by Peter Watson
We have seen that, between the middle of the sixth century, and the middle of the ninth, little was accomplished in the realm of scholarship. That this period comprised the true dark ages is supported by the fate of the cities of Byzantium–cities being the centre of intellectual life, as well as of the theatres, the baths, the hippodrome and the craft workshops. Until the fifth century, the Byzantine empire was an aggregate of fine cities–one handbook listed more than nine hundred though, as Cyril Mango says, by the time of Justinian (527–565), that number would have almost doubled. Most of these were laid out in the Roman style, with regular streets, two main avenues, the cardo and the decumanus, meeting at right angles and terminating at the city gates (the cities were walled, against the threat of barbarian attack). The avenues were wide, and contained colonnades, where the shops were located. By our standards they were small: Nicaea, for example, was 1,500 metres from north to south and east to west. The average population of a provincial Byzantine city would have been between 5,000 and 20,000, with Antioch at 200,000 and Constantinople half as big again.46
As a result of barbarian attack, however, one city after another was brought low. From Syria to the Balkans, Pergamum, Scythopolis, Singidunum (Belgrade) and Serdica (Sofia) were all destroyed or the population vanished. Plague, earthquakes and other natural disasters added to the chronic violence, making a bad situation worse. The Arab geographer Ibn Khordadhbeh (c. 840) recorded that in his time there were only five cities in Asia Minor: Ephesus, Nicaea, Amorium, Ancyra and Samala, to which could be added a handful of fortresses. There was a sharp decline in the number of bronze coins in circulation and at Stobi, in the Balkans, according to Cyril Mango, no coins have been found dating after the seventh century.47
Although Constantinople was the exception to this picture, it was not completely immune. Its population almost certainly peaked around the year 500, after which it was hit by plague and declined. This retreat was long-lasting, reaching a low point around 750. In 740 when the walls of the city were devastated by earthquake, the local population lacked the resources to rebuild them and after the plague of 747 the emperor sought to rebuild the population by deliberate immigration from the Aegean islands. Even so, a guidebook of 760 depicts the city as ‘abandoned and ruined’.48 It was only from the end of the eighth century that recovery was sustained.
Byzantine Christian art, important though it is in any history of ideas, is nonetheless very different from later ideas of art. From Giotto on, art in Europe at least was not only an account of changing forms but of artists, identifiable individuals, who made innovations, who had their own views, who were influenced by others and in turn influenced those who came after. In Byzantium, on the other hand, artists were looked upon as craftsmen and little else. (Only one Byzantine painter is known by name, ‘Theophanes the Greek’, active in Russia in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.) The same applies in architecture: we know that Anthemius and Isidore built Justinian’s Agia Sophia in Constantinople, but that is all. Because Byzantine art evolved so slowly it is virtually impossible to date. That does not detract from its importance, however, because it is the first fully-fledged Christian art, the earliest art to show how Christian ideas–iconography–found visual form.
In view of what happened later, it is relevant to begin by noting that Jesus never suggested that figural images offended him.49 Nevertheless, for the early Christians visual art was much less important than scripture, and so they never developed a programme of symbols and images. When Diocletian persecuted the Christians in 303 their church at Cirta contained scriptures, chalices and bronze candlesticks but there was no mention of an altar. In fact, prior to the second century there is really nothing that can be called Christian art. Despite Jesus’ neutral attitude, many early Christians, perhaps under the influence of Jews, had no place for visual art. Clement, bishop of Alexandria in the third century, told his charges that although Christians were forbidden to make idols, as the pagans did, they were allowed to make signs (such as a fish or a ship) to indicate ownership or as a signature. Clement also allowed other images–the dove, for instance, or the anchor. The dove was a symbol of the Christian in the world, after Matthew 10: 16: ‘I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.’
Byzantine art ‘is the art of the later Roman Empire adapted to the needs of the Church’.50 The first real blossoming took place at the time of Constantine’s conversion, when he ordered a spate of splendid churches to be built. Before the fourth century, there was no such thing as Christian architecture. The early Christians used any convenient structure, which they called the domus ecclesiae, house for the church (community). The first churches–still recognisable today around the eastern end of the Mediterranean–took on a form likewise used by the pagans: the basilica, a rectangular hall, colonnaded, with an elevated bema at one end. Basilica, a Greek word meaning simply a large hall, was first used by Christians to apply to the seven churches of Rome established by Constantine.51
But the earliest catacombs in Rome, and the very early chapel at Dura-Europos, on the Euphrates, show that even before Constantine, Christians had evolved certain visual traditions, possibly based on an ancient illustrated version of the Septuagint. These were scenes from the Old Testament (the Fall of Man, the Sacrifice of Isaac, the Crossing of the Red Sea) though the story of Jonah was a special favourite, because he was swallowed by a fish for three days before being thrown up on to the shore. Christians saw echoes here of baptism and resurrection. In the earliest depictions of Jesus, he is young and beardless; the nimbus does not appear until the fourth century.52 The earliest example of a New Testament cycle in a monumental context is in the church of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo at Ravenna, dating to around 500, and in an illustrated manuscript in the Codex Rossanensis (now in Paris) and the Syriac Rabula Codex, now in Florence. These date from slightly later but both underline the idea that an established iconography was in existence, in an ‘authoritative form’ by, roughly speaking, AD 500. Some of these codices were sumptuous–St Jerome refers to them contemptuously as ‘purple codices’, which may not have been meant to be read, simply for use in ritual.
