Press preview: Monday, March 15, 10:00 a.m. - noon
Membership preview dates: March 16 - 21, 2004
Public dates: March 23 - July 4, 2004
Exhibition location: The Tisch Galleries, second floor
As the triumphant Byzantine general Michael VIII Palaiologos entered Constantinople on August 15, 1261, carrying aloft the famed icon of the Virgin Hodegetria, the city's eternal protector, he initiated an artistic and intellectual flowering in Byzantium, and among its East Christian rivals, that would endure for nearly 300 years. The restoration of the "Empire of the Romans" – the basileia ton Rhomaion – just 57 years after the fall of Constantinople to the knights of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, encouraged faith-inspired art of astonishing beauty and widespread influence.
Opening on March 23, The Metropolitan Museum of Art's landmark exhibition Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557) brings together more than 350 masterpieces of Byzantine art from some 30 nations, including Greece, Bulgaria, Egypt, France, Italy, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Serbia and Montenegro, and FYR-Macedonia. These extraordinary works, some seen rarely and others never shown outside the churches and monasteries that have preserved them through succeeding centuries, are among those countries' most cherished artistic treasures. The exhibition will include magnificent frescoes, superb textiles, and monumental liturgical objects from throughout the world of Byzantium, as well as major works from European and Islamic traditions that reflect their influence. In addition, some 40 magnificent icons from the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine at Sinai will join others now dispersed in leading museums across the world, resulting in a remarkable display of icons of the Late Byzantine era.
The exhibition is made possible by Alpha Bank.
Sponsorship is also provided by the J. F. Costopoulos Foundation, the A. G. Leventis Foundation and the Stavros S. Niarchos Foundation.
Additional support has been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.
An indemnity has been granted by the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
"Byzantium: Faith and Power is the first major museum exhibition to focus solely on the great artistic flowering of the Palaiologan period and the subsequent appropriation of this culture by rival claimants to power," commented Philippe de Montebello, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "This ambitious project – the successor to the Metropolitan Museum's two previous landmark exhibitions on Byzantine art – seeks to enhance public appreciation of the exceptional artistic accomplishments of an era too often considered primarily in terms of political decline."
Mr. de Montebello continued: "The exhibition is possible only because of the extraordinary collaboration of institutions from an unprecedented number of countries – some of which have never before lent works of art to museums in the United States. We are particularly honored by the exceptional support offered by the countries of the former Byzantine sphere, especially Greece. In fact, Greece's monasteries and cultural centers, such as Thessaloniki and Mistras, produced moving religious art and at the same time encouraged a revival of classical learning that inspired the Renaissance in Italy. After Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453, Mistras survived for nearly a decade. Thus, appropriately, it is a Greek site that is the last outpost of the great Empire that our exhibition celebrates."
Mahrukh Tarapor, the Metropolitan Museum's Associate Director for Exhibitions, added: "Byzantium: Faith and Power has been seven years in the making. Extended negotiations have resulted in the participation of most of the countries in the former Byzantine sphere – from Greece through the Balkans and Asia Minor to Russia in the north and Egypt in the south. This generous response draws upon important international relationships that were forged during the Metropolitan's two previous Byzantine art exhibitions, and on new collaborations with institutions in countries that have never lent before, including Lebanon, Serbia and Montenegro, and FYR-Macedonia."
Helen C. Evans, the exhibition's curator, described the exhibition as "a unique opportunity to display the culmination of a great culture, which lasted more than 1000 years. The exhibition begins with the joyous celebration of the restoration of imperial rule in Constantinople in 1261. It concludes in 1557 when the basileia ton Rhomaion, as its citizens knew it, was first called 'Byzantium,' for during that period the Ottoman Turks, Russia, and other western states sought to inherit the mantle of the New Rome, Constantinople, through their adaptation of its art and culture."
Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557) will demonstrate the artistic and cultural importance of this era primarily through the arts of the Orthodox Church. Arranged thematically, the exhibition will begin with a gallery of donor portraits to introduce the modern visitor to the people of that world. The subsequent galleries will display sacred icons painted on gold ground, luxuriously embroidered silk textiles, richly gilded metalwork, exquisite miniature mosaic icons of glass, precious metals and gemstones, powerful frescoes, and elaborately decorated manuscripts made for the churches of the Orthodox world and other East Christian faiths. The exhibition will examine the significance of Byzantine culture for the Latin West – especially its importance in the development of the Renaissance – as well as for the world of Islam.
