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By CAROL VOGEL
The New York Times, The Arts Section, B1
New York, NY, Monday, March 22, 2004
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As Helen C. Evans was putting together "The Glory of Byzantium, A.D.
843-1261," the sumptuous exhibition that opened at the Metropolitan Museum
of Art in 1997 and attracted a staggering 460,854 visitors, she was already
planning a sequel. Ms. Evans, the museum's curator of early Christian and
Byzantine art, knew there was more to be told.
"The last big centuries of Byzantium have never been explored in an
exhibition," Ms. Evans said. "And they're by far the most important because
they represent the empire at its peak."
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A chandelier
Richard Perry/The New York Times
(Click on image to enlarge it)
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So for seven years Ms. Evans and Mahrukh Tarapor, the museum's associate
director for exhibitions, traveled to places few would dare, organizing
"Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557)," a feat of international diplomacy
that opens at the Met tomorrow and runs through July 4.
Byzantium, the name given to both the state and the culture of the Eastern
Roman Empire in the Middle Ages, saw a great artistic outpouring. "Byzantium
Faith and Power" begins in 1261, when the capital Constantinople (now
Istanbul) was restored to imperial rule after its sacking by the Crusaders.
It concludes in 1557, when the empire that had fallen to the Ottoman Turks
in 1453 was renamed Byzantium, the name by which it is still known.
The art and objects of that era, produced primarily for the Orthodox
Church - sacred painted icons, lavishly embroidered silk textiles, richly
gilded metalwork, illuminated manuscripts, delicate micromosaics -
illustrate the artistic treasures that have come to define Byzantium.
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An icon with the Archangel Gabriel
The Holy Monastery of St.
Catherine
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The show is the last of a grand trilogy. In 1977 Ms. Evans organized "The
Age of Spirituality," which dealt with Christian art between the third and
eighth centuries A.D., followed by "The Glory of Byzantium" in 1997.
Less than 10 percent of the art and objects presented in "Byzantium: Faith
and Power" had ever left their home countries, the curators said. While
negotiating these loans Ms. Evans and Ms. Tarapor visited 35 countries. They
spent days waiting to be summoned by archbishops of the Orthodox Church,
went mountain climbing with monks at midnight and pressed their case with
political figures.
Their wish list included 14th- and 15th-century icons and richly illustrated
manuscripts, miniature mosaics created in court ateliers of Constantinople
and elaborately embroidered religious vestments of silk, gold and gems, each
a priceless example of cultural heritage.
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Despite a political landscape altered drastically by the events of Sept. 11,
2001, the curators were able to gather some 350 examples of Byzantine art
from about 30 nations, including Greece, Bulgaria, Egypt, France, Italy,
Romania, Russia, Turkey, Serbia and Montenegro and Macedonia.
Ms. Tarapor said that she and Ms. Evans were "affected by world events even
before September 11th" and noted that with "any political event, whether
small or large, we would feel the tremors."
"We were dealing with a living faith and a glorious culture," Ms. Tarapor
added. "But at the same time the cultures we were trying to display were in
ruins."
Because of the war in Kosovo, she and Ms. Evans had to postpone traveling to
Serbia. Eventually Slobodan Curcic, a professor in the department of art and
archaeology at Princeton University, took them to Belgrade, the Serbian
capital. "I'd never seen the effects of a real bombing," Ms. Tarapor said.
"It was a shock and very sobering."
One place that resisted their entreaties was Mount Athos, an ancient
community of 20 monasteries on a rocky peninsula in northern Greece. Since
women were not allowed there, "we would go to the border and a priest would
come down to have lunch with us," Ms. Tarapor said. "We'd talk." They had no
luck because the monastery has been hesitant to lend since the start of the
war in Iraq. Still, they managed to get important loans of art and objects
that originally came from Mount Athos but were now in other collections.
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"It was all about trust," Ms. Tarapor said of getting monasteries to part
with portions of their collections. And sometimes about giving them a little
help. The Holy Monastery of St. Catherine, on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt,
had lent 10 works for the 1997 show. This time it has contributed 43
objects.
