Pentcheva, Performative Icon

The Performative IconAuthor(s): Bissera V. PentchevaSource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 88, No. 4 (Dec., 2006), pp. 631-655Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25067280 .Accessed: 07/03/2011 11:36

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The Performative Icon

Bissera V. Pentcheva

Icon (ikon, eiKcov) in Greek is understood as image, repre

sentation, and portrait. In Byzantium the word also acquired

a very specific meaning as a

portable portrait of Christ, the

Virgin, and saints with scenes from their lives on wood panels or

precious surfaces such as ivory, metal, enamel, mosaic, and

steatite (Figs. 1-4).* The icon was perceived

as matter im

bued with charis (^api?), or divine grace.2 As matter, this

object was meant to be physically experienced. Touch, smell,

taste, and sound all contributed to the experience of "seeing"

the portable portrait. Over the years, this sensory and sensual

experience (aesthesis) of the image has been lost from view in

the scholarship.3 The icon is in fact a surface that resonates with sound,

wind, light, touch, and smell. This object thus offers us a

glimpse into what vision meant in Byzantium: a

synesthetic

experience in which the whole body is engaged. The term

synesthesia as employed in modern art theory and psychology refers to concomitant sensation: the experience of one sense

through the stimulation of another, such as color experi

enced as sound. Instead, I will use the word synesthesis (syn-,

together, plus aesthesis, sensual apprehension) to focus atten

tion on consonant sensation: the simultaneity of senses. This

synesthetic experience is very characteristic of Byzantium. Yet

it is rarely discussed in medieval studies. Whenever a link

between the senses and the spiritual is made, it is often drawn

primarily on the basis of the writings of Abbot Suger.4

According to Byzantine image theory as it emerged in the

ninth century, the icon is the imprint (in Greek, typos) of

Christ's visible characteristics (appearance) on matter. The

quintessential Byzantine image ideally should not be thought of as a painting created by brushstrokes but as an imprint? a typos impressed on a material surface. The relief icon

most closely conformed to this theoretical model; it defined

Byzantium as the culture of the imprint, mold, or seal

(Figs. 1-3). The relief icon also best responds to the prevailing theory

of vision known as extramission.5 According to this model, the

eye of the beholder is active, constantly moving and sending

light rays that touch the surfaces of objects. The eye seeks the

tactility of textures and reliefs. Sight is understood and expe rienced as touch.6 Not surprisingly, Byzantine icons address

this tactile desire with their rich decoration, varied materials, and reliefs. They employ a baroque pastiche of metal re

pouss?, filigree, cloisonn? and champlev? enamels, pearls,

and gemstones. Some of these panels also contain poetic

inscriptions embedded in the metal surface (Fig. 21). The later and better-known production of wood panel

paintings covered with metal revetments (Fig. 4) differ sig

nificantly from the Middle Byzantine relief icon. In the latter, the holy figure projects in relief, whereas in the former, the

sacred form recedes in darkness. It is painted on the flat

surface of the wood and surrounded by a raised silver-gilt or

enameled cover, which floods the eye with its radiance and

shimmer. When illuminated by the trembling flicker of can

dles and oil lamps rather than the steady and harsh spotlights of museum displays, the painted holy face on the revetted

icon sinks and disappears in the shadow. These panels oper

ate at the brink of the extramission and intromission models of

visuality. They deny the tangibility and even visibility of the

sacred image, while they appeal to the sense of touch through the textured surface of their repouss? and enameled-filigree

metal revetments.7

Because they are luxury objects, relief icons are now con

sidered exceptions among an otherwise largely panel-painted icon production. However, the way relief icons in metal,

enamel, steatite, and ivory integrate the iconophile theory of

images and the way they sensorially engage the faithful

through their tactile representations suggest that these ob

jects, rather than being exceptions, lead us instead to a

fundamental expectation and experience of icons as textured

surfaces in Byzantium. The relief icon, which dominated

artistic production in the ninth and tenth centuries, most

closely fulfilled the qualities of Byzantine tactile and sensorial

visuality. In its original setting, the icon performed through its

materiality. The radiance of light reflected from the gilded surfaces, the flicker of candles and oil lamps placed before

the image, the sweetly fragrant incense, the sounds of prayer

and music?these inundated all senses. In saturating the

material and sensorial to excess, the experience of the icon

led to a transcendence of this very materiality and gave access

to the intangible, invisible, and noetic.8 This phenomenolog ical aspect of the icon has been largely overlooked in modern

scholarship. By treating it as art, confining it to a glass-cage museum display, subjecting it to uniform and steady electric

lighting, the icon has been deprived of life?its surface,

dead.9

In Byzantine culture, mimesis is the word closest to the

definition of "performance." It stands for an admixture of

presence and absence.10 The icon exemplifies just such an

admixture. While itself an absence (appearance), the Byzan

tine icon enacts divine presence (essence) in its making and

in its interaction with the faithful.11 A person's approach, movement, and breath disrupt the lights of the candles and

oil lamps, making them flicker and oscillate on the surface of

the icon, This glimmer of reflected rays is enhanced by the

rising incense in the air, the sense of touch and taste, and the

sound of prayer to animate the panel.12 The icon thus goes

through a process of becoming, changing, and performing before the faithful,

These shifting sensations triggered through sight, touch,

sound, smell, and taste stir the faithful. They are then led to

project their whirling psychological state and sensual experi ence (pathema, Tr?diq/xa) back onto the object to make the

532 ART BULLETIN VOLUME LXXXVIII NUMBER 4

1 Icon of the Archangel Michael, late 10th century, enamel on

gold, 17% X 14V6 X 3/4 in. (44 X 36 X 2 cm). Treasury of the basilica of S. Marco, Venice (artwork in the public domain;

photograph by Cameraphoto, provided by Art Resource, NY)

icon appear alive. Animated by the projected human

7r?0T)/xa, it turns into a living painting:

an empsychos graphe

(e/xi/fu^o? ypa</>ff). A new meaning of "living painting"

emerges from my analysis.13 The Byzantine icon has a

legacy of tactile visuality, sensu

ally experienced. Because the Eastern Orthodox liturgy main

tained its late antique tradition of saturating the senses, the

objects embedded in its rite gave rise to a sensorially rich

performance. While all five senses are engaged,

a subtle

hierarchy is established. Sight, touch, and sound emerge as

the senses through which the materiality of the icon as the

imprint of the divine appearance is empirically formed. At

the same time, smell and taste give access to divine essence

through an almost Eucharistie participatory knowledge of

God.

Byzantine Mimesis: Essence and Appearance The Byzantine icon is a surface that has received the imprint of divine form. This nonessentialist definition of the icon

developed in the ninth-century writings of Patriarch Nike

phoros and Theodore of Stoudios. Charles Barber has al

ready reconstructed their theory in his excellent study Figure and Likeness:- On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Icono

clasm.14 What remains to be explored is how this nonessen

tialist model affected the icon production of the post-Icono

2 Icon of the Archangel Michael, late llth-12th century, enamel on gold, 85/s X 7V4 in. (22 X 18.5 cm). Treasury of the basilica of S. Marco, Venice (artwork in the public domain;

photograph by Cameraphoto, provided by Art Resource, NY)

clastic period. The definition of the icon as absence has

paradoxically heightened the materiality of this object. A

tension lurks on the icon's surface between absence and

presence, a tension that will be resolved in the icon's perfor mance (mimesis) : the way it plays with appearances before the

faithful. In contrast to our Western notion of mimesis as the

imitation of form, Byzantine mimesis is the imitation of pres ence. The icon is just an imprint of form, but it simulates

divine essence through the interaction of its imprinted sur

face with the changing ambience.

Byzantine image theory emerged during the Iconoclastic

period, 730 to 843. At the very center of this controversy lay the tension between matter and spirit. Can the icon represent

Christ's divinely human nature? The eighth-century defense

of icons presents an essentialist model. Its major proponents

were John of Damaskos (ca. 675-749) and Patriarch Germa

nos (ca. 634-732).15 Using Christology, they drew a connec

tion between the icon and the incarnate Christ. The Incar

nation manifests the divine acquiring a human form, lending

validity to the visible and representation. By extension, the

icon shows the process through which the Logos acquires a

visible human shape.

The original seventh-century mosaics at Nikaia offer an

example of this incarnational dialectic (Figs. 5, 6).16 The

pr?figurai divine, represented by the throne, book, dove, and

THE PERFORMATIVE ICON 533

3 Harbaville triptych, late 10th century, ivory, 9V? X WA in.

(24.2 X 28.5 cm). Mus?e du Louvre, Paris (artwork in the

public domain; photograph by Erich Lessing, provided by Art Resource, NY)

?ir>#?^*Z&1*xz?.

i ftl J;

4 Double-sided processional icon of the Virgin Hodegetria, 3rd quarter of the 13th century, tempera on wood, silver-metal

revetment, 38V? X 26% in. (97 X 67 cm). Icon Gallery, Ohrid, Macedonia (artwork in the public domain; photograph ?

Scala, provided by Art Resource, NY)

5 Mosaic of the Hetoimasia, late 7th or early 8th century. Church of the Koimesis of the Theotokos, Iznik, Turkey (Nikaia) (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided

by the Theodore Schmit Archive, ? The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg)

inscription, is transformed into the Child held in the arms of the Virgin in the apse. We witness a

metamorphosis by fol

lowing the central ray of light, most likely made of silver

tesserae.17 They catch and reflect light as

they lead us to the

carnal light: the golden-clad Child in Mary's arms.

By equat

ing the icon with the body of Christ, making it participatory in the divine essence, this essentialist model exposed itself to

charges of idolatry.18 The figurai representation at Nikaia

shows traces of such an iconoclastic intervention, for the

image of the Virgin and Child in the apse was replaced by the aniconic shape of the cross sometime in the mid-eighth

cen

tury. With the reestablishment of image veneration in 843,

the figurai representation was restored.

To counteract the charges of idolatry in the incarnational

model, the iconophiles of the later part of the eighth and

early ninth centuries developed a nonessentialist interpreta

tion of the icon.19 Patriarch Nikephoros (ca. 750-828) de fined the icon as the imprint (typos) of the visible character istics of Christ on matter, or appearance imprinted on

matter: "Painting represents the corporeal form of the one

depicted, impressing its appearance (schema) and its shape (morphe) and its likeness (empheria).'"20

Schema, morphe, empheria (oxrj/xa, jmop</>Tj, e^?peta) all

converge on the sense of appearance/likeness and empha


6 Apse mosaic of the Virgin and Child, late 7th- early 8th and

mid-9th century. Church of the Koimesis of the Theotokos,

Iznik, Turkey (Nikaia) (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by the Theodore Schmit Archive, ? The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg)

size the nonessentialist relation between copy and prototype.