The other feature which early Christian art absorbed from imperial Rome was the trappings of the court. As Lawrence Nees puts it, ‘at least in iconographic terms it is tempting to speak of a “conversion of Christianity” to a wholesale embrace of Roman and specifically imperial conceptions’.53 Settings became more theatrical, the imperial purple was used more and more for holy figures, and important personages were rendered bigger than anyone else, often bigger than life-size. In the mausoleum of Galla Placida at Ravenna Jesus is no longer dressed as a shepherd: ‘he is mantled in a purple tunic with golden stripes’ (as Jesus Pantocrator, ‘the ruler of all’). In other images at Ravenna he is shown receiving acclaim from the apostles as an emperor receives tribute from his subjects.54 ‘From the early fourth century on, the enthroned image of the Christian God suddenly becomes a central element of Christian iconography’, and this idea of introducing opulence generally into Christian art, into the Christian ideal, was nothing less than revolutionary, given the faith’s earlier appeal to the poor and outcast.55 Slightly later than the introduction of the majesty of empire into Christian art, was the expansion of narrative. This might have occurred in the fourth century after the first basilicas began to be erected, providing more space on their walls, but in fact the breakthrough didn’t occur until the fifth century, possibly inspired by the cycle of poems produced by Prudentius in the early 400s. Now the narratives were strung together chronologically as they occurred in the scriptures, rather than thematically. It was in these narratives that much Christian iconography was worked out, based on a close reading of the new (late fourth-/early fifth-century) Latin Bible (Jerome’s Vulgate).56
At the end of the sixth century an important change took place across the Christian world in regard to beliefs about images. Instead of regarding ima
ges as representations of people in the great Christian passion, more and more worshippers came to regard the images themselves as holy. This ‘cult of images’ was most intense in the eastern half of the Christian world, in effect the Byzantine empire, and may have had something to do with its relative proximity to the Holy Land, Palestine. Pilgrims to the Holy Land often returned with relics or souvenirs of one kind or another, such as stones from special sites that were regarded as in some way quasidivine (Justinian had sent a team of craftsmen to Jerusalem). This practice gradually spread throughout the West and even Rome itself was not immune: the Sancta Sanctorum in the Lateran Palace houses an eighth-century image of Jesus that, in the Middle Age at least, was itself regarded as holy, and was brought out at times of crisis.
The change of attitude towards images is inferred from two specific developments. One, there was an increase in their portability, suggesting they were used at home and when travelling, not just on tombs or in churches. Two, there was a tendency to reduce or remove action from the image, ‘which conveys the holy figure as if divine, perhaps awaiting the holder’s invocation to come alive.’57 (It is this ‘frozen’ quality that has lent itself to our use of the word ‘iconic’.) Despite this, and despite the fact that the scriptures give absolutely no information about the appearance of Jesus or the Apostles, or the Virgin Mary, by the sixth century Christian authors were providing descriptions in accordance with what they believed was tradition (often derived from visions). In one account, for example, St Peter was described as ‘of medium height, with a receding hairline, white skin, pale complexion, eyes as dark as wine, a thick beard, big nose, eyebrows that meet…’ Christ is shown as bearded, long-haired, haloed, dressed in white and gold, holding a scroll with one hand, with his arm raised in authority.58 The physical features were invariably assumed to be related to spiritual qualities. Some of the images were regarded as of miraculous origin and described as acheiropoietai, meaning ‘not made by human hands’.59
To us, today, icons are highly stylised but that is not how they were experienced at the time. To the Byzantines, an icon was a real likeness which fully depicted the actual features of the holy figure shown. This is why the images were not allowed to change–they were a true record of someone sacred. In 692, at the Quinisext Council, a new approach to the representation of the human form had been sanctioned. Before that date, Christ had been shown as a lamb but this was now dispensed with. Henceforth, he could be shown as a human likeness. ‘The drama of the church thus came down off the walls and on to the iconostasis, which separated the truly holy part of the church from the rest.’ As Cyril Mango has written, icons were the visual equivalents of hagiographies: ‘The faithful could gaze on their heroes (one of whom would surely fit with anyone’s aspirations, or address their fears) as they worshipped Christ.’ Hagiography emerged as a distinctive genre at this time.60
This was too much for some people and their anger was further kindled by the fact that Jesus’ image was allowed on to coins by Justinian II. In the middle of the eighth century a sharp reaction set in against the worship of ‘holy images’ and this led to the so-called iconoclast controversy, which lasted from 754 to 843. Several reasons lay behind this battle of ideas, which had significant consequences for the concept of papal authority as well as for the expression of Christian art. In the first place lay the feeling that the making of images of Christ was blasphemous, that the divine nature of God, its very immateriality, could not by definition be rendered in any intelligible way and that to do so implied that Jesus was not divine, an attitude that accorded broadly with the views of the notorious Arian heretical sect (see above, Chapter 8). Second was the view that the depiction of Christ and of saints was mere idolatry and marked a return to pagan-like practices. And third, the iconoclasts argued that the cult of images was essentially a new phenomenon that violated the earliest and purest phases of Christianity, when there had been no interest in images (which is why the scriptures had no interest in the appearance of Jesus or the apostles).61
