The Aphrodite Torso National Gallery of Art Washington Dc

Westhy would a Christian cleave a cross on the forehead of a sculpture of Aphrodite? Why would a Muslim ruler ask that Turkish captions be written in the Greek illustrated manuscript about Alexander the Groovy's life? And how did a pirate's treasures, including earrings busy with Arabic names, ultimately terminate up in Hellenic republic? These are only some of the questions that might ascend in the mind of a company to the exhibit Heaven and Earth: Byzantine Illumination at the Cultural Crossroads at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles through August 25, 2014. Byzantine treasures such as the icon of the Virgin Hodegetria have been loaned by the Greek government to United states museums in 2013, and were showtime on display in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Later leaving the Getty, they will exist on brandish at the Art Institute of Chicago in the fall.

The exhibit contains sculptures, icons, manuscripts, and artifacts made between the beginning century CE and the second one-half of the 15th century. They indicate to the great multifariousness of the Byzantine Empire, the cultural exchanges between pagan Greeks, Eastern and Western Christians, and Muslims. Glenn Peers, professor of early medieval and Byzantine art at the University of Texas at Austin, said in an interview that Byzantine embassies went out to the Muslim world, contributing to Byzantine encounters with Muslim culture. He added that students from Constantinople traveled to Persia and Republic of iraq to further their education.

The head of Aphrodite, which was probably fabricated in the first century, was maimed by a Christian who carved a cross on its forehead and damaged its optics. The Christian destruction of Greek sculptures began in Tardily Antiquity, when the statue of the cult of Cronus was broken into pieces, so reused to build a cross, and the pagan temple known equally the Serapeum was destroyed with its idols in Alexandria.1 In the third and fourth centuries CE, crosses were carved on the heads of other sculptures in Alexandria and on the breastplate armor of a statue of Marcus Aurelius. A sixth-century biography of Severus, the patriarch of Antioch, describes the "trial" and called-for of Greek statues. At this event, idols were exhibited and the pagan priest of the Temple of Isis was questioned about their utilise. Historians such equally Troels Myrup Kristensen advise that the carving of the cross on a statue might serve every bit a "ritual human action of baptism or as a means of accepting the pagan image into a Christian life."ii In essence, then, the blinded Aphrodite was saved from destruction by the cross that was carved on her forehead.

The exhibit brings into question the idea that Christian and not-Christian cultures were isolated in the Byzantine catamenia betwixt 330 and 1453. Centuries before the age of globalization, Muslims and Christians were exchanging artful sensibilities and borrowing narratives and ornaments from each other, with influences going both ways.

An example of the blending of cultures is a closure console separating the chantry area from the main area of a church. Made in Corinth effectually the year 1000, this console is decorated with meaningless inscriptions that imitate Standard arabic script. Art historian Aneta Georgievska-Shine said in a phone interview that the trend of using pseudo-Standard arabic scripts to decorate Christian art continued into the Renaissance era. Paintings of the Virgin Mary portrayed her enthroned, with a rug decorated by such inscriptions beneath her feet. In other paintings the trim of her veil is decorated with pseudo-Kufic inscriptions. In some cases, these allusions were intended to emphasize that Islam was conquered or at the margins of the Byzantine Empire, while in other cases they were acts of appreciative borrowing.

Christianity itself was not a single culture. There were major differences in theology and practice between Eastern and Western Christianity in the Byzantine period. Andreas Pavias's Icon of the Crucifixion combines Eastern and Western Christian elements and "a whole history of Christian doctrine," Susan Ashbrook Harvey, professor of religious studies at Brown Academy, said in a phone interview. The icon'south delineation of faces is typical of Eastern icons; those who are abusing Jesus are non portrayed with ugly, distorted faces, as they are often depicted in Western Christian fine art from the same period. But the icon contains some Western elements besides, such as the portrayal of Mary Magdalene in cherry, with her hair unbound, holding the cross and weeping. In Eastern Orthodox portrayals, Mary Magdalene would normally not be portrayed every bit a prostitute, and she would appear with the women surrounding the Virgin Mary.

At the fourth dimension it was made, this icon, similar other icons from the Byzantine menstruum, would not have been seen equally an aesthetic object to exist admired simply never touched. The showroom does not portray to the visitor how much the items on display were used—touched, kissed, and otherwise utilized in everyday life, whether secular or religious. Peers mentioned that museum guards at Byzantine exhibits are specially vigilant because devout visitors often endeavour to kiss the icons. These icons were meant to be interacted with in that mode, but their placement in exhibits, and their status as valuable historic objects, is what museum visitors often see instead.

Peers, who stresses the importance of the body in Eastern Christian theology and outlook, curated the showroom Byzantine Things in the World at the Menil Collection in Houston. His goal was to alter perceptions of these objects by pairing Byzantine pieces with artifacts from African and American cultures and changing other viewing conditions. Peers is now thinking about his next exhibit of Byzantine art, 1 that will focus on the arts of Trebizond, and he is currently searching for a venue to host it.

Shatha Almutawa is associate editor of Perspectives on History.

A close examination of Andreas Pavias's Icon of the Crucifixion appearred on our weblog, AHA Today hither. Join the discussion about this and other icons on AHA Communities' Byzantine History forum (communities.historians.org).

Notes

ane. Troels Myrup Kristensen, "Religious Disharmonize in Belatedly Antique Alexandria: Christian Responses to 'Heathen' Statues in the 4th and Fifth Centuries CE," in Alexandria: A Cultural and Religious Melting Pot (Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus Academy Press, 2009), 158–75.

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Source: https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/may-2014/layers-of-culture

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