Palaeologan Renaissance

The Palaeologan Renaissance or Palaiologan Renaissance is the final period in the development of Byzantine art. Coinciding with the reign of the Palaiologoi, the last dynasty to rule the Byzantine Empire (1261–1453), it was an attempt to restore Byzantine self-confidence and cultural prestige after the empire had endured a long period of foreign occupation.[2] The legacy of this era is observable both in Greek culture after the empire's fall[3] and in the Italian Renaissance.[4] Scholars of the time utilized several classical texts.[5]

Icon with metal background. Constantinople, 14th century. Located in Ohrid, North Macedonia.[1]

History

Following the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, the Crusaders established a Latin Empire to rule what had been Byzantine territory. Extensive looting took place in the fallen capital, and many relics and art treasures were shipped back to Western Europe.[6] Prior generations of Western Europeans had been heavily influenced by Byzantine art,[7] but the sack coincided with the appearance of a more independent creative outlook. Crusader art mixed Western and Byzantine aesthetic traits, and new buildings put up in the Latin Empire were in the Gothic style.[8]

Seeking refuge in unconquered remnants of their empire, the Byzantine elite formed governments-in-exile at Nicaea, Trebizond, and Epirus.[9] These new political entities continued to commission works of art, which however bore marks of limited resources and fragmented imperial authority. Craftsmen worked with less rare and expensive materials than before— an example is the use of steatite in sculptures that would formerly have been made of ivory— and sponsorship came from a multitude of private patrons instead of being dominated by the emperor.[10] One of the emperors of Nicaea, John III Doukas Vatatzes (r. 1222–1254), undertook projects to ensure the survival of traditional culture. He commissioned public libraries in all the cities of his possessions and ordered municipal leaders to allocate salaries to scholars of medicine, mathematics and rhetoric. In 1238, he also instituted a school of philosophy directed by Nikephoros Blemmydes.[11][12]: 253 

Constantinople was recaptured in 1261 by Michael VIII Palaiologos (r. 1261–1282), founder of the Palaeologan Dynasty and former co-emperor of Nicaea. Amid a round of triumphal ceremonies, he declared the Byzantine Empire restored and instituted a campaign of renovation in the capital. On a practical level this renovation had been made necessary by the damage done to the city under Latin rule,[13] but it was also intended to symbolize the empire's recovery from the destitution and humiliation it had just undergone.[14] The conception of the Palaeologan period as a cultural "renaissance" owes much to Michael's efforts to revive the glory of Constantinople; in Byzantine lands unconquered by the Crusaders, art production had never been so seriously disrupted as to require a period of "rebirth".[15][16]

Certain conditions established by the sack were not dispelled by the recovery of Constantinople. The Byzantine Empire had been permanently diminished by the events of the early thirteenth century: some of its territories were lost to foreign powers, and the remaining Byzantine lands were further divided by the continued independence of the rulers of Trebizond and Epirus.[17] In the aftermath of the Crusades the Greek world maintained unprecedentedly close contact with Western Europe, both from the Crusader states surviving on its borders and through the Palaeologan emperors' sporadic attempts to ally with Catholic powers in the fight against the Ottoman Turks.[18] Even within the imperial boundaries, many immigrant westerners had integrated with eastern communities, sometimes through intercultural marriage, and continued their residence after the Latin occupiers were driven away. Byzantine and Western artists borrowed each other's techniques; above and beyond their usefulness in catering to a more diverse group of patrons, these borrowings were motivated by a genuine interest in foreign artworks and a desire to learn from them.[19] As in the era of exile, much Palaeologan art was funded by the aristocracy instead of the emperors. Pictorial works from this era feature an unprecedented number of non–imperial donor portraits.[20]

Deesis mosaic, from Hagia Sophia.

Michael VIII ordered the importation of relics to replace those lost during the sack, restoring Constantinople's reputation as a repository of holy objects. Motivated by similar religious considerations, the emperor sponsored work in Hagia Sophia, which had been converted to a place of Catholic worship by the Latin emperors. The church was re-furnished for the performance of Orthodox rites, and a colossal mosaic of the Deesis, 5.2 meters in length and 6 meters wide, was installed in its south gallery.[21] Among the other objects of Michael's patronage were the Blachernae Palace and several sections of the city defenses, along with public service projects. Private patrons sponsored restorations of Constantinople's churches,[22] many of which were maintained for the next two centuries even as the residential portions of the city fell into neglect.[13]

