A műemlékek sokszínűsége (A 28. Egri Nyári Egyetem előadásai 1998 Eger, 1998)

Előadások / Presentations - Georgiosz PROKOPIU: The polychromy in byzantine art church decoration, origin, form and technique

GEORGIOSZPROKOPIOU THE POLYCHROMY IN BYZANTINE ART AND CHURCH DECORATION ORIGIN, FORM AND TECHNIQUE INTRODUCTION I will try to present some aspects of the immense subject that we call the „Byzantine Church". I have selected a few areas, only, from the vast material that demanded my attention, trying to include the problems of meaning and form, of architecture and art, of aesthetics and of course „polychromy". Polychromy: meaning not only the multi-coloured materials and artistic expressions but also the many sided theoretical views or poly-valent meanings. I believe that it, will shed some light on the polychromy or the polyphony of knowledge fields, that a restorator must command before attempting to deal with the planning of the preservation of a Byzantine monument. Until recent times, mediaeval Christian art Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic had been ignored, or, still worse, misunderstood. It was looked upon as an inferior art, unworthy to be called by the name, in comparison with the art of classical antiquity. This opinion, which had prevailed since the time of the Italian Renaissance, (when Vasari characterised Christian art as „barbaric"), was repeated every time that a classical-inspired period brought with in the conviction that classic and Christian art were, inevitably, inimical to each other. Thus, the fanaticism of the humanistic mentality (which swayed the West from the Renaissance onwards) stigmatised the Middle Ages as a period of darkness and artistic sterility. Yet, we do not know how the genuine ancient Greek would have judged Christian art. We know, of course, that in the Greece of his day all that was not Greek was barbaric. But this view referred to the spirit rather than the form. The spirit of ancient Greek art was minsunderstood first by the Romans, and, hence, later by the Renaissance. Byzantium, in contrast, was the direct heir of the Greek spirit, while in the West, during the Gothic period, „Atticising" forms appeared (in sculpture at least) which, according to Worringer, indicate a deeper affinity with Greek sensibility than do the works of the Roman ratio and ordo. For these reasons, the genuine ancient Greek would, regard as barbaric the products which sought to imitate only outwardly Hellenic morphology. Towards Romanesque, Gothic and Byzantine architecture, I venture to say that he would be more favourably inclined, if indeed he did not prove enthusiastic in his appreciation of their sincerity of feeling and their originality of expression. It was mainly thanks to the Romantics that, after many centuries, the „subjective" melody of these „barbaric" works began at last to delight our ears. A Victor Hugo was needed to reveal the beauty of Notre Dame; a Goethe to make us aware of the majestic chords of Strasbourg Cathedral. In time, Christian archaeology indicated the Roman and Oriental elements which Romanesque and Gothic art had borrowed in order to achieve original expression. It showed, moreover, that Byzantine art had imbued similar elements with the Hellenic spirit and, in transforming them, was the first to express the uplift of the Christian mind, as it reached out for the divine - to express, a new ideal, writes prof. R Michelis in his excellent book on the Aesthetic approach to Byzantine Art. Despite the recognition it has recently gained, Byzantine art will continue to baffle even artistically gifted spectators, so long as its aesthetic character is not clearly defined. When we look at its works, our first reac-