The two are connected by form, not essence. The icon as

imprint of appearance no longer participates in Christ's sa

cred energy and therefore does not reveal his hypostasis

(divinely human essence). In bearing only the visible charac

teristics and lacking the miraculous essence, the icon be

comes the imprint of absence on matter. This object is thus set to simulate presence (essence) through appearance.

A similar definition of the icon as an imprint of likeness on

matter emerges in the writings of Theodore of Stoudios

(759-826):

The crafted icon modeled after its prototype brings the

likeness of the prototype into matter and participates in its

form by means of the thought of the artist and the impress of his hands. This is true of the painter, the stone carver,

and the one who makes images from gold and bronze; each takes matter, looks at the prototype, receives the

imprint of that which he contemplates, and presses it like a seal into his matter.21

In this passage, the icon is likeness that participates only in

the form, not the essence, of the prototype. The act of

looking at the model is understood as a primary imprint. The

7 Seal attached to the memorandum of a judge of

Thessaloniki written in 927, lead, 7% X 6% in. (19.8 X 17.4

cm). Iviron Monastery, Mount Athos, Greece (object in the

public domain; from Treasures of Mount Athos, 508, cat. no.

13.1)

appearance of the prototype has been impressed onto the

memory of the artist. In the next step, this impressed form is

imprinted (literally impressed like a die) for a second time on

the material surface (bronze or gold, marble or encaustic).

The making of the icon becomes a process of double imprint

(typos). This nonessentialist theory of the icon does not account for

miraculous images. As in any other culture, the theoretical

model exercised some but not total control over artistic

production and ritual practices. It gave a conceptual line

through which to defend the validity of icons.

At the same time, a belief in miraculous icons did exist in

Byzantium, and this belief went against the theoretical defi

nition of the icon as absence. Because these thaumaturgie

images were

perceived as

repositories of divine presence, they

functioned in a way similar to relics. These icons offered

access to sacred energy. Habitually enclosed in containers

and covered by silk veils, the miraculous images were

kept

away from sensual grasp, in contrast to the regular icon,

which was always fully visually and tangibly available. The

miracle-working images were

fully revealed only at swift cli

mactic points of the ritual.22

Typos and Sphragis The nonessentialist model of the icon as a double imprint, I

believe, originates from the very image production practices

available to men of letters in ninth-century Constantinople

and from the stronghold of the extramission theory in Byzan


8 Seal blank, lead, diameter IVs in. (2.9 cm). Dumbarton

Oaks, Washington, D.C. (object in the public domain;

photograph provided by Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, D.C.)

9 Pliers with intaglio relief of a saint, iron, 6% X 6V6 in.

(17.4 X 15.5 cm). Arthur Sackler Museum, Cambridge, Mass.,

bequest of Thomas Whittemore, 1951.31.6 (object in the

public domain; photograph provided by the Arthur Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge)

tine visuality. Many documents, once their writing was con

cluded, were secured with a seal.23 For instance, in a memo

randum by a judge of Thessaloniki written in 927, the seal is

still in its original position, affixed with a cord at the edge of

the parchment. It completes the writing and ensures the

inviolate state of the letter (Fig. 7) .24 The characteristic Byz antine sealing practice was to use lead blanks with a channel

going through their diameter (Fig. 8). The silk cords were

first threaded through the parchment and then strung

through the seal's channel. After being heated, the lead

blanks were placed between the valves of iron pliers (Fig. 9). The pliers were struck shut with a hammer, impressing a

relief on the softened surface of the lead (Figs. 10,11). While

creating the metal relief, the pliers embedded the silk cord

in the lead and closed the parchment. Writing and sealing thus became linked in Byzantium. The graphe (encompassing

writing and painting) was understood as a seal (sphragis, ar<f>payi<;), for the seal completed it. By analogy, the icon as a

manifestation of graphe also became a sphragis.

10 Seal of Peter, bishop of Thebes, with the Virgin Episkepsis, 11th century, diameter 1 in. (2.5 cm). Dumbarton Oaks,

Washington, D.C. (object in the public domain; photograph provided by Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection,

Washington, D.C.)

11 Coin with the impressed images of Christ and Emperor Constantine VII (r. 945-59), gold, diameter % in. (1.8 cm). Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. (object in the public domain; photograph provided by Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, D.C.)

The typos/sphragis concept is not new. It has been explored most prominently by Herbert Kessler in connection with the

acheiropoietos of Christ (miraculous image not made by human

hands, a-, without, heir, hand, poietos, made): the imprint

(typos) of the Holy Face on a material surface.25 This thauma

turgie object is allegedly the product of a single imprint of

the divine form and essence. It is created like a coin or seal.

Christ's body functions like an intaglio impressed on the

material surface (Figs. 10, 11). As an extension of the divine

form, which bears the divine touch, the acheiropoietos partici

pates in the essence.

Yet the typos/sphragis concept has never been applied to the

regular icon. In contrast to the acheiropoietoi, the icon is

created through a double imprint and participates only in the

appearance of the prototype. Again, the making of a seal or

a coin exemplifies this process. The die and its imprint (eKTweojULa, twos, a<j>payU) furnish not just

a metaphor for

the relation between Christ and the icon but also a process that entirely maps the concept of the icon as absence, lacking essence. The sacred body leaves a

physical imprint. By dis

placing matter, it produces a

negative space, a shell in which

a body once resided but no longer remains. This shell is

equivalent to the negative intaglio on the heads of the pliers

(Fig. 9). It is this form of absence that is then imprinted on

the warm metal surface, reifying in relief the shape of ab sence (Figs. 10, 11). Here, absence turns into a projection,

penetrating the physical space. The relief paradoxically is

transformed into the materialization of the form of absence.

The icon then becomes a reified, sensual, sensory manifesta


tion of absence. It self-consciously draws attention to absence,

making it tangible, apprehensible through the senses.26 As

present absence, the imprint neutralizes the icon and makes

it immune to charges of idolatry. It provides access to appear

ance, which is materially realized and sensually experienced.

The understanding of the icon through the seal-making model also places

an emphasis

on tangible

versus intangible

absence, rather than on the visible versus the invisible. In its

imprinted relief, the icon materializes the absent sacred fig ure. It gives it shape. Therefore, medieval objects in general

and Byzantine icons in particular attempt to express the

paradox of the tangible versus the intangible rather than the

visible versus the invisible (in which my analysis differs from

that of the existing scholarship on medieval image theory) .27 The tangible appeals to and mobilizes all five senses, while

the visible addresses itself just to the eye. It is our modern

culture's obsession with making things visible, fueled by op tical visuality, that makes us

project a similar framework onto

medieval art.28 By contrast, the Byzantine icon presents an

eloquent example of tactile visuality sensually experienced.

According to the preferred theory of vision in Byzantium,

extramission, the eye casting its rays seeks a tangible form

that can be "touched with the eyes, hands, and lips."29

Moreover, the same desire for materiality is present in the

passage quoted from Theodore of Stoudios: "[the artist] takes matter, looks at the prototype, receives the imprint of

that which he contemplates, and presses it like a seal into his

matter."30 In the making of an icon, the active eye of the artist

casts optical rays over the saint. They touch the sacred form

and return, impressing the gathered shape into the memory

of the craftsman. This first image (the imprinted vestige of

touch) is thus internal. Like a negative intaglio, it is subse

quently impressed by the hands of the artist into a material

surface.

The Byzantine sacred portrait can be seen to function in

Neoplatonic terms. It presents a material manifestation of

what is immaterial and ineffable (divine essence). The image is a

priori internal. Its external manifestation is the icon. The

eye "touching" its surface reaffirms the reality of the internal

prototype. Touch authenticates this internal imprint. The

validity or truth of the image is its matter; its surface, having received the imprint (typos) of absence, offers it in turn to the

touch of the "eyes and lips" of the faithful.

Paradoxically, the icon as reified absence is imbued with

the most profound materiality. Its lack of essence is compen

sated by the materially manifested likeness: palpable, tangi ble, and sensual. It is this materiality of the icon that is

overlooked in the recent studies of Byzantine image theory.31

The Relief Icon

For the period from the ninth to the eleventh centuries, relief icons in metal, enamel, ivory, and steatite survive in

greater numbers than panel paintings. So far, this imbalance

has been attributed to wood's vulnerability to deterioration.

Perhaps a different interpretation, which takes into account

tradition, theory, and the function of icons in the ninth and

tenth centuries, is in order. In this interpretation, the seal

and-coin-based model at the core of Byzantine image theory

furnishes an insight into the art

produced after Iconoclasm.

Already in his discussion of the sixth-century decoration of

the chancel barrier in Hagia Sophia, Paul the Silentiary men

tioned metal-repouss? disks with the figures of Christ, the

angels, prophets, Apostles, and the Virgin.32 Similarly, after

Iconoclasm, icons in metal repouss? adorned the epistyle of

the imperial foundation called Nea Ekklesia (the New

Church) of Emperor Basil I (r. 867-86) .33 Enamel medallion

icons of Christ appeared in the Chapel of the Savior in the

palace.34 These instances demonstrate a continuing tradition

of luxury relief icons in both Hagia Sophia and the churches

and chapels of the Great Palace.

The most important icon in this period was the Chalkites

Christ set atop the Brazen Gates of the imperial palace. Its

story summarizes the entire Iconoclastic period (730-843). It

was allegedly taken down on the orders of Emperor Leo III in

730, and this act of public aggression against images signaled the outbreak of Iconoclasm in the capital.35 Since this story is

not mentioned by any contemporary eighth-century source

and appears in the written record only after 800, it casts some

doubt on the existence of a Chalke Christ in about 730.

Marie-France Auz?py has correctly argued that the legend was

developed in order to justify Empress Eirene's placement

of such an icon for the first time during the iconophile interim period, 787-814.36 Through the invention of a leg

endary past for the Chalkites, it acquired legitimacy. Then

again in 814 Emperor Leo V removed this image from the

gates in an attempt to emulate the legendary actions of his

iconoclast predecessor, Leo III. Finally, a new Chalkites was

set up in 843. The Chalke Christ marked the final triumph of

orthodoxy and celebrated the renewed alignment of imperial

power with image veneration. As the gate to the Great Palace,

the Chalke visually and tangibly defined and propagated

imperial policy. It was probably this same image that reap

peared on imperial coinage in 843.37

What did this icon look like? Could it have been a metal

relief icon?a typos} Its name, Chalkites^ refers to copper and

bronze,38 but is this a reference to the Brazen Gates over

which it hung or to the fact that the image itself was made of

metal? Scholars, notably, Cyril Mango in 1959, have argued that the Chalkites was a

painted panel because the iconoclasts

sent it to the fire.39 However, panel painting is not suited for

the exterior of a building; ultraviolet light, humidity, and

temperature shifts would all wreak havoc with egg tempera

on wood.