Between 1316 and 1321, Theodore Metochites, deputy of Michael's successor Andronikos II, sponsored an extensive rebuilding of the Chora Church, which emerged as one of the foremost monuments of the Palaeologan era.[23] Andronikos himself had Hagia Sophia's walls reinforced with buttresses in 1317.[24] Late in his reign there was a decline in the empire's fortunes, and little building was undertaken in the capital after 1330.[25] The optimism fostered by Michael VIII gave way in subsequent times to a sense that "the present generation had sinned and was inferior to its predecessors".[26]

In 1346 an earthquake damaged the domes of Hagia Sophia, which were repaired by Andronikos III.[24] Manuel II (r. 1391–1425) created an institution called the Katholikon Mouseion in the early 15th century. It was located in a hospital and attached to the monastery of St. John Prodrome , whose rich library had at its disposal numerous teachers including Georges Chrysococè and Cardinal Bessarion, who later settled in Italy. The library welcomed many Italians who came to Constantinople to learn Greek language and culture. Also during the reign of Manuel II, the scholar Demetrios Kydones wrote several texts such as the Discourses and Dialogues on the relationship between Christianity and Islam, on politics and on civil subjects such as marriage and education. He also made a treatise on the seven ecumenical councils, a poem on how to convert unbelievers, and a refutation of Catholic doctrine on the procession of the Holy Spirit.[27][28]

Notable contributors
Theodore Metochites, one of many notable contributors to the cultural and literary revival of the Palaeologan Renaissance.

Under the impetus of the Palaeologan emperors, many politicians, scholars and writers took part in projects of literary revival and the expansion of knowledge. Among these were the judge and historian George Pachymeres (1242 – c. 1310), and four great philological scholars of the time of Andronikos II: Thomas Magistros, Demetrius Triclinios, Manuel Moschopoulos, and the theologian Maximus Planudes (c. 1255/1260 – c. 1305/1310). The scholar and statesman Nikephoros Choumnos (c. 1250/1255 – 1327) was one of the most important figures of the renaissance, while Theodore Metochites (1270–1332) was a philosopher and a patron of the arts and sciences, considered the most complete scholar of his time. He studied Classical antiquity, although not with the same intense interest as his contemporaries in Trecento Italy.[29] A tradition of polemic also existed during the time, exemplified by the historian Nikephoros Gregoras, who expanded the criticism of Aristotle in his dialogue Phlorentius.[30] Gemistos Plethon was exiled by Manuel II to the Despotate of Morea, an important intellectual center; his lectures there revived Platonic thought in Western Europe.[28] Plethon had offended the emperor by studying heretical and even pagan doctrines, and thus displaying an openness of mind "very similar to Renaissance humanism".[31]

Art and architecture

The Palaeologan style

Late Byzantine painters developed several distinctive mannerisms, which appear with equal frequency in works of all sizes.[32] Contemporary trends in church painting favored intricate narrative cycles, both in fresco and in sequences of icons;[33] to serve this need, the traditional types of holy images, with large, portrait-type figures placed against solid backgrounds, were partially superseded by landscape scenes. The participants in the cycles are comparatively small and often depicted in motion,[34] amid barren surroundings which may have been intended to invoke the wilderness traditionally occupied by prophets and ascetic hermits. Although they no longer fill the picture space, the figures are posed to harmonize compositionally with it.[35] In the mosaics and frescos of Chora Church, as well as certain other works from Constantinople, a kind of foreshortening is employed to make buildings lean toward the intended focus of the viewer's attention.[36] The scholar Lyn Rodley is unimpressed by this contrivance, speaking of "lurching architectural forms that suggest distant, and none too committed, reference to the formulae of perspective drawing".[37] Byzantine artists were never systematic about perspective, but, alongside the narratively-driven foreshortening described above, they took an informal interest in creating the illusion of three dimensions.[38]

Human and divine subjects in these late paintings are themselves highly stylized, in a manner described by Kurt Weitzmann:

The over-elongated figures are dressed in garments that bulge slightly, giving the impression of detachment from the frail bodies underneath. The sweeping folds and fleeting highlights are testimony to the power of the revived classical tradition, but these elements are confined to surface treatment and do not much affect the physicality of the figures, whose swaying poses rather convey the impression of dematerialized bodies.[39]

Rodley speaks of the "small-headed, wide-bodied, 'boneless' figure style" favored by the times.[40] Hard, geometrically patterned highlights are used to give figures the appearance of volume, albeit without interest in depicting realistic anatomical construction or a coherent light source. This technique was extensively employed by Cretan School artists and thus became a standard in post-Byzantine icon painting.[35]

