Greatness in the Midst of Decline

By: Bobbie Leigh

May 2004

Though Constantinople may have fallen to the Turks in 1453, its religion, art and traditions flourished long afterward. This is the theme of “Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557),” a landmark exhibition on view through July 4 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The third in a chronological series at the Met, the current show opens when Constantinople, which had been sacked by soldiers of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, was restored to Byzantine Imperial rule in 1261. “When the city fell in 1204, nearly 900 years of artistic and cultural traditions were abruptly terminated,” says Helen Evans, the show’s curator. During the 57 years of Latin occupation after the Fourth Crusade, many treasures and relics of the Byzantine churches were looted and sent to the royal courts and churches of Europe. Without Constantinople as its center, the Byzantine Empire was reduced to outlying city-states until 1261.

To great jubilation, Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos recaptured Constantinople in 1261. He came from the Greek state of Nicaea, one of several successor states, where the Byzantine church and state prevailed while the Latin emperors ruled over Constantinople. Great efforts were made during Michael’s reign and the reigns of his successors to restore the empire and replace the city’s stolen treasures with new ones, many of which are featured in this exhibition.

Two important dates mark the end of the roughly 300 years the show covers: the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 and the creation of the name “Byzantium” for the “Empire of the Romans.” This new name signaled the end of the state’s political power, which had lasted for more than 1,000 years. The exhibition closes with the year 1557, with a remarkable number of treasures reflecting the influence of the Ottomans.

It took the Met seven years to gather roughly 400 late Byzantine treasures (most never seen in the United States) from about 30 countries to mount this show of stunningly beautiful paintings, frescoes, textiles, jewelry and monumental liturgical objects. The 40 extremely rare and exquisite icons from the Holy Monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai, Egypt, alone make this show a must-see event.

The great paradox of “Byzantium: Faith and Power” is that during the time span it covers, the recaptured Byzantine Empire and its capital, Constantinople, were in tatters economically and politically, embattled by northern European invaders in the West and Turks in the East. Yet as the heirs of ancient Greek art and scholarship, Byzantine metalworkers, stone-cutters, embroiderers, painters, sculptors, woodworkers, calligraphers and silversmiths created an amazing body of work and exerted a profound influence on the culture of the Islamic world and the Christian East, especially on the development of the Renaissance.

Byzantine icons painted on panels—an important art form during the period the show covers—had a major influence on Western painters, among others. Examples of this influence are the Byzantine motif “St. Luke Drawing the Virgin” by Rogier van der Weyden, “The Virgin and Child at the Fountain” from the workshop of Jan van Eyck and “Christ Giving His Blessing” by Hans Memling.

Images of the Virgin Mary and Child, thought to be inspired by St. Luke’s original paintings, are among the most fascinating works in the exhibition. The evangelist and Church historian Luke drew Mary and the Christ Child’s features from descriptions of people who supposedly knew them. Consequently, they were considered at the time “as compelling as scripture” and “exactly as they appeared in life,” according to a 14th-century Dominican monk.

One of the most important and sacred places in the Byzantine world was the Holy Monastery of St. Catherine. The objects from the monastery in the show include rare manuscripts, miniature mosaics and painted icons, including several monumental double-sided examples used in processions. Perhaps the most exquisite of all is the monumental image of the Archangel Gabriel that hangs beside the tomb of St. Catherine in Sinai. Other major works on view include elaborately patterned embroidered silks used in the Byzantine liturgy, “donor” portraits of church benefactors in gilt relief on icon frames and illuminated, handwritten manuscripts.

Seeing these treasures from around the world is a testimony that out of defeat came a kind of victory, a recognition that the glory that was late Byzantium, long sidelined and unnoticed, has finally received the exhibition it deserves.