By contrast, if we identify the Chalkites as a metal relief

icon, all of these issues are resolved. A bronze or copper icon

(a typos) would have easily been burned in accordance with

the incident of 730 or 814. In fact, fire would have been the

only and perhaps best way to destroy it. Moreover, its burning would have had a strong symbolic value by alluding to the

biblical Golden Calf (Exod. 32:20). Burning, indeed, would

have justified the icon's destruction in the eyes of iconoclasts

as an orthodox act of pulling down the idols.

Further confirmation of this hypothesis can be found in

the written record. In one of the two earliest Byzantine

sources describing the Chalke incident of 730, the Life of Saint

Stephen the Younger (written about 809), the icon appears as a

copper relief image. The passage mentions the icon and its

location at the gates:40


In these days [the patriarch Anastasios,] having become

the leader of heresies, immediately attempted to take

down and throw into the fire the authoritative icon of

Christ our Lord, hanging above the imperial gates, at the

place, where due to its relief character, it [the icon] is called

the Chalke (the Copper One).41

The syntax of the dependent clause is rather difficult to

interpret. It is introduced by a relative pronoun (kv oicnrep), which refers to the gates, yet the rest of the sentence has a

subject in the feminine singular, and the only other word in

the feminine singular in the main clause is "icon" (eiKC?v).

While the Greek for gate (pyle, 7r6kr?) is in the feminine

gender, a switch from the plural

to singular and the subsequent

description of this object as holy suggest that the subject of

the relative clause is not the Brazen Gates but the Chalkites icon. The relative pronoun can then be translated as refer

ring to the locale, where the icon is set.42

The word used to describe the metal object in the quoted

passage is charakter (xotpoLKTr\p). It means an imprint, relief,

and engraved surface. In fact, its first definition is connected to the stamping of an

intaglio on a metal surface in order to

produce a coin. The same word also appears in th? descrip

tion of the Chalkites in Theophanes' Chronographia (early ninth century), The passage narrates the events of 602 CE, when Emperor Maurice (r. 582-602) dreamed of his judg ment by Christ, which resulted in his deposition. Theophanes embellished the story by ahistorically inserting the Chalkites

icon?the very object that was most likely first placed ?t the

gates almost two centuries later, in the period 787-814. The

icon became the medium through which Christ appeared and judged the emperor: "One night as [Emperor Maurice]

was sleeping, he saw a vision; he was standing before the icon

of the Savior at the Chalke gates and ? crowd was standing

around him. A voice from the relief icon of our Lord and

Savior Jesus Christ came and spoke."43

Later sources also indicate a copper relief icon for the

Chalkites. In the Patria (a compilation of various sources on

the topography of Constantinople, edited about 995), we

read the following: "In the so-called Chalke Gates a copper stele of our Lord Jesus Christ was erected by Constan tine the

Great. The emperor Leo [III], father of Kavallinos, took it

down. Now decorated with mosaics, this icon is restored by

the [empress] Eirene the Athenian."44

The icon is called a copper relief slab (stele chalke, ottj?tj

XakKrf). These words have hitherto been interpreted as a

bronze statue and discredited as corrupt information because

Byzantium did not produce three-dimensional statues of

Christ or the saints.45 Yet the Byzantine choice of words is

quite clear. Just as the Greek word stele presents figures in low

relief, so, too, the Byzantine Chalkites icon displays a bas

relief of Christ on a metal surface. The rest of the passage states how this icon was decorated with mosaics by Empress

Eirene, which could be interpreted as a metal icon adorned

with glass tesserae or even enamel.

Similarly, the epigram written by Patriarch Methodios

sometime between 843 and 847 identifies the orthodox im

ages as typoi: "I am representing [Christ] with imprints [ty

poi]."46 This poetic inscription most likely surrounded the

Chalkites icon, thereby linking image and text visually. The

holy face was rendered as a relief, while the epigram as letters

incised on matter. Both draw attention to the textured and

imprinted surface. Finally, Michael Glykas in the twelfth cen

tury reinforces the idea of the Chalkites as a metal relief icon

by calling it an imprint (ekt?tt?uiio) .47 What is the importance of identifying the Chalkites with a

metal relief icon? This was the most prominent icon in Con

stantinople during and after Iconoclasm. It symbolized pro

image policy. Therefore, its form would have been under

stood as the ideal icon. If my interpretation of the written sources is correct, the Chalkites served as the model for the

Byzantine metal relief icon. As a typos, the Chalke Christ also

fulfilled Byzantine image theory. According to its nonessen

tialist definition, the ideal icon is a representation in relief: an imprint (typos) left by an intaglio (Figs. 10, 11).

It is quite possible that the Chalkites was medallion-shaped. In Byzantine iconophile writings the legitimacy of the icon is

frequently argued on the basis of the imperial coin. A reci

procity is established between the emperor and his represen

tation on the gold solidus (Fig. 11), Both are linked by one

identity yet separated by natures.48 The same reciprocity

reigns between the icon and Christ. Both represent the same

identity but differ in nature: a material substance versus a

divinely human hypostasis. The roundel icon evokes in its

shape the very arguments used to defend its legitimacy. The

medallion panel thus becomes an ideal devotional object

protected by form and theory from charges of idolatry.49

Similarly, the majority of icons depicted in the mid-ninth

century Khludov Psalter (State Historical Museum, Moscow, cod. gr. 129) have a round shape that evokes coins and seals

(Fig. 12).50 These images do not resemble what we consider

to be the canonical look for an icon: a rectangular wood

panel painting. In employing the shape of coins and seals, the

representations in the Khludov Psalter activate the nonessen

tialist definition of the icon as imprint of absence on matter.

Hence, the circular form validates th? veneration of images.

The manuscript begins with a depiction of a youthful Christ set within an arch (Fig. 12). Underneath the tympa num, King David dressed in imperial attire sits on a throne

and strums the strings of his lyre. Divine and imperial are

joined through the seal of the icon. King David emerges as a

protector of images and vice versa: as a recipient of the icon's

protection. This idea captures the climate of ninth-century

Constantinople, where imperial policy had just firmly em

braced icon veneration. The Chalkites Christ established the

seal of affirmation in 843.

The medallion icon and its setting in the Khludov Psalter

within the tympanum of an imaginary arch recall the shape of

a gate. Given the manuscript's polemical depiction of current

political events and its avid defense of irhages, it is likely that

the preface miniature of the Khludov Psalter is not just a

visualization of an author portrait (King David as the poet of

the Psalms) but is possibly meant to configure in two-dimen

sional form a memory image of the Chalke gate and Chalke

Christ. Such a commemorative image would be quite appro

priate for the particular patron of the manuscript: most likely Patriarch Methodios.51 His epigram adorned the Chalkites,

and, by extension, his Psalter begins with a miniature emu

lating his most prominent public act of image veneration. If

this reading of the preface miniature as a vision of the


12 Khludov Psalter, preface miniature, medallion icon of Christ and King David, mid-9th century. State Historical

Museum, Moscow, cod. gr. 129, fols,

lv, 2r (artwork in the public domain; photograph ? by the State Historical

Museum, Moscow)

Chalkites at the Bronze Gates is correct, then all medallion

icon depictions in this manuscript acquire greater signifi cance as

copies sharing in the Chalkites's tradition, form, and

legitimacy. The ideal Byzantine icon emerges as a Chalke

icon: a medallion metal relief.

Finally, a dominance of relief icons over panel paintings in

the ninth and tenth centuries is also evident in the contem

porary function of images. In this period icons were not

carried in public processions (litaniai), so they were not the

focal point of public ceremonies. The small size and luxury materials of these relief icons conformed to a more intimate

system of use.

The situation changed in the late tenth century when icons

appeared in imperial and liturgical processions and led to a

new demand for the larger size and accessibility of the image in large public gatherings.52 Wood panel paintings allowed

for unlimited expansion of size. The sacred figure painted in

tempera lacked relief and functioned primarily optically (Fig. 4). Only the revetment preserved the aesthetic of the luxury

metal relief icon. In the best examples, this metal cover

consisted of an enameled silver-gilt surface decorated with

filigree designs, pearls, and gemstones.

The history of Constantinople's most famous icon, the

Hodegetria (the One Who Leads the Way), exemplifies this

development (Fig. 4). Until the late tenth century, the icon

ographie type without the toponymie name occurred mostly

on small luxury relief icons. Once the Hodegetria became the

focus of a cult and acquired its own weekly liturgical proces

sion, it established the first example of a monastery in Con

stantinople investing its identity in an icon rather than a relic

of the Mother of God.5S Consequently, Marian devotion in

the Byzantine capital was shaped through icons and icon

processions. These processional icons (later referred to as

signa) had the effect of shifting the perception of the ideal

image in Byzantium from a medallion relief (typos) to a

painted panel (signori).

Painting as Imprint In modern Western culture we are

predisposed to conceive of

painting as the markings of the brush on a material surface.

Traced to its source, this perception derives from the Natural

History of Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE). In one of his anecdotes

the painter Zeuxis creates a virtuoso mimetic picture of

grapes, which deceives the birds. His competitor, Parrhasios,

in turn paints a curtain so skillfully that Zeuxis himself is

deceived as he attempts to draw the curtain in order to see

the supposed painting behind it.54 The same definition of

graphe as the marks of the brush on a surface creating

a

mimetic image of the world also obtains in the Renaissance

theory of Leon Battista Albert! written in 1436.55 In recent

times, Ernst Gombrich has offered the best-known discussion

of painting as a naturalistic, mimetic pictorial copy of the

world.56 Although Norman Bryson and other scholars have

challenged his perceptualist theory, they have not questioned the understanding of painting as a pictorial form of art:

brushstrokes on a material surface.57

By contrast, in what emerges in the Byzantine theory and

practice, painting (graphe) is best understood as imprint (ty pos and sphragis). The image is not the imitation of form but

rather the imprint of form. This Eastern perception of paint

ing?and, by extension, the icon?as imprint gives an

insight

into Byzantine culture. As mentioned earlier, Byzantine mi

mesis is understood as the simulation of presence through the

interaction of the imprinted form (typos) with the changing ambience.