In exchange the museum helped design a new sacristy area, which is being
paid for by some of the exhibition's donors. Now the monastery, which draws
many tourists, will be able to preserve its treasures and display them with
greater security. The museum also published a book of photographic essays,
with royalties going to St. Catherine's.
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A diptych showing St. Prokopios and the Virgin Kykkotissa
Holy Monastery of St. Catherine
(Click on image to enlarge it)
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Museum officials would not say exactly how much this exhibition cost. But
people inside the museum said it was close to $4 million, nearly $1 million
more than "The Glory of Byzantium," making it one of the most expensive
shows in the Met's history. It has financing from the Arts and Artifacts
Indemnity program, as well as support from the National Endowment for the
Arts. The show also has Greek and Cypriot sponsors: Alpha Bank, the J. F.
Costopoulos Foundation, the A. G. Leventis Foundation and the Stavros S.
Niarchos Foundation.
To ensure the safe travel of many treasures in the show, conservators from
the Met designed climate-controlled cases in New York and then traveled to
places like the Sinai Desert with the proper crates and packing materials.
Installing the show was a bit like running the United Nations. For days
before the opening the first gallery became a staging area for inspecting
objects as they were being unpacked. Throughout the galleries languages from
around the globe could be heard.
One object of which Ms. Evans is particularly proud is the "Holy Face of
Laon," a 13th-century cedar panel with the face of Jesus on it from the Laon
Cathedral in Northern France. The state turned down a request from the
Vatican when it tried to borrow it four years ago. "We worked with priests
and with the French government," Ms. Evans said. "Eighteen people attended
the packing, including the local bishop and every government and church
official."
Icons borrowed from the Holy Monastery of St. Catherine are shown in a
gallery designed to evoke the nave of the church there, built in the sixth
century by the Emperor Justinian. Forty-three icons are hung in groups in
the gallery as they are hung on rails in the original church. A nearby
gallery contains a stunning collection of micromosaics, the tiniest mosaics
set in beeswax. "They are the greatest art form of the late Byzantine," Ms.
Evans said, noting that few survive.
The exhibition is rich in gold-ground painted icons. In the gallery of works
from St. Catherine is a large diptych that shows St. Prokopios and the
Virgin Kykkotissa. Above her is the image of the Virgin in the burning bush.
There is also a monumental pair of full-length figures of two saints,
Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom, from around 1408. The icons
were borrowed from the State Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow.
The show also has rooms of richly embroidered textiles and objects, like a
giant copper chandelier, or choros, that frequently hung in late-Byzantine
churches. Vitrines contain elaborate, illuminated manuscripts and fresco
decorations.
One would think the topic had now been well explored, but Ms. Evans is
already busy planning her next big exhibition. "Hopefully it will be about
the myth of Byzantium," she said. "I'd like to call it `Sailing to
Byzantium,' after the Yeats poem. We've spent the past two exhibitions
making the empire real. Now I would like to explore the romantic vision and
why we think of it as a fairy tale."
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Icon of Saint George Slaying the Dragon
Musee du Louvre
(Click on image to enlarge it)
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Portrait of the Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos from Funeral
Oration for Theodore I Palaiologos, Despot of Mistra Constantinople
Bibliotheque Nationale de France
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Seal of Michael VIII Palaiologos
Numismatic Museum
(Click on image to enlarge it)
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A Vatican sakkos in "Byzantium: Faith and Power," opening on Tuesday at the Met
The Vatican Treasury, Vatican City
(Click on image to enlarge it) |
The New York Times, Monday, March 22, 2004
LINK: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/22/arts/design/22BYZA.html
LINK: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/arts/index.html [go down to this
article and click on "photographs"]
FOR PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC USE ONLY
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![](javascript:show('images/byzantine_art7.jpg','A Vatican sakkos in "Byzantium: Faith and Power,"','opening on Tuesday at the Met','[The Vatican Treasury, Vatican City]'))