Upon entering the exhibition, visitors will be presented with a 14th-century processional icon with a moving image of the joyful Virgin and Child on one side – called the Virgin "Pafsolype" (Cessation of Sorrow) – and the Crucifixion on the reverse, that has been generously lent by His All Holiness Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch. The work is traveling from the Collection of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul for the first time.
One of the earliest works in the exhibition is the official seal of Michael VIII Palaiologos, made in 1261-62, shortly after his reconquest of Constantinople (Numismatic Museum, Athens). The symbolism of this unique work, in which the emperor is depicted holding an icon of the Virgin above his head, commemorates his triumphal entrance into the city on August 15, 1261 – the feast of the Koimesis (Dormition or death) of the Virgin – displaying the icon to which he credited his victory.
A striking portrait from 1409-11 shows one of the late Palaiologan rulers in full imperial splendor (Bibliothèque Nationale de France). Inserted into a bound manuscript containing the funeral oration of Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (r. 1391-1425) for his younger brother Theodore, Despot of Morea, the illustration shows the author with the insignia of his rank – including the imperial loros (the long scarf wrapped around his body), the imperial crown with hanging ornaments (prependoulia), the scepter with a cross finial (a symbol of his faith), and a purple silk pouch filled with earth (the akakia, a symbol of his humility).
Another highlight of the display is the monumental 13th-14th-century cast copper alloy choros, or chandelier (Archäologische Staatssammlung München-Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, Munich). Assembled from more than 1100 pieces and measuring some 15 feet in height and 11 feet in diameter, this spectacular lighting device includes ornamental crosses, disks, and fantastic stylized animals such as sphinxes, double-headed eagles, and quadrupeds. At the Metropolitan, the choros will be hung near eye level, illuminated by a halo of lights from above – an effect similar to that of viewing it in a church.
Also featured will be several stunning miniature mosaics, an art form in which painterly effects are achieved using gold- and silver-plated copper rods of surprising delicacy along with tiny stone and glass chips of various colors. Because of their small size, miniature mosaics are portable and were used in private devotion. A masterful representation of Saint George slaying the dragon is the subject of a round mosaic that measures just 8-5/8 inches in diameter (Musée du Louvre). Because of its unusual shape, this particular work may have once been part of the iconostasis in a church.
Among the liturgical vestments and textiles on view will be numerous examples of the virtuosic Byzantine needlework. The so-called Vatican Sakkos, for instance, is a 14th-century blue silk vestment replete with embroidery in silver, silver gilt, and colored silk threads depicting the Transfiguration and Christ in glory (The Vatican Treasury, Vatican City). Also featured will be several extremely early, very rare, and beautifully embroidered examples of the epitaphios, a liturgical textile with an image of the dead Christ that developed in the exhibition's centuries for use in the Easter service. A heavily embroidered 14th-century epitaphios showing an image of the dead Christ on a sea of stars, surrounded by angels and the symbols of the Four Evangelists, is considered one of the most important objects from the treasury of the monastery from which it comes (The Holy Monastery of the Transfiguration, Meteora, Kalambaka, Greece).
The icons that have been borrowed from the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai (Egypt), are still actively venerated, and will be shown in a gallery that has been specially designed to evoke the nave of the actual church in which they customarily hang – the sixth-century church at the monastery built by the Emperor Justinian. The gallery will be the site of a special ceremony in which the monastery's abbot, His Eminence Archbishop Damianos, will bless the exhibition in the presence of the icons.
Also on view will be an exceptional silver-gilt chalice with exquisite translucent enamels (The Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine). Presented to the monastery in 1411 by the French king Charles VI (r. 1380-1422), the royal gift attests to the importance of the monastery and its patron saint during the late Byzantine period.
The influence of Byzantine art on Islamic culture may be seen in works such as a leaf from Rashid al-Din's Compendium of Chronicles, a manuscript of 1314-15, in which iconography common to Byzantine religious art is adapted to Islamic subject matter. The story of the birth of the prophet Muhammad, for instance, quotes imagery that is typically used in depictions of the birth of Jesus (Edinburgh University Library).