Illuminated manuscripts

The majority of scribes who worked on manuscript illumination remain anonymous: only 17 of the 22 manuscripts preserved by Theodore Hagiopetrites (a copyist who lived around 1300 in Thessalonica) are signed. The production of books is rarer, probably because many copyists went into exile under Latin domination. Nevertheless, the scriptoria of the monastery of Panaghia Hodegetria in Constantinople remained active throughout the 14th century.[12]: 244 

Mosaics and micromosaics

Grand churches of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries continued to receive mosaic decoration, including the Deesis of Hagia Sophia.[41] This work gives its figures a gentle and compassionate aspect, and uses tiny tesserae to achieve fine modeling on their faces, evocative of painting; despite its monumental size, it seems intended to possess the personality of an icon.[42] Large mosaics from Palaeologan Constantinople also survive in the Church-Mosque of Vefa, Chora Church, and the Pammakaristos Church. All three buildings feature a distinctive figural arrangement in the interiors of their domes, which have bust portraits of Christ Pantokrator or the Virgin Mary at their apexes. Ribs of masonry radiate out from the apexes, and the flutes, or flat surfaces between the ribs, display full-length portraits of Christian prophets or ancestors of Jesus. This compositional motif, evidently dictated by "the preferences of high ecclesiastical circles in the Capital",[41] required coordination between the churches' builders and iconographic planners, to ensure that a dome had the right number of flutes to accommodate the intended group of figures.[43] Elsewhere in the Byzantine world, mosaics were installed in the Holy Apostles Church of Thessaloniki, the Porta Panagia church of Thessaly, and the katholikon and chapel of Saint Nicholas in the Vatopedi Monastery of Mount Athos.[41]

Byzantine micromosaic of Saint George and the Dragon, Louvre Museum.

Micromosaic icons had been created by Byzantine artists at least since the twelfth century, but after 1204 there was a renewed interest in the art form which has left over 20 extant examples. Often less than 25 centimeters in height,[44] these later icons were made as impressively small as possible, composed of tesserae "no bigger than a pin's point... set in wax on a wooden ground".[45] Some incorporated luxury materials such as gold and vitreous enamel,[46] but even without these adornments micromosaics were rendered precious by the time and skill required to build them.[35] They were collected by rich patrons in both Byzantine and Western lands.[47]

Architecture

Palaeologan building projects in Constantinople were mostly the work of the nobility, who commissioned mansions and privately-owned monastic complexes; the surviving edifices are conservative in architectural style, showing strong continuity with the practices of previous centuries.[48] Many late Byzantine religious buildings in the capital— Chora, the Church-Mosque of Vefa, the Pammakaristos Church, and the principal church of the Lips Monastery— are not new creations, but enlargements of existing structures.[49] These mostly took the form of "annexes enveloping earlier churches on three sides",[50] an architectural form which first appeared in Epirus and Thessaloniki before being taken up in Constantinople.[51] The annexes in Thessaloniki may have been used for some kind of church ceremony, while those in Constantinople housed lavish tomb monuments for the aristocrats who had sponsored their building.[52]

Dress

Two–dimensional artworks from the Palaeologan period— including the aforementioned donor portraits— show people dressed in elaborate costumes,[53] giving evidence for personal adornments which have otherwise disappeared. Thus, the scholar Aimilia Yeroulanou suggests that late Byzantine jewelry was more abundant and sophisticated than one would gather from the sparse examples which survive. The pieces that were lost may have been similar to those made in Greek lands after the empire's fall: distinguished by "technical and aesthetic excellence rather than... the sumptuousness of the materials".[54] The same secondary evidence leads David Talbot Rice to assert that the Byzantine silk industry survived into this period, and continued to produce garments decorated with the traditional tapestry technique. He adds, however, that tapestry was gradually supplanted by decorations in embroidery, which did not require specialized equipment to produce.[55]