Typos in Byzantium encompasses a range of definitions

spreading from individual mark, standard pattern, and state

decree to ritual.58 The dictionary entries are as follows: im

pression, imprint and mark, mold, representation, image, exact

replica, shape, form, type, pattern, model, example,

decree, and, finally, rite. One gradually proceeds from the

individual mark to the state, from the private to the public, from the particular to the cultural. All meanings

are inter


linked through the model of the imprint of an intaglio on

metal. Just as the icon is an

imprint of visible characteristics

on matter, so, too, the rite becomes the imprint of a set of

gestures and speech acts in time and space. Both icon and

ritual present endless faithful reproduction rather than imi

tation of form.59 The imprint as a cultural practice

ensures

uniformity and secures traditions. Byzantium emerges as the

culture of the typos:, the image understood as the impression,

mold, form, and decree, all authentic and limitlessly repro

ducible, linking image production to ritual practices and

cultural identity.

The coin or seal model (typos/sphragis) of the icon explains

why after Iconoclasm enamel became the medium par excel

lence. It, too, gives theory a palpable shape by displaying the

imprint of divine appearance in a material form. The enam

el's underlying metal foundation of cells functions like a

negative intaglio. The glass powder poured into this grid becomes the imprint (typos). Once the powder is fired into

glass, it acquires mass, giving shape to divine absence. The

congealed glass forms the materiality of the enamel image. As

with the relief icon, matter fills an empty shell and gives

materiality or substance to what is no

longer there, to what is

beyond the tangible: a present absence. Both enamel and re

lief icons display divine appearance through textured matter.

While enameled relief icons best embody the concept of

the icon as imprint, panel painting continued to be produced in the period right after Iconoclasm, as attested by the pre

served collection of icons at St. Catherine's Monastery on

Mount Sinai.60 However, the graphe of tempera could not

compete with the perfect reciprocity of theory and produc

tion practices signaled by the metal icon, because the latter

displayed in its making the actual materialization of the typos.

Nor could tempera compare to encaustic, a form of relief

that imparts a vivid sensation of imprint. The surface of the

warm wax is pushed, impressed, and incised by the palette

knife, "imprinting" a figure in relief.

This understanding of graphe as imprint simultaneously

engages touch, sight, and sound. Touch, because grapheis the

actual physical impression made on a material surface: it

leaves a relief, a texture that has tactile presence. Sight and

sound, because both are modes of perception of graphe: as

both painting and writing, graphe unites image and letter. Just as the image is an

imprint of visible characteristics on matter,

so script is the impression/trace of letters incised, inscribed,

imprinted onto a surface (Fig. 21). Only through matter can

abstract ideas be realized and perceptually accessed. They

need to be embodied, incarnated. Graphe as

imprint prede

termines the importance of the material surface in the Byz

antine perception of the icon.

The Icon's Materiality and the Sense of Touch

The textured surfaces of the Byzantine icon engage the five

senses, as demonstrated by the sensual appeal of the late

tenth-century enamel relief of the Archangel Michael (Figs. 1, 13) .61 By nature, the angel is fire and spirit; no materiality rests in him. Human beings can grasp him only through the

imprint he leaves on matter. For instance, Saint Michael's

shrines at Chonai and Monte S. Gargano are

perceived as

imprints left by him on the landscape. A chasm (Chonai) and

a shrine carved in the rock (S. Gargano), they form giant

fossils: contact relics giving tangibility to the angel's present absence.62 For this reason, the relief icon as a typos becomes

the only truthful form of representation for the Archangel.

By its definition, it is the imprint of absence. His enamel icon

in S. Marco is even closer to the truth, for it is an imprint of

fire on glass. Its materially saturated surfaces inundate the

senses and simulate the angel's presence.

The icon belongs to a group of luxury objects looted from

the palace in Constantinople when the city fell to the Cru

saders in 1204. Andr? Grabar and Michelangelo Muraro have

commented on the "unusual" medium and technique of this

icon. Their reaction betrays once

again our modern precon

ception that icons should be primarily identified with paint

ings.63 As discussed earlier, the relief icon of the Archangel

might have been more characteristic of the Middle Byzantine

period than wood panels painted with tempera. The S. Marco

enamel is one of the few extant examples of this exquisite

production. It displays a mastery of metal techniques (enamel

filigree, repouss?) and lavish use of materials (Figs. 13-15). The Archangel stands frontally, dressed in an imperial

purple tunic covered with a gem-studded sash called a loros

(Fig. 13). With one hand he holds a scepter and lifts the

other in a gesture of intercession. His enormous wings press

to the sides (Fig. 15). A subtle tension emerges between the

figure projecting in relief and the sunken central plaque. The

face extends outward the most, yet this projection is imme

diately checked by the palm turned to the viewer. It stops movement and arrests the projection.

The body is outlined, but its materiality is rendered as a

multiplicity of surfaces. Imitation-pearl strings delimit all

shapes and frame the enamel plaques and gemstones (Figs.

13, 14). The gold repouss? surface is enlivened by thin,

undulating filigree with a pearly dot profile. This is one of the

most exquisite Byzantine filigree examples in existence.

The excess of matter functions as dissemblance, set to

oppose a desire to depict in a naturalistic style.64 Rather than

a mimetic figuration of the angel's appearance, the enamel

icon of the one who is fire and spirit offers a dissemblant

re-presentation of the angel's nature. It is made of glass

powder, placed in a metal mold, and fired to a high temper ature. As an

imprint, the enamel icon responds to the Byz

antine definition of an angel's representation:

a symbolic

impression that allows for the contemplation of higher heav

enly reality beyond matter.65 The enamel icon itself is thus a

dissemblant material imprint of the unfigurable created by fire?a dissemblant semblance of the symbolic imprint.

The Archangel's nature of fire and spirit is nonmimetically

reproduced and hapticly enfigured on the diverse surfaces of

this icon. The ample textures are sensually and sensorially

available to the gaze, touch, and taste. Tactility combats the

optical experience. Alois Riegl referred to the tactile qualities as the true aspect of an object as opposed to the illusion

generated through the optical frame.66 It is this hap tic aspect (relief and textured surfaces) that engages both the Byzan tine theory of vision (extramission) and the practical

vener

ation of the icon. The viewer's gaze seeks the tactility of the

icon's textures. The active eye sends off rays that touch the

surfaces of objects. At the same time, the glitter of light

emanating from the gold surface visualizes the rays that the

"animated" image itself sends off to touch and in a sense


13 Icon of the Archangel Michael, late

10th century, central panel (artwork in

the public domain; photograph by Cameraphoto, provided by Art

Resource, NY)

capture th? viewer. The space between icon and beholder

becomes activated through the exchange of gaze and touch.

The desire to touch is also expressed in the manner in

which a Byzantine icon is expected to be venerated: aspasmos

(kiss) and proskynesis (lighting of candles, making the sign of

the cross, and prostration), both defining a

body-centered

ritual.67 The proskynesis sets off the optical dazzle of the icon as the approach of the faithful disrupts the air with their

breathing and movement, making the wicks tremble. The

agitated lights dance off the metal revetments. This shimmer

ing, glittering effect gives rise to a sense that the image is

animated. The body of the worshiper is thus fully engaged in

the spectacle of the icon's performance/mimesis.

Color and Light and the Sense of Sight In Byzantium, color, as visible traits impressed

on matter, is

the most material aspect of light, or, as Suida, the tenth

century encyclopedia, announces, "color in appearance is

what is visible and vision receives this."68 Looked at in this

light, color is an equivalent of form?the corporeal, material

aspect of the image.69 The enamel best exemplifies this ma

teriality of color. It is glass packed in a metal mold. After

firing, it becomes a congealed, gemlike

mass. Not surpris

ingly, enamel became the signature Byzantine medium in the

tenth century.

As we learn from an Arabic source, the eleventh-century

Book of Gifts and Rarities, enamel and purple silk were the two

most highly valued Byzantine exports.70 A description of one

such gift, a set of enamel bracelets given by Emperor Michael

VII to the Fatimid caliph's mother in the 1070s, reads: "five

bracelets inlaid with glass in five colors: deep red, snow white,

jet black, sky blue, and deep azure. They were fashioned with

the best goldsmith's work. Their inlaid design was of the

finest craftsmanship."71

While this text gives us the perspec

tive of the Arab importers rather than the Byzantine export

ers, it still attests to the high quality and craftsmanship of the

Constantinopolitan production.

Similarly, in the Byzantine sources, such as the twelfth

century epic Digenis Akritis, enamels decorate the borders of

luxury clothing, saddles, and armor.72 Being on the fringe of

the garment, these sparkling objects were

subject to the most

intense movement, where they gave a dynamic coruscating

THE PERFORMATIVE ICON 54I

14 Icon of the Archangel Michael, late 10th century, head (artwork in the public domain; photograph by Cameraphoto, provided by Art Resource, NY)

effect. The colored glass mimics the look of gems and is

always set into a glittering metal plaque. As such, the medium

combines the two most important elements of the perception

of color in Byzantium: form and radiance.

Words for color in Byzantium describe the brilliance and

light-emitting qualities of a substance rather than its hue. A

characteristic passage in Digenis Akritis relates: "the glittering violets were the color of the sea with its calm ruffled by a light


15 Icon of the Arch

angel Michael, late 10th

century, porphyreos wing

(artwork in the public domain; photograph by Cameraphoto, provided

by Art Resource, NY)

breeze."73 These words do not define the hue, instead con

juring a picture of the shimmer of ruffled water. The chang

ing vibrancy denotes the visible characteristics of this surface.

Radiance is most highly valued. In the same passage the

garden is described as gleaming and shining: "a meadow

bloomed brilliantly beneath the trees with its many colors

gleaming with flowers, sweet-scented narcissus, roses and

myrtles. The roses were a purple-tinted ornament on the

earth, the narcissus reflected in turn the color of milk."74 The

flowers emerge in their shimmering radiance, their colors

constantly fluttering and changing. Color becomes the re

flected light from surfaces: a polymorphous sight paired with

the sweet sense of smell and sound.

The glitter of surfaces betrays the "jeweled inflation" that

surfaced in Early Christian art and ceremony and remained

dominant in Byzantine aesthetics.75 Gold and purple contin

ued to be the two most significant elements in it. Both appear

prominently in the celestial and terrestrial courts, as both


embody radiance. Gold and purple are employed in imperial silks, such as an

eleventh-century fragment kept at Auxerre

(shroud of Saint Germanus, St-Eus?be, Auxerre) and the

contemporary depiction of such cloth in the miniature from

the Homilies of John Chrysostomos (Biblioth?que Nationale

de France, Paris, Coislin cod. gr. 79, fol. 2r) showing Emperor

Nikephoros III Botaneiates (originally Michael VII Doukas)

(Figs. 16, 17).76 The contrasting textures of the fabric in crease the visibility of the eagle design in the Auxerre frag

ment. At the same time, the alternation of gold and purple enhance the radiance of the silk. With each step and gesture,

the body dressed in the purple silk will animate the fabric,

revealing its vibrancy of hues and shimmer. The coruscating effect of purple complements the glitter of gold.

