use of this
great inventory. Plans and section drawings are taken from the same work.
1 When the Turks turned the Chora church into a mosque they renamed it Kariye camii,
the term camii denoting that it was now a mosque. The Turkish term kariye derives from
the archaic Turkish term ka1ye, which corresponds to modern Turkish koy, 'village'
(Steuerwald 1972). The Greek term chora was only translated in its topographical sense
and not its mystical. The spelling djami is just an anglicized onomatopoeia of the Turkish
pronunciation.