at the
a Fulcrum review
by Elizabeth Adekunle
The exhibition organised by the National Gallery and the
The exhibition introduces sculptures made in the third century before
With the ban on religious images removed, the question that followed and one we should still be asking ourselves today is, how do we depict Christ when we don’t know what he looked like? How do we make images of Christ relevant to people, while still remaining true to Christian theology? Artists in the sixth century were no more in the know about how Jesus looked than we are today, they struggled with this question and early Christians did not depict Christ at all but used symbols instead. In 692 there was a complete move away from symbolism, which was officially sanctioned by the Trullan Council of the Church, which ordained that ‘the human figure of Christ our God, the Lamb, who took on the sins of the world, be set up even in images instead of in the ancient lamb. Through the figure of Jesus we realise the depth of the humiliation of Christ the Word and are led to remember his life in the flesh, his suffering, death and redemption. To achieve this aim, painters reverted to a more naturalistic style, as in a panel painting of the Virgin and Child in the fourth room. Artists began to use classical images from Greco Roman mythology to depict Christ. Christ was seen as a stern, bold, bearded man much like the leader of the Greek Gods Zeus, an image more suggestive of Christ’s transcendent nature. Others depicted Christ as a young, clean shaven man much like Dionysus the God of wine, by contrast a leaning towards the immanent nature of Christ.
Christianity was everywhere: it was how one thought and what one argued about. The nature of Christ was in every activity. Religious artefacts were sought after in the holy city and paid for in order to bring about security and spiritual peace of mind. So, in the first few rooms of the exhibition we are faced with a dialogue about how to avoid showing Christ, or how to depict Christ in an imprecise or unclear way while also being confronted with the very real and sacred importance of these artefacts. Many of these artefacts were of huge sacred importance then and they still are now.
In the exhibition the
Icons play a large part in this exhibition, and in the context of the
The exhibition shows what it was like to live in an expensive house with opulent decorative artefacts made from expensive materials such as gold, glass and ivory and these rooms even have a cluttered and more intimate feel about them. As the exhibition continues we discover Church and the process of Icon making. There is a progression in time and theme throughout the exhibition and as a result comparisons begin to emerge. There are icons from the sixth century to the seventeenth century, and different micromosaics see the micromosaics with Christ as Pantokrator, Constantine 1150-75 on wood. Also exhibited are diptychs and festival scenes and the two sided Icon of the Virgin Psyhoctria (front) and the Annunciation (back), from the early fourteenth century. This Icon shows the actual moment of conception, sitting on an ornate throne, the scene has become heaven and heaven resembles the great palace of the emperor, again the suggestion of the divine nature of the Emperor because the emperor was considered divine.
From the twelfth century onwards artists began to sign their work. Angelos Acatanto’s depiction of ‘Theodore and the Dragon’ for example. Acatanto was one of the first artists to sign his work. Up until this point it was very rare since Icons were considered ‘divine’, a signature therefore would interfere with the divine construction and that sacred relationship between God and the viewer. The distinction between an image that was an aid to thought and prayer and one that was in itself an object of veneration was somewhat blurred in the course of the sixth and seventh centuries. However, icons were increasingly demanded through the Byzantine world. They had a stronger emotional appeal than the intellectually conceived symbols and doctrinal allegories of earlier Christian art. Icons invited a face to face meeting with the holy persons depicted and devotions were paid to such icons as if they themselves were holy relics, which we continue to see today.
Iconoclasts broke loose in the early eighth century against what they believed were idolatrous tendencies that icons were arousing. An edict issued by the emperor Leo III in 730 ordered the destruction of images that showed Christ, the Virgin Mary, saints of angels in human form. It brought about a smouldering conflict for the next 113 years between iconoclasts (image breakers) and Iconodules (venerators of images) throughout the
Although there are secular images in the exhibition, secular art is not so prevalent because of the dominance of Christian thought throughout the culture. Monasteries tended to preserve religious art and as can be seen repeatedly from the exhibition, religion was in everything; even at home one’s spoon might have an apostle on it or a shepherd. There would have been secular art and Christian art side by side in the palace, which is also depicted in the exhibition. Secular art exists mainly because of the Crusaders attack on
The exhibition is on until
This exhibition follows a previous exhibition on
The Revd Elizabeth Adekunle is a curate at St Luke’s Homerton, Hackney in the Diocese of
Elizabeth Adekunle is Archdeacon of Hackney