Hesychasm and Art: The Appearance of New Iconographic Trends in Byzantine and Slavic Lands in the 14th and 15th Centuries

328 Pages·2014·4.33 MB·English

by  Anita Strezova

Hesychasm and Art

Hesychasm and Art
The Appearance of New Iconographic
Trends in Byzantine and Slavic Lands
in the 14th and 15th Centuries
Anita Strezova
Published by ANU Press
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200, Australia
Email: [email protected]
This title is also available online at http://press.anu.edu.au
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Author: Strezova, Anita, author.

Title: Hesychasm and art: the appearance of new Iconographic trends in Byzantine
and Slavic lands in the 14th and 15th centuries / Anita Strezova.

ISBN: 9781925021837 (paperback) 9781925021851 (ebook)

Subjects: Hesychasm--In art.
Mysticism and art.
Christianity and art.

Dewey Number: 759.022
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
Unless otherwise stated, all images are author’s own. Photographs of artworks have been
obtained during author’s fieldwork in Europe and USA (2010). Copyright has been sought for
all images which were not taken by the author. All sources have been duly acknowledged in the
text according to standard academic usage.
The subchapter ‘Doctrinal Positions of Barlaam of Calabria and Gregory Palamas’ is republished
here with permission of St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. An earlier version appears under the
heading ‘Doctrinal Positions of Barlaam of Calabria and Gregory Palamas during Byzantine
Hesychast Controversy’ in St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, vol. 2 (2014).
Cover photo: Christ Pantokrator (surrounded by saints and signs of the zodiac), c. 1347-1349,
fresco, the central cupola, painted by Michael of Lesnovo, Church of St Archangel Gabriel,
Monastery of Lesnovo, Probistip (Macedonia).
Cover design by Nic Welbourn and layout by ANU Press
Printed by Griffin Press
This edition © 2014 ANU Press
Contents
Dedication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
List of illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xvii
Sasha Grishin
Epigraph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Introduction 1
1 . Byzantine Hesychasm in the 14th and 15th 9
Centuries
The meaning of hesychasm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Hesychasm and Gregory of Sinai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Gregory of Sinai and Gregory Palamas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
The hesychast controversy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Hesychasm in the Slavic lands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Doctrinal positions of Barlaam of Calabria and
Gregory Palamas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
2 . General Iconographic Changes in the 14th and 63
15th Centuries
Hesychasm and Christian art of the 14th and 15th centuries . 64
General iconographic changes in the art of the 14th and
15th centuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3 . The Transfiguration Miniature of Parisinus 81
Graecus 1242
The theological background of the Transfiguration . . . . . . . . 81
Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
The iconography of the Transfiguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
The Transfiguration miniature of the Parisinus Graecus 1242 . 88
Formal qualities of the Transfiguration miniature . . . . . . . . . 107
The Transfiguration miniature in the context of 14th- and
15th-century art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
4 . The Fresco of the Anastasis in the Chora Church 131
The theological background of the Anastasis . . . . . . . . . . . 132
The iconography of the Resurrection of Christ in the East . . 134
Theodore Metochites and the parekklesion of the
Church of the Saviour, Chora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
The Anastasis fresco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Formal qualities of the Anastasis fresco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
The Anastasis fresco in the context 14th- and
15th-century art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
5 . The Icon of the Trinity by Andrei Rublev 173
The Old Testament Trinity in theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
The iconography of the Trinity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Andrei Rublev and his art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Sergius of Radonezh and the cult of the Trinity . . . . . . . . . 184
Theophanes the Greek and Andrei Rublev . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Rublev’s icon of the Trinity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Formal qualities of Rublev’s icon of the Trinity . . . . . . . . . . 197
Rublev’s icon of the Trinity in the context of 15th- and
16th-century art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Conclusion 233
Bibliography 243
Index 299
For Daria and Nika

Acknowledgements
I express my gratitude to the many people who saw me through the writing of
this book; to all those who provided support, read, wrote, offered comments,
allowed me to quote their remarks and assisted in the editing, proofreading and
design. I thank ANU Press for enabling me to publish this book. I sincerely
thank Professor Sasha Grishin from The Australian National University for his
patience, timely advice and careful attention to countless drafts. In a world of
increasingly rapid change and compromise, Sasha is an inspiring example of the
traditional values of academic rigour, professionalism and critical enquiry. I feel
privileged to have been part of such an academic environment.
I extend my deepest thanks to individuals and institutions that assisted me
with this research by offering either guidance or support. I thank the staff at
the Byzantine Library at the College of France, as well as those working at
Gabriel Millet Archives, Paris, for granting me access to rare bibliographical
material. Without their assistance, this research would not have been possible.
Also, I extend my gratitude to Dr Catherine de Leve for providing me with
networking support around France. My appreciation also goes to Dr Nikolay
Nenov, the director of the Rousse Regional History Museum (Bulgaria) for his
extraordinary initiative in securing my access to frescoes at the rock-hewn
churches of Ivanovo. I also thank Professor Emmanuel Mutafov from Bulgaria
for his warm hospitality and assistance.
I extend my gratitude to Archbishop Hilarion of the Serbian Orthodox Church,
Diocese of Australia and New Zealand, for arranging permission for me
to take photographs of frescoes and icons in the churches of Serbia. Special
acknowledgement goes to members of the Macedonian Orthodox Church who
assisted me in taking photographs of paintings in many Macedonian churches. I
am also grateful to staff of the Museum of Skopje for allowing me to access their
permanent exhibition of Byzantine icons. I also feel in debt to Dr Zoja Bojic and
her parents for arranging permissions to access collections in Serbia. I thank
Frédéric Buret for taking photographs of frescoes on my behalf at the monastery
complex of Göreme. I thank Associate Professor Vladimir Strezov, who provided
assistance during my fieldwork trip around Europe. He made photographs of
frescoes in remote churches of Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Mount Athos.
I extend my gratitude to the brotherhood and sisterhood of all monasteries I
visited. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the help of the Russian Government in
the Kremlin for allowing me to visit their monuments.
ix
I acknowledge my immediate family members, especially my mother Zhana, who
assisted with care of my daughters Daria and Nika. Your tremendous help and
support during difficult times in my life have ensured I finished my book on time.
Dr Anita Strezova