These arguments lay behind the church Council of Hieria, in 754, held under the auspices of the emperor Constantine V, which officially condemned the veneration of images and sought their destruction. As ever, there was more to it than that. Two further reasons lay behind the actions of the iconoclastic emperors in the eighth and ninth centuries. One is that the men who came to power in Byzantium in those years were from the east and so were much more influenced by the traditions of the Middle East, in particular the Jews and the Arab Muslims, both of whom prohibited images in their places of worship. Alternatively, the iconoclast controversy may be seen as an attempt by the Byzantine emperors to extend their power. On this reading, the emperors found an obstacle to their aims in the activities in particular of Greek monks, who had become hugely popular via a series of allegedly miracle-working icons–which moved, or bled–and were kept in monasteries.62
Because of this, because of the strongly-held views of the pope of the time, Gregory II, a follower of Gregory the Great, who believed that images in art were vital as a means of education and religious instruction for the poor and illiterate, the iconoclast controversy turned into a tussle over papal authority. Gregory II sent a bellicose letter to Constantinople, accusing the emperor of interfering in doctrinal matters that were not his concern and (somewhat optimistically) threatening force if he should attempt to do so again. From this moment on, the papacy turned to the western kings, in the first place Pippin, leader of the Franks, for protection. The emperor replied by transferring ecclesiastical jurisdiction of south Italy and Dalmatia from Rome to Constantinople, and the split between the Roman church and what we today call the Greek Orthodox was begun.63
During the most bitter stages of the iconoclast campaign many images were destroyed, portable icons were burned, and murals and mosaics were at the least whitewashed over, or scraped off completely. Illuminated manuscripts were cut or otherwise mutilated (when they weren’t incinerated), and liturgical plate was melted down. But this too was a near-death rather than a holocaust. The damage was worse in Constantinople itself and in Asia Minor than in other places–in other words, as Cyril Mango says, ‘where the power was’. The iconoclasts certainly succeeded in reducing the quantity of Christian art, but they did not fulfil their aim to eradicate it entirely. There is some evidence that, as a result, mosaic techniques declined, as did the grasp of the human form among painters.64
In the churches, instead of human figures, the iconoclasts preferred what they termed ‘neutral’ motifs–animals, birds, trees, ivy and so on. The iconodules (the defenders of sacred images) replied that their opponents were turning God’s house into a fruit shop.65 Many–perhaps most–writings of the iconoclasts were themselves destroyed, unfortunately, whereas those of their opponents (St John Damascene, Germanus, Nicephorus) show us history as written by the winners. In the main their arguments explore the scriptural and patristic authority for human likeness, the relation between an image and, say, the saint it depicted and, in particular, what authority there was for representing Christ–his dual nature, both God and man–in an image.
Eventually, after nearly two centuries of terrible conflict (with artists being tortured, having their noses slit or tongues cut out, and/or imprisoned), it was agreed that Christians could depict figures who had actually appeared on earth–that is to say Christ himself, the apostles and saints, and even some angels who had ‘manifested’ themselves in human form on specific occasions (for example, the Annunciation). But no attempt should be made to represent God the Father or the Trinity. A final important refinement was that any likeness must be ‘identical as to person’–they must be a true rendering, as shown for example, in a mirror; the artist was not free to use his imagination. (One argument for rendering Jesus accurately was so that the faithful could recognise him on Judgement Day.) From this, it followed that traditional images could never be varied, nothing could be added or subtracted, rather in the way reasoned debate and innovation were dis
couraged elsewhere. By analogy, the same approach was applied to architecture and church decoration. Embellishment remained simple, with what the Byzantines called ‘outside knowledge’ being excluded. This meant there were no allegories, no liberal arts, no labours of the months. All that mattered, all that was allowed, was the central Christian drama–the birth, mission, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus. (The Old Testament prophets were allowed, since they had announced the Incarnation.)
It was not only the faces of the Apostles that remained set. Scale and perspective continued to be ignored. The actual size of any one figure in a Byzantine painting is derived from its importance in the story rather than its position in space. This is why Mary, for example, is always bigger than Joseph, and it helps explain why saints may be as big as or bigger than the mountains in the background. Colour was not treated so as to give an impression of distance and figures throw no shadows that might interrupt the serene harmony of the composition. What mattered instead was that all elements of the painting should be bathed equally in celestial light. But, because no change was allowed in iconography, the anonymous artists of Byzantium directed their creativity into an ever more flamboyant and ostentatious use of colour. ‘Byzantine art was far richer in its palette than anything that had gone before, giving rise to pictures which glowed with spirituality, where the gold leaf and other expensive colours sparkled like jewels, real examples of which, in some cases, were encrusted into the images.’66