This fascination with gold can easily be explained by its

radiance and glitter, but purple has a more culture-specific

meaning in Byzantium.77 Like gold, it has a

changing, muta

ble character that imitates both fire and turbulent waters.

The highest-quality dye was derived from the murex, a ma

rine mollusk, and each batch could differ in hue and satura

tion.78 The Greek word for purple (porphyreos or pyravges, TTop(j>vpeo<; or irvpetvyri?) captures this changing quality. Por

phyreos derives from the colors of the heaving, surging waters

of a stormy sea or gushing blood, while pyravges expresses the

luminous spectacle of fire. Therefore, unlike the limited

English term, the Byzantine word encompasses a spectrum of

hues ranging from rosy red, green, and purple to blue and

black.79 The fiery, iridescent, and polymorphous nature of

porphyreos exemplifies the Byzantine love for glitter and

change and makes it a fitting actor in Byzantine mimesis.

The affinity between purple and gold is made prominent in the way they are paired on luxury objects. Besides silks and

imperial accoutrements, enamel icons and liturgical chalices

from the same period employ the fiery splendor of gold and

purple. A late antique sardonyx bowl known as the chalice of

the Patriarchs (in the treasury of S. Marco) is set in a tenth

century Byzantine gold enamel mount (Figs. 18, 19).80 De

pending on the intensity and position of light, the body of the

chalice can glow like burning ambers (Fig. 18) or coagulate into a deep blood color (Fig. 19). Through its changing

appearance, it performs divine presence. For instance, when

empty, its translucent fiery body of sardonyx gives the impres sion of live flesh: the body of Christ. When filled with wine, the deepened purple color is overwhelmed by the dazzle of

gold, suggesting the presence of divinity. Finally, as one lifts

the cup to drink the wine, the diminishing liquid gradually reveals an enamel icon of Christ at the bottom of the bowl

(Fig. 20) .81 As it is consumed, the wine becomes visually

equated to the human body of Christ. The worshiper is

whirled through the many changes of the sardonyx under the

spectacle of light and gold, experiencing it as flesh, blood,

body, and divinity. The late-tenth-century enamel icon of the Archangel

ex

ploits the same shifting fiery vibrancy of the Byzantine por

phyreos (Figs. 13-15). The tunic and feathers of the wings play with the mutability of Byzantine purple: the deep green of

the dalm?tica is picked up in the outer rim of the feathers, which are followed in turn by feathers dappled in ruby red

and emerald green (Fig. 15). The spectrum of hues is ar

ranged to perform, to act like fire. The enamel could be

16 Imperial silk with eagle designs, 11th century, gold and

purple silk. Church of St-Eus?be, Auxerre (object in the public domain; photograph by Giraudon, provided by Art Resource,

NY)

likened to fossilized tongues of fire contained in a golden armature. The icon is paradoxically

an iridescent imprint of

fire on matter. The as?malos (bodiless) angel, who is fire and

spirit, is reified in enamel and gold. This icon constantly transforms before the viewer as

light into matter, matter into

light, the whole dematerialized by the scintillating glitter of

gold.

The word enameled in Greek, chimevtos (;\a>u.evT?<?), derives

from chimio (xvfJbeio)), "to alloy," yet it could also be phonet

ically linked to chimeo (^et/xeco), "to freeze."82 According to

the latter, the medium imitates the effect of the shimmering and reflective surface of ice. This appearance is paradoxically

achieved through its opposite: fire. Enamel thus presents

matter purified through fire. The S. Marco icon uses a dis

semblant substance frozen through fire and dappled in cor

uscating purple and gold in order to perform the angel's

kinetic essence: a dynamic, energetic, ever-moving being

(fc?kro?, evepyov&o?, ?eiKiWjro?) .83

The polymorphy of this glittering metal and enamel is also

captured in the Greek word metallaxo (fieTaWaCo)), describ

ing metal's reaction to temperature changes.84 Metallon

(?jL Ta\X.ov) is another term used to designate gems and

mosaic cubes, again with the idea of change introduced by


17 Homilies of John Chrysostomos, Emperor Nikephoros III Botaneiates, 3rd quarter of the 11th century. Biblioth?que Nationale de France, Paris, Coislin cod. gr. 79, fol. 2r (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by the Biblio

th?que Nationale de France, Paris)

the scintillating quality of light and the transformative nature

of metal. The icon of the Archangel exemplifies this poly

morphous substance that melts into fire and freezes into glass

before the gaze.

Pikilia (HoLKi\ia) as Synesthetic Vision

Although only a symbolic imprint, dissemblant in both form

and essence, the icon of the Archangel enacts presence. Its

light-emitting, glimmering, and shimmering surfaces imbue

this icon with life. Through its performance (mimesis) of

changing appearances, it conveys the angel's kinetic essence

of fire and spirit. The diversity of textures that appeals to

touch also gives rise to a dynamic polychromacity of matter,

surfaces, and shimmering light.85 This changing effect of

sight and touch is captured in the Greek word pikilia (ttoikiXIol), meaning "diversity,"

an arresting sight of varied

and shifting sensual impressions, all gained through chang

ing colors, textures, and smells.

Pikilia is at the core of both the spectacle (mimesis) of the

enamel icon of the Archangel and the description of the

dazzling and fragrant meadow in Digenis Akritis. On the S.

Marco icon, this diversity is optically and hapticly configured

through the use of gold, enamel, glass (with hues ranging from green to dark purple), gemstones, and a

variety of metal

surfaces (filigree, cloisonn?, and repouss?) (Figs. 13-15). The icon changes before the gaze and touch, subtly trans

muting under the effect of ambient light. In fact, in one of

the catalog descriptions of this object, Grabar remarked that

the Archangel's image was

photographed under enormous

difficulties because of the shimmering multiple reflections of

light that constantly changed the expression of the face.86

This kinetic effect of the Byzantine relief icon defies modern

photography and display and gives rise to the icon's mimesis.

A similar synesthetic vision (pikilia) emerges in the ekphra seis of palatial churches, in whose architectural surroundings

this enamel icon resided.87 In the description provided by Photios (ca. 810-after 893) of the Pharos church in the Great

Palace, the imaginary visitor is transfixed by the incessant

whirl of aesthetic sensations. The spectator is first enchanted

by the diversity of veins in the exterior marble revetment:

"Arresting and turning towards themselves the spectator's

gaze, they make him unwilling to move further in; but taking his fill of the fair spectacle in the very atrium, and fixing his

eyes on the sight before him, the visitor stays as if rooted [to the ground] with wonder."88

The approach of the interior only escalates the sensory

overload. The spectator is stirred by the diversity of shimmer

ing materials and textures:

It is as if one had entered heaven itself with no one barring the way from any side, and was illuminated by the beauty in all forms shining all around like so many stars, so is one

utterly amazed. ... It seems that everything is in ecstatic

motion, and the church itself is circling around. For the

spectator, through his whirling about in all directions and

being constantly astir, which he is forced to experience by the variegated spectacle on all sides, imagines that his

personal condition is transferred to the object.89

The rich aesthetic of scintillating gold, mosaic, silver, marble

revetments, silks, and gemstones is orchestrated in order to

perform before the spectator a reeling vision of change. The

effect of this vision on the subject causes a

reciprocal projec

tion of his or her experience back onto the object, making it

appear animate. The visitor is continuously astir, spinning

round in a whirl, sensations that arise from the polymor

phous and polychromatic vision (pikilia). Pikilia seduces the moving eye. In trying to grasp the ob

ject, the eye, according to the extramission model of vision,

moves energetically

across the surface, scanning, spinning in

an attempt to take in more of the spectacle.90

In a similar way,

the agitated spectator of the Archangel icon is dazzled by the

diversity of sensations triggered by this object. The whirling

spectacle of this mimesis makes the worshiper reproduce in

his/her own excited state the very essence of the subject

depicted in enamel: a living, energized, ceaselessly moving

angel. The spectacle of the icon equates the essence of the

being depicted to the psychological state of the subject expe

riencing the image.

These sensations are materially generated. The perfor

mance of shimmer and radiance is fulfilled on the surface of

the relief icon. The gems and gold enamel mutually reinforce

each other in creating a vision of splendor: photismos,

a spec

tacle of light (Figs. 13, 14). It is in this splendor that a vision


18 Chalice of the Patriarchs, 10th

century, sardonyx glowing in amber

shades, gold enamel, 8% X 6% in.

(22 X 17 cm). Treasury of the basilica of S. Marco, Venice (object in the

public domain; photograph provided by the Procuratoria di San Marco,

Venice)

of paradise emerges. It is encoded in the gold repouss? and

raised filigree of the enamel revetments of icons.91 On the

Archangel icon they display vegetal and flower motifs. The

pearly dot profile of this delicate gold file coruscates, enliv

ening the background and halo of the angel with vibrant

glitter (Fig. 14). The sparkling blossoms evoke the evergreen gardens of

paradise, for the icon is a material incarnation of the ineffa

ble paradise. This connection between Edenic gardens and

the icon's decoration is fully explained in the metric prayers

(epigrams) written on the surfaces of some Byzantine icons

(Fig. 21). They draw attention to the material gifts, silver,

gold, pearls, and gemstones, and ask in exchange for these

tangible riches to be granted a place of rest in the imagined evergreen gardens of Eden: "give

me enjoyment in the ver

dant radiant green of divine delights [deia? rpv<\rr\<; ?o?

evTpvtyav fie rp ^?o-n]."92 The shining gold on the material

surface of the icon appears as a dissemblant material vision of

the verdant paradise and the means through which to imag

ine this ineffable place of rest and delight. The same idea is

voiced in the fourteenth-century poem of Manuel Philes,

again written as an epigram for an icon: "I contemplate the

Golden Eden of the icon, which the plants fashioned by art seem to surround the creator of Eden."93

In the icon, the verdant paradise is materially reconfigured as gold, for both are connected through brilliance. Gold

(chrysos, ^ptxr?c) and green (chloros, ^?copo?, but especially chloe, ^Aon, which means "the radiant first green of spring")

radiate light. They shimmer and sparkle. Since the Byzan

tines categorized color according to brilliance rather than

hue, fresh green (chloe) and gold were for them equivalents. Like the first green of spring that appears in its brightness as

gold, or the leaves of the ginkgo tree in autumn, half

golden yellow, half vibrant green, the surface of Byzantine

icons stirred the faithful to imagine in the radiance of gold the verdant paradise of divine delights.94 Another enamel

icon of the Archangel (also in the treasury of S. Marco)

displays a more literal enameled image of Eden: a peristyle

garden with green, blue, and red blossoms set in a golden

armature (Figs. 2, 22). In its pikilia, the icon emerges as a

vision of paradise.