The final two galleries will include works by Western artists who were influenced by Byzantine art. One gallery containing paintings, missals, psalters, bibles, and other books of private devotion explores the role of the mendicant orders, the Franciscans and Dominicans, in the artistic exchange between East and West. It also shows the popularity of Saint Catherine of Alexandria in the West as seen in an exquisite folio from the sumptuous Belles Heures (or book of hours) of Jean, Duc de Berry of 1408 or 1409 (Cloisters Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art). The other gallery, dedicated to paintings and works on paper, shows Byzantine influence on the Italian and Northern Renaissance. Byzantine works seen throughout the exhibition are shown as adopted in the West – notably the Man of Sorrows and the Mandylion (or Holy Face) – painted by some of the most renowned European artists of the mid- to late 15th century. The exhibition thus closes with a display of familiar and moving religious works – that can now be seen in a new way – by Giovanni Bellini (Venetian, active by 1459-d. 1516), El Greco (Greek, 1541-1614), and the Netherlandish painters Rogier van der Weyden (1399/1400-1464), Jan van Eyck (act. by 1422-d. 1441), Dieric Bouts (act. by 1457-d. 1475), and Hans Memling (active ca. 1465-d. 1494).
The exhibition is organized by Helen C. Evans, Curator, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, and developed by The Metropolitan Museum of Art through the office of the Associate Director for Exhibitions, Mahrukh Tarapor. Exhibition design is by Michael Batista, Exhibition Designer; graphics are by Sophia Geronimus, Senior Graphic Designer; and lighting is by Clint Coller and Rich Lichte, Lighting Designers, all of the Museum's Design Department.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, published by
the Metropolitan Museum and distributed by Yale University Press. The catalogue, which is available in the Museum's book shops (paperback $50, hard- cover $75), will feature essays by an international roster of specialists on Byzantine art and the interactions of Byzantium with Islam and the Latin West. Essay authors include, from the Metropolitan Museum: Dr. Maryan Ainsworth, Curator, Department of European Paintings; Dr. Sarah Brooks, Research Associate, and Dr. Helen C. Evans, Curator, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. Additional catalogue authors include Dr. Anna Ballian, Curator of Late Byzantine Art, The Benaki Museum; Professor Annemarie Weyl Carr, Department of Art History, Southern Methodist University; Professor Slobodan Æurèiæ, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University; Professor Anne Derbes, Art Department, Hood College; Dr. Jannic Durand, Conservateur, Musée du Louvre; Dr. Arne Effenberger, Director, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst; Professor Maria Georgopoulou, History of Art Department, Yale University; Professor John Lowden, Courtauld Institute of Art; Professor Amy Neff, School of Art, The University of Tennessee; Professor Robert Nelson, Department of Art History, The University of Chicago; Professor Scott Redford, Director, The McGhee Center of Eastern Mediterranean Studies, Georgetown University; Dr. Alice-Mary Talbot, Director of Byzantine Studies, Dumbarton Oaks; Professor Thelma K. Thomas, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan; and Dr. Warren T. Woodfin, Department of Art and Art History, Duke University.
His All Holiness Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch, has graciously provided an introductory statement for the text. His Eminence Archbishop Damianos of Sinai has written an essay describing the religious importance of the sacred icons preserved at the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine at Sinai.
In addition to the catalogue, and in a further unique collaboration with the Holy
Monastery of Saint Catherine at Sinai, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will publish Saint Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, Egypt: A Photographic Essay at the time of the exhibition. The photographs in this book bring to life vividly the grandeur and sanctity of the isolated monastery. An introduction by His Eminence Archbishop Damianos of Sinai is accompanied by an essay by Helen C. Evans, with captions for the illustrations written by the monks of the monastery. The book will be available in the Museum's book shops in paperback ($15) and hard- cover ($25) editions.
Byzantium: Faith and Power is the third in a series of exhibitions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art focusing on specific eras in the history of Byzantium. The first exhibition, The Age of Spirituality, shown in 1977, focused on the third through the eighth century, and was followed in 1997 by The Glory of Byzantium, A.D. 843-1261.
In conjunction with Byzantium: Faith and Power, a variety of educational programs, including a program of lectures and concerts, will be scheduled for the public and for scholars. An academic symposium of Byzantine scholars from Europe and America will take place at the Museum April 16-18, 2004.
The symposium is made possible in part by The Hagop Kevorkian Fund.
The Museum's Web site (www.metmuseum.org) will feature the exhibition.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art acknowledges Amtrak's promotional support of the Byzantium exhibition.
An audio tour, part of the Metropolitan's Audio Guide program, will be available for rental ($6, $5 for members, and $4 for children under 12).
The Audio Guide program is sponsored by Bloomberg.
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