References
  1. "The Icon of the Virgin and Child, Ohrid". Mapping Eastern Europe.
  2. Cormack 2000, pgs. 199-200
  3. Talbot Rice 1959, pg. 14.
  4. Palaeologan Renaissance
  5. Faveri, De; Lorena (Venice) (2006-10-01), "Palaeologan Renaissance", Brill’s New Pauly, Brill, retrieved 2022-12-11
  6. Cormack 2000, pg. 187.
  7. Talbot Rice 1959, pg. 12.
  8. Cormack 2000, pg. 187
  9. Cormack 2000, pg. 198.
  10. Talbot Rice 1959, pg. 78.
  11. Bréhier, Louis (1970). Byzantine civilization. Paris. pp. 400–401.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  12. Angeliki, Laiou; Morrisson, Cécile (2011). The Byzantine World III, the Greek Empire and its neighbors 13th-14th century. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
  13. Talbot, Alice-Mary (2004). "1: Revival and Decline: Voices from the Byzantine Capital". In Evans, Helen C. (ed.). Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Yale University Press, New Haven and London. pp. 17–25. ISBN 1-58839-114-0.
  14. Cormack 2000, pgs. 200–201.
  15. Rodley 1994, pgs. 339-340.
  16. Talbot Rice 1959, pg. 82.
  17. Cormack 2000, pg. 198
  18. Cormack 2000, pg. 192.
  19. Cormack 2000, pgs. 190-192.
  20. Talbot Rice 1959, pgs. 84–86.
  21. Cormack 2000, pgs. 201-202.
  22. Magno, Cyril (2002). The Oxford History of Byzantium. Oxford University Press. pp. 256–257.
  23. Cormack 2000, pgs. 205-206.
  24. Ćurčić, Slobodan (2004). "2: Religious Settings of the Late Byzantine Sphere". In Evans, Helen C. (ed.). Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Yale University Press, New Haven and London. pp. 65–77. ISBN 1-58839-114-0.
  25. Mango 1978, pg. 148.
  26. Cormack 2000, pg. 199.
  27. Nicol, Donald M. (2005). The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453. pp. Chap. XV pp. 319-340, Chap. XVI pp. 341-360.
  28. Kazdhan, Alexander (1991). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Vol. 2. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 1291, 1685.
  29. Cormack 2000, pg. 210.
  30. Ierodiakonou, Katerina; Bydén, Börje (2018), "Byzantine Philosophy", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2022-12-11
  31. Cormack 2000, pgs. 194-195.
  32. Rodley 1994, pg. 314.
  33. Cormack 2000, pg. 210.
  34. Mango 1978, pg. 167.
  35. Carr, Annemarie Weyl (2004). "5: Images: Expressions of Faith and Power". In Evans, Helen C. (ed.). Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Yale University Press, New Haven and London. pp. 143–152. ISBN 1-58839-114-0.
  36. Cormack 2000, pgs. 207 and 210.
  37. Rodley 1994, pg. 302.
  38. Cormack 2000, pg. 196.
  39. Weitzmann, Kurt (1987). "1: The Icons of Constantinople". In Weitzmann, Kurt (ed.). The Icon. Dorset Press, New York. pp. 11–84. ISBN 0-88029-162-1.
  40. Rodley 1994, pg. 314.
  41. Chatzidakis, Nano (1994). Greek Art: Byzantine Mosaics. Ekdotike Athenon S.A., Athens. pp. 25–27. ISBN 960213-314-7.
  42. Cormack 2000, pgs. 201-202.
  43. Rodley 1994, pg. 301.
  44. Rodley 1994, pgs. 319-321
  45. Talbot Rice 1959, pg. 80.
  46. Rodley 1994, pg. 321
  47. Cormack 2000, pgs. 202-203.
  48. Mango 1978, pg. 148.
  49. Mango 1978, pgs. 148–154.
  50. Mango 1978, pgs. 155-156.
  51. Rodley 1994, pg. 288
  52. Mango 1978, pgs. 155-156
  53. Talbot Rice 1959, pg.88
  54. Yeroulanou, Aimilia (2008). "4: At Home: Jewellery and Adornment". In Cormack, Robin; Vassilaki, Maria (eds.). Byzantium 330-1453. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York. pp. 163–194. ISBN 9781905711260.
  55. Talbot Rice 1959, pg. 88

Bibliography
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  • Fryde, Edmund. The Early Palaeologan Renaissance (1261 – c. 1360). Leiden: Brill, 2000
  • Helen C. Evans (Hrsg.): Byzantium. Faith and Power (1261–1557). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2004.
  • Geanakoplos, Deno John. Constantinople and the West: Essays on the Late Byzantine (Palaeologan) and Italian Renaissances and the Byzantine and Roman Churches. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1989
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  • Rodley, Lyn (1994). Byzantine Art and Architecture: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-35724-1.
  • Runciman, Steven. The Last Byzantine Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008
  • Ševčenko, Ihor. The Palaeologan Renaissance. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1984
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