The image of gemstones shimmering on a glittering gold


?. . vt* .wn** *.* ?'* ^i?t?^;^1^^^^?

?3?rfV

*r*:s*

*m*^M*

V o!* -3\\ 19 Chalice of the Patriarchs, sardonyx

glowing in purple shades (object in the public domain; photograph

provided by the Procuratoria di San

Marco, Venice)

surface appears in many of the tenth-century visions of par

adise such as the Life of Basil the Younger ( Vita Basilii Iunioris). Yet, while the synesthetic vision (pikilia) is materially gener ated on the icon, the same

spectacle is beyond the tangible in

the celestial realm. There, color exists without form, as radi

ant, self-generated light. The tents of the saints radiate with

immaterial light:

And arising from there we journeyed to the abodes of the

saints; these were very, very many, not subject to enumer

ation, flashing the brightest gleam as if from the sun's rays,

and immaterially, and spiritually flashing inexplicably by the hand of God with many colors as if of linen-white and

divine purple light.95

The floors are of immaterial gleaming gold tiles outlined by ineffable plants. The blossoms of these flowers fill the space

with an extraordinary perfume:

We came to a courtyard, which was wondrous and incom

parable. And its floor was flashing like lightning, adorned

with golden tiles, and there was no dirt at all on it, and the

air which was like lightning illuminated it, and in the joints of those golden tiles there were

flowering plants of every

sort, fragrant and abounding in fruits, beautifully culti

vated, and they were

sending forth inexpressible and in

describable pleasure and joy and filling those who saw

them with divine happiness.96


20 Chalice of the Patriarchs, medallion with Christ at the bottom of the bowl (artwork in the public domain)

The table decked out for the feast, quarried of scintillating emerald, is laid with ruby dishes framed in gold:

[The table was] 30 pech?is large, it was beautifully quarried and constructed from emerald, emitting flashing rays,

...

and on this table there were also visible red gemstones

lying like dishes set with gold like lightning, which were

similar to all the precious stones and gold that come from

paradise.97

The angels appear in scarlet tunics with loroi radiating the colors of paradise. On their heads they carry luminous gold crowns:

[The servants/angels were] clad immaterially in cloaks

dyed scarlet and filled with all beauty, their feet snowy, girt in belts like loroi with color from heaven's rainbow and

flashing like lightning, and on their heads they were wear

ing diadems of gold which were exceedingly glorious and

variegated with gems and precious pearls like sunbeams.98

The images that emerge in this vision are polymorphous,

changing their shape under flashing iridescence and radi ance. About thirty words for light come up in this ekphrasis.

They derive from light (</>a>?: TT pL<t>o)T?(rixevo<;9 <J>o>to i?tj?, (?HuTeiv??, </>?)to/3o?o?, (?xoTotvy??); fire (itvp: imp?iao-iia, VTwp<?<;); ray (avy?j: (?xoTavy??, xpwavy?C?), irepiavy?C?), ?Lavy??a, ?ktx?, aKTtvoei?ff?, a?yX.% OL<rr?)p, r??MH^?yyo?) ; sun (rf?to?: r??ux^?yyo?, ir??iaKO?); gold (xpwr??:

Xpwo^aTj?, xpwavyi??)) ; lightning (aorpair?}, aoTpairo lxop<t>os, aaTpairro), e?aorpairT?)); and radiance (X.afi7rpvv?)9

?a/uLirry?ovo?, Av^wraibc). Light conveys the ineffable es

sence of souls, buildings, and surfaces in paradise." The

polymorphous and polychromatic vision (pikilia) reifies out

of light immaterially created.

21 Enkolpion (pectoral pendant) of the Virgin with an epigram inscribed on the frame. Basiliek van Onze Lieve Vrouwe,

Maastricht (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by Basiliek van Onze Lieve Vrouwe, Maastricht)

In contrast to this immaterial celestial light, the tenth

century icon of Michael exploits a material splendor of light that is reflected from the metal and glass surfaces?a photis

mos that bounces off bodies. Paradise is materially "en-fig

ured" in the Archangel's icon. An imperfect embodiment

that evokes the immaterial perfection of heaven (Figs. 1,13), the icon falls short of the celestial exactly in its materiality.

Although the realm of paradise is ineffable, within the Vita

Basilii Iunioris, which seeks to make it tangible, an extraordi

nary effort is placed on sensual experience. All five senses are

engaged in the pikilia. This whirling vision is addressed to the

eyes, fingers, ears, mouth, and nose, but the effect is titillat

ingly invisible to sight, inaudible to hearing, intangible to

touch, and beyond taste and smell. A list of words and phrases reveals how this immaterial pikilia affects the body:

" [visions]

inexperienced; noetic; unspoken, inexpressible; unseen; im

possible to render in human words; beyond description; be

yond human reason and words; immaterial beings that can

not be held by human hands; beauty and pleasure

inexpressible by human voice and inaudible for hearing;

richly nuanced taste beyond expression and recount; fra

grance of violets and roses beyond human knowledge and

experience; perfume beyond recount; indescribable sweet

fragrance; inexpressible sweetness."100 This synesthesis lacks


22 Detail of Fig. 2: the garden of paradise (artwork in the

public domain; photograph by Cameraphoto, provided by Art Resource, NY)

material stimuli. Ineffable, immaterial, inaudible, testing and

teasing, this overload of sensations gains reality in the way it

is so profoundly bodily experienced, yet so beyond expres

sion and articulation.

The Sound of Prayer: The Circuit

While all five senses are engaged in the pikilia of paradise, this

sensorial agitation is created by ineffable stimuli. By contrast, the icon replicates this experience through material, tangible

means. Its lush decoration and epigrams demonstrate a de

sire to imagine the ineffable. Both being a graphe, letter and

image form a prayer. While the image visualizes the perfor mance of prayer, the epigram reinforces this action by

sono

rously replicating it. The poetic inscription contributes a

visceral, material presence of sound, transforming the icon

into a sonorous body.101

The faithful's needs and wishes for help materialize in the

shape of the depicted sacred figure?in this case, the Arch

angel (Fig. 13). He is shown raising his hand in a gesture of

intercession. The Archangel not only receives the prayer of

the faithful, but with his own stance and hand movement he

replicates the position and action of the supplicant. Simulta

neously, the image ensures the continuation of the prayer

because the angel transfers the received request to a higher

level and supports it through his own power of intercession.

The icon thus sets up a circle: a mirror reflecting the faithful

in their process of prayer and imagined response.

In Byzantine culture, the Psalms of David represent the

quintessential example of prayer. These poems, like the icon,

are corporeally experienced. Illustrated Psalter books furnish

a record of this perception. In the preface miniature of the

Khludov Psalter, sight and sound are linked (Fig. 12). Music

and writing coexist as King David strums the chords on his

lyre. The sound of his tune grows in the accompaniment of

the musicians flanking him. Two more figures appear above

the arch. One brings the audience into the space of the open

book and directs its gaze above and across the page to the

beginning of Psalm 1 on the facing folio. The other figure is

about to sound his trumpet to initiate the reading of the

Psalms. Music visually emanates from this miniature, associ

ating the act of praying with the sonorous sound of the lyre and the imagined melodious human voice.

The image triggers the memory of a performance:

a prayer

pronounced. The sound of this performance, its music, is

then linked to the script. The letters on the page then be

come transformed from a silent string of characters to a

record of a corporeal experience of sound and sight that can

be activated the moment the lips begin to pronounce the

poem. The multisensory experience triggered by the perfor mance of the Psalms resembles the sensual experience of

other genres of writing. For instance, in Byzantium, letters

were often sent with gifts, so that the sound of reading the

letter was linked to the smell and taste of the gifts.102 The

resulting experience was

simultaneously aural, visual, tactile,

and olfactory.

The link between music and prayer, established through the Davidic Psalms, also materializes in the epigrams of icons

(Fig. 21 ).103 Most of these poems are written in the frame of

icons, encircling and customizing the central image to re

spond to a particular request. Even when the panel does not

contain an epigram, it does not lose its music, for it continues

to avail itself of the sound of the faithful praying before it.

Poetic inscriptions are

performative; they are prayers meant

to be pronounced, similar to high literature in Byzantium,

which was meant to be read aloud (Fig. 23).104 All epigrams on icons are

composed of twelve syllables, which means that

everyone will uniformly put the stresses at the same point,

and all prayers will create the same sonorous framework. This

repetitive, standardized form generates the prayer's perfor

mative magic, ensuring its efficacy.

Similarly, sound reverberates in the vaulted interiors of

Byzantine churches, bouncing off the curves of arches,

domes, and semidomes (Fig. 24). The same perception is

found in Photios's ekphrasis of the Pharos church: "It seems

that everything is in ecstatic motion, and the church itself is

circling around."105 Robert Nelson has recently defined the

icon's system of signification as circular and

tautological.106

Byzantine architecture exploits the same circular paradigm

insofar as it captures meaning in the confines of the sphere:

the arch, the vault, and the dome. These spatial forms con

tinue to express Byzantium's essence as the culture of the

imprint, shaping matter by impressing its circular seal of

signification.


''MMj

W:??W~?

wm

mi

i*y

?*?

23 Homilies of John Chrysostomos, monk reading the homilies to the

emperor. Biblioth?que Nationale de France, Paris, Coislin cod. gr. 79, fol. 1

(2 bis)r (artwork iri the public domain; photograph provided by the

Biblioth?que Nationale de France, Paris)

g^fe&^

:;??pp

Smell and Taste: The Transformation

The sonorous icon brings the two aspects of graphe, painting and writing, together: graphe as the imprint of form on mat

ter. Figure and letter, one translates into scintillating light, the other into a sound carried in space. And through the

voice bearing the melody in space, the sense of taste emerges.

As Theodore Hyrtakenos wrote in a letter to his friend in the

fourteenth century: "gazing at the letter, I feel I see you in

front of me and fill up with your sweet traits like honey, I hear

the echo of the musical tones of this wonder."107 This con

nection between the pleasure of reading/hearing the voice of the writer, drinking, and music is a topos in letter writing.108

The oral performance of letters and prayers (epigrams) de

pends on a

multisensory experience.109 In both cases, it tries

to reconstitute presence of an absent entity through sensual

stimuli. In the case of letters, this absent referent is the writer.

In the case of prayers, it is the invisible and intangible God. For the Byzantines, empsychos graphe becomes the performa tive image/writing that stirs the five senses and triggers syn

esthesis.

A similar synesthetic experience of hearing and taste

emerges in the vision of the Vita Basilii Iunioris. The souls of

the saints are gathered at an Edenic symposium. They pass

around a glowing chalice with a nectar of ambrosia. Drinking this divine substance, the face of each participant transforms

into the gleam of budding roses:

The mixed wine in those immaterial and sun-bright cups was gleaming intensely like burning hot coals, and when someone received in his hands that wondrous and flashing cup, filled with nectar of ambrosia and brought it near his own mouth to drink, he was filled with the sweetness of the

Holy Spirit.. .. His face gleamed and he was more illumi

nated, like a rose emerging from the calyx.110

The synesthetic experience described in Vita Basilii Iunioris

could also be demonstrated by the Eucharist cup at S. Marco. It can show how sight, touch, and sound could be linked to

smell and taste (Figs. 18, 19). An inscription is enameled on

the golden rim. The letters imprinted on the metal surface announce: "Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the New

Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins"


24 Domed interior of the monastery church of Hosios Loukas,

Greece, late 10th century (photograph by Erich Lessing, provided by Art Resource, NY)

(Matt. 26:27-28).m As these words are pronounced and the

lips touch the surface of the chalice, the wine fills up the

mouth. Then words become body. Sounds become taste and

smell. The recipient of the wine, agitated in the synesthetic vision (pikilia) of these corporeal sensations, becomes trans

formed in this climactic moment of the liturgy. The partici

pation in the Eucharist replicates the metamorphosis de

scribed in the vision of Vita Basilii Iunioris where the saints'

faces alight as they feel the sweetness of the Holy Spirit after

imbibing the nectar of ambrosia.

In a similar way, the hands touching the icon and the lips

kissing its surface link words with taste. The textures of the

icon trigger a

synesthesis: sight, touch, hearing, smell, and

taste are engaged simultaneously. This experiential knowl

edge of God, this intuition of presence is achieved through an almost Eucharistie experience of the icon.

An account of such a spectacle of senses is found in the Life

of Saint Theodore of Sykeon (d. 613) (Vita Theodori Syceotae).112 The saint, frustrated in his attempt to learn all the Psalms, resorts to an icon of Christ. After praying for help, he expe riences the taste of honey in his mouth, followed by his

miraculous new ability to learn all the Psalms by heart in a

matter of days:

For as the boy got up from the ground and turned to the

icon of our Savior in prayer, he felt a sweetness more

pleasant than honey poured into his mouth. He recog

nized the grace of God, partook of the sweetness and gave thanks to Christ, and from that hour on he memorized the

psalter easily and quickly and had learnt the whole of it by heart in a few days.113

According to Paul Speck, the excerpt about the icon that

caused the sensation of honey after the saint had prayed to it

was interpolated in this passage during Iconoclasm: the asso

ciation of the icon with psalms and prayer was established

during that period.114 The panel becomes the channel of direct divine response.

The role of the icon is equated to the effect of prayer. Sacred

presence translates into the sensation of honey in the mouth

of the faithful. Like the Davidic poems, the sonorous icon

triggers the sense of taste: the sweetness of honey. At the

same time, the reference to honey in the Psalms (Pss. 18:11,

118:103) indicates the moment when God's voice directly reaches the supplicant and grants him or her forgiveness.

Similarly, in the climactic moment of the liturgy, the Com

munion, the supplicant is exhorted with Psalms 33:8: "taste

and see that God is good."115 Taste leads to participatory

knowledge of God.

Saint Theodore of Sykeon participates in the sweetness of

God. The verb used, "partake" (metalamvano, fJi TOikafx?av(o), is

usually associated with the Eucharist.116 It refers to this trans

formative moment when the worshiper loses his or her iden

tity, dissolving into the sacred presence and sharing in the

sacred essence. The performance of the icon is equated to

that of the bread and wine transformed into body and blood

during the liturgy. This metamorphosis of the icon, or better, this metamorphosis of the worshiper takes place in the pro

cess of prayer. He or she then projects this experience (path

ema, 7r?0T)/xa) back onto the icon.

Sight and touch, triggered by proskynesis (prostration, ven

eration, prayer) and aspasmos (kiss) give rise to sound in the

enunciation of prayer. Sound in turn precipitates the sensa

tion of taste and smell. The olfactory experience of the icon

is more difficult to gauge, yet it is linked to taste and the

Eucharistie ritual and stems from the integration of the icon

in the liturgical rite. Incense burning accompanies prayer. As

Susan Harvey has argued, the smoke of incense provides a

visual and olfactory bridge between the human and divine

spheres. Like taste, incense affords a participatory, experien

tial approach to God. Divine knowledge becomes sensorially

apprehended through the body. This sensual aspect of the Byzantine rite is fully integrated

in the way the icon operates. Like taste, smell engages es

sence, not appearance, and this ensures divine knowledge.

Smell is affective yet intangible. While burning, incense be

comes transformed from material substance into smoke: an

ineffable yet sensorially present essence. As such, smell be

comes a perfect means through which to experience divine

presence: intangible yet palpably present through the olfac

tory sense.117

Perfumes, incense, and spices traditionally accompanied

imperial and liturgical ceremonies.118 It is in such aromatic

settings that luxury icons like the enameled panel of Arch

angel Michael performed. The sweet smells are part of the

synesthetic vision (pikilia), which is addressed to the partici

pant. The Book of Ceremonies reveals many instances where a

variety of smells and spices are distributed to the court, or are

carried by the crowd, or simply waft in the ceremonial

THE PERFORMATIVE ICON 55!

space.119 The most elaborate account appears in the section

on imperial military campaigns. The extensive list of aromat

ics includes "ointments, various perfumes, mastic, frankin

cense, sachar, saffron, musk, amber, bitter aloes moist and

dry, pure ground cinnamon of first and second quality, cin

namon wood, and other perfumes."120 This rich assortment

served a variety of functions: medicinal, political,

even diplo

matic, because some of these rare scents and spices were

offered as gifts. This fascination with aromatics betrays the

sensually rich environment in which both the imperial and

liturgical ceremonies were set.

Unlike our contemporary olfactory neutrality in regard to

power, authority in Byzantium was linked to aromatic

scents.121 The enamel icon at S. Marco with its imperial attire

of the Archangel and the court chapel in which it resided

likely shared the same aromatized air of scents, perfumes,

incense, and spices (Fig. 13). Power in the Middle Ages manifests itself in a complex synesthetic vision (pikilia).122

These fragrances also enhanced the sensual effect of the

panel. Moreover, the elaborate golden filigree and enameled

lozenges with flowers conjure an

image of the fragrant gar

dens of the palace and of paradise (Fig. 21). Similarly, the

Greek word usually employed to designate "colors" is flowers (avOa). The polychromatic surface of the enameled icon is, in Greek, "enflowered": virtually filled with the complex per fume of fragrant blossoms. The visual and haptic aspects of

the icon subtly tease out through form and color the memory

of aroma wafting into space. This perfume, imagined

or real,

brings to the faithful the scent of salvation.123

A Circle Completed As the worshiper approaches the icon and begins praying, the

five senses alight. These corporeal pleasures trigger

an intu

ition of sacred presence. While sight, touch, and sound stem

from matter and perform the appearance of the divine, smell

and taste engage the essence and make possible a

participa

tory, sensorial experience of the holy. Both taste and smell

are embedded in the liturgy. The icon operates like other

liturgical objects, such as the Eucharist chalice of the Patri

archs at S. Marco. As wine pours from the cup, sight, touch,

and sound transform into smell and taste. Taste itself be

comes the seal or affirmation of participatory knowledge of

God.124

As a result of the performance/mimesis of the icon, this

materially triggered synesthetic pleasure experienced by the

faithful leads to something like Eucharistie transformation.

Sight, touch, and sound, the three aspects of the experience

of graphe, display a vision of paradise and present a prayer.

Taste and smell form the answer to this request and provide a proleptic access to divine delight. The circle of human

request and divine response is completed, preserving the

Byzantine tautological, closed system of signification. The

icon's magic thus resides in the circular dynamic it elicits.125

This dynamic begins with the icon's surface, with its con

centration of rich materiality?an excess of materiality that

paradoxically reveals a vision of the immaterial. The concept

of the icon as surface resembles Martin Heidegger's defini

tion of truth. Starting with the Greek word alithia or alathia

(a-, without, lathia, covering, aAfjfleia, akaQeia), he argues

that truth is the unconcealedness of being.126 In a similar

way, the icon uncovers a divine vision by giving it a material

being?textures that can be grasped and sensorially experi

enced. Its rich surfaces function as the material veil affirming

the presence of the intangible underneath. The icon as sur

face becomes the sensual "givenness" of absence. It rises as

the saturated phenomenon synesthetically performing the

invisible and intangible to the faithful.127 In its original context, the icon's instability, polymorphy of

shimmering light, reverberating sound, and redolent fra

grance imbue it with life, making it an empsychos,

an "inspir

ited" image. The Byzantine icon is dependent on a living

body in space in order to perform. The object reconstitutes

itself before the human gaze, touch, hearing, smell, and taste.

This mimesis of surfaces changing by the shifts in ambient

light, air, smells, and sounds creates a synesthetic vision

(pikilia) that affects the faithful. This performance inundates

and saturates the human corporeal apprehension. The effect

of sight and touch is coupled with hearing and smell. The last sense to be activated is taste. Through it emerges the climax:

the metamorphosis. It is in this crucial moment that the

individual, the corporeal, and the tangible dissolve into a

spiritual vision of partaking in the sacred. This sensual, phys ical agitation (ir?Q^iia) experienced by the faithful is simul

taneously transferred onto the object. The icon becomes an

empsychos graphe. From being a mere imprint of visual char

acteristics, a materially reified absence, the performative icon

thus stages the most sensually rich experience of divine pres

ence.

Bissera V. Pentcheva is assistant professor at Stanford University.

Her work focuses on medieval image theory and Byzantine icons. Her

hook Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium

(Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006) explores the interaction

between imperial power and the cult of Mary [Department of Art and

Art History, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. 94305, bissera@

stanford.edu].

Notes This article presents an excerpt from my forthcoming book, Sensual Splendor: The Icon in Byzantium (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press).

Unless otherwise indicated, translations from the Greek are mine.

1. For the definition of icon as a portable devotional object, see Ernst

Kitzinger, "The Cult of Icons in the Age before Iconoclasm," Dumbar ton Oaks Papers 8 (1954): 83-150; and most recently Thomas Mathews, "Isis and Mary in Early Icons," in Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium, ed. Maria Vassilaki (Aldershot, U.K.: Ash

gate, 2005), 3-9. Another, broader definition, which includes repre sentations in all media, from frescoes and mosaics to coins, is also current in Byzantine studies. Yet it is problematic, for many of the

images included in this definition, especially monumental painting and mosaic, preclude the intimate engagement of proskynesis (reveren tial bowing) and aspasmos (kiss) that is tied up with the identity of a

Byzantine icon. This broader use of the term arose from Otto De mus's concept of "spatial icons"; Demus, Byzantine Mosaic Decoration:

Aspects of Monumental Art in Byzantium (London: K. P. T. Trubner, 1948; reprint, New York: A. Caratzas, 1993).

2. Bissera V. Pentcheva, "Epigrams on Icons," in Art and Text in Byzantine Culture, ed. Liz James (New York: Cambridge University Press, forth

coming) .

3. Earlier studies on sensual apprehension in medieval art focused on

the depiction of the five senses, such as Carl Nordenfalk, "The Five Senses in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art," fournal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 48 (1985): 1-22. By contrast, recent work has drawn attention to the sensual effect of art and architecture: Liz


James, "Sense and Sensibility in Byzantium," Art History 27, no. 4

(2004): 523-37; and Rico Franses, '"When All That Is Gold Does Not

Glitter," in Icon and Word: The Power of Images in Byzantium; Studies Pre sented to Robin Cormack, ed. Anthony Eastmond and Liz James (Alder shot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2003), 13-24. See also the collection of essays /

cinque sensi, ed. Natalie Blanchardi, Micrologus, vol. 10 (Florence: Sis

mel, 2002).

4. Dominique D. Poirel, ed., L'abb? Suger, le manifeste gothique de Saint Denis et la pens?e victorine (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001); Conrad Rudolph, Artistic Change at St.-Denis: Abbot Suger's Program and the Early Twelfth Century Controversy over Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1990); and Jean-Claude Bonne, "Pens?e de l'art et pens?e th?o

logique dans les ?crits de Suger," in Artistes et philosophes: ?ducateurs? ed. Christian Descamps (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1994), 13 50.

5. No systematic study of vision in Byzantium exists. This is a subject that needs to be addressed in the future. Robert Nelson's pioneering essay

suggests that while both intromission and extramission were known in By zantium, extramission appears to be the dominant prism through

which vision was perceived to operate. Nelson, "To Say and to See:

Ekphrasis and Vision in Byzantium," in Visuality before and beyond the

Renaissance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 143-68; and Gervase Mathew, Byzantine Aesthetics (London: John Murray, 1963), 29-31. For ancient Greek thought on vision, see David Lind

berg, Theories of Vision from Al-Kindi to Kepler (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1976), 1-17.

6. Sight as touch resonates with Maurice Merleau-Ponty's ideas ex

pressed in "The Intertwining?the Chiasm," in Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University Press,

1968), 130-55.

7. The revetted icon is explored at length in Bissera V. Pentcheva, Sen sual Splendor: The Icon in Byzantium, forthcoming. For preliminary find

ings, see Pentcheva, "Epigrams on Icons"; and Glenn Peers, Sacred

Shock: Framing Visual Experience in Byzantium (University Park: Pennsyl vania State University Press, 2004), 101-31.

8. Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Towards a Phenomenology of Givenness, trans. Jeffrey Kosky (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002). I

thank Robert Harrison for introducing me to this work.

9. Only isolated voices have expressed concern about the draining of

the icon's meaning when subjected to the standard museum display. See Sharon Gerstel, "The Aesthetics of Orthodox Faith," Art Bulletin 87 (2004): 331-41, esp. 332.

10. For the Byzantine definition of mimesis as performance, see the article

by Eustratios Papaioannou on the self-fashioning of Michael Psellos in

Performing Byzantium, ed. Margaret Mullett (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, forthcoming).

11. Concepts that are again surprisingly close to the notion of the embod iment of ideas and the interaction of viewer and viewed are in Mer

leau-Ponty, "The Intertwining," 130-55.

12. Pavel Florensky, "The Church Ritual as a Synthesis of the Arts"

(1918), in Beyond Vision: Essays on the Perception of Art / Pavel Florensky, trans. Wendy Salmond, ed. Nicoletta Misler (London: Reaktion,

2002), 95-111.

13. For an understanding of empsychos graphe as images inhabited by the

Holy Spirit or as pictorial equivalents to figures of speech, see Bissera

V. Pentcheva, "The Icon of the 'Usual Miracle' at the Blachernai," Res: Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics 38 (2000): 34-55; and idem, "Visual Textuality: The Logos as Pregnant Body and Building," Res 45

(2004): 225-38.

14. Charles Barber, Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in

Byzantine Iconoclasm (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).

15. Ibid., 70-81.

16. Oskar Wulff, Die Koimesiskirche in Nic?a und ihre Mosaiken (Strassburg: Heitz und M?ndel, 1903); and Theodor Schmit, Die Koimesis-Kirche von

Nikaia: Das Bauwerk und die Mosaiken (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1927).

17. Wulff, Die Koimesiskirche in Nic?a, 246, 271; and Schmit, Die Koimesis

Kirche von Nikaia, 39, described the ray as gray (grau and hellgrau). Most likely the tesserae were silver, still covered in soot and dirt, hav

ing lost their luster and shimmer. Only metal could have created the

glimmer and flicker in the early morning light that would have actual

ized the prophecy of the mosaic inscription into a visual reality: "I

have begotten thee in the womb before the morning star" (Ps. 109:3). For a discussion of the Incarnation symbolism at Nikaia, see Cyril

Mango, "The Chalkoprateia Annunciation and the Pre-eternal Logos," Deltion tes Christianikes Archaiologikes Hetaireias 17, no. 4 (1993-94): 165-70.

18. Barber, Figure and Likeness, 72-81.

19. Ibid., 107-23.

20. Patriarch Nikephoros, Antirrheticus II, in Patrolog?a cursus completus: Se ries graeca (hereafter, PG), ed.J.-P. Migne, 161 vols. (Paris: Migne, 1857

66), vol. 100, col. 357D: "En tj ypa<j>i) t? crc?iiariK?v eXSo? r?V

ypa(j)ovevov 7Tap?o-Tr?cri, o-^rfjLia te Kai fxop^v avr?v

evrvTTovpievr} Kai tj]v kyn^?peiav.

21. Theodore of Stoudios, Antirrheticus II, sec. 11, in PG, vol. 99, col.

357D: ri?vTC?c ?? tj eiKOiv tj ?7]fXLovpyov[jL?v% fX Ta(f) poii?vr} arrb rov^

TTpC?TOTVTTOV, T7)V b?JLO?(?(TlV 6L? TT/V V?.TfV e'i'?TJ^e KUl /XeTeCT^Ke T??

XOLpaKTffpo? ?ke?vov ?l? Tff? T?T? T6XV?TOV ?iavoia? Kai x LP0<>

vaTT?ixay?xa' ovt(o? b ?wypaQo?- ovt?o? 6 kidoykvQo?, ovtw? ? t?v

Xp?xreov Kai t?v x???.k ov avbpi?vTa 8T)iuovpy6$v, eXa?ev v\j\v, ?ireT?ev el? to 7Tp?)T?TVTrov, otve\a?e ro?? reQeu)py)fxevov t?v tvttov

kva7r (T(f)payiaaTo t??tov kv Tff v^-XI

22. For instance, the famous icon of the "usual miracle" at the Blachernai

Church of the Virgin in Constantinople was always covered with a silk

veil. When on some Fridays the Holy Spirit allegedly descended on

the image, this veil lifted itself to reveal the animated (empsychos) im

age of the Virgin beneath. Bissera V. Pentcheva, Icons and Power: The

Mother of God in Byzantium (University Park: Pennsylvania State Univer

sity Press, 2006), 154-60. See also idem, "The Performance of Relics," in Mullett, Performing Byzantium.

23. For the wide use of seals in Byzantine society, see Gary Vikan and

John Nesbitt, Security in Byzantium: Locking, Sealing and Weighing, Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, 2 (Washington, D.C: Dum

barton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, Trustees for Harvard Uni

versity, 1980).

24. A. Karakatsanes, ed., Treasures of Mount Athos (Thessaloniki: Organiza tion for the Cultural Capital of Europe, 1997), 508, cat. no. 13.1.

25. Herbert Kessler, "Configuring the Invisible by Copying the Holy Face," in The Holy Face and the Paradox of Representation, ed. Kessler and

Gerhard Wolf, Villa Spelman Colloquia, 6 (Bologna: Nuovo Alfa,

1998), 129-51, reprinted in Kessler, Spiritual Seeing: Picturing God's

Invisibility in Medieval Art (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 64-87.

26. The way the icon self-consciously draws attention to matter, thus can

celing any claims for the presence of sacred energy (essence), resem

bles the way images were fashioned and displayed in the Latin West

before 1140. See Herbert Kessler, "Real Absence: Early Medieval Art

and the Metamorphosis of Vision," in Morfologie sociali e culturali in

Europa fra tarda antichit? e alto medioevo, 2 vols., Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo, 45 (Spoleto: Centro

Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo, 1998), vol. 2, 1157-213, re

printed in Kessler, Spiritual Seeing, 104-48.

27. Kessler, Spiritual Seeing. See also idem, Seeing Medieval Art (Toronto: Broadview Press, 2004).

28. For a discussion of Western culture's privileging of sight, see Martin

Jay, Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century Thought

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 1-148. I thank Lela

Graybill for introducing this study to me.

29. The expression "to touch with the eyes and lips*' is recorded in the

liturgical treatise of the Mandylion, mid-tenth century. See Ernst von

Dobschutz, Christusbilder: Untersuchungen zur christlichen Legende, 3 vols.

(Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1899), 112**.

30. See n. 21 above.

31. Barber, Figure and Likeness, 107-37.

32. Paul the Silentiary, "Descriptio Sanctae Sophiae," in Prokop. Werke, ed.

Otto Veh, 5 vols. (Munich: Heimeran, 1977), vol. 5, 306-58, esp. 340-42, lines 691-720; trans. Cyril Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Em

pire 312-1453 (1986; reprint, Toronto: University of Toronto Press,

1993), 87-88. See also S. Xydis, "The Chancel Barrier, Solea, and

Ambo of Hagia Sophia," Art Bulletin 29 (1947): 1-24.

33. Vita Basilii Imperatoris, bk. 5, sec. 83, in Theophanes continuatus, ed. Im

manuel Bekker, Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae (hereafter

CSHB), 33 (Bonn: Impensis ed. Weberi, 1838), 326; trans. Mango, The

Art of the Byzantine Empire, 194. The sanctuary, synthronon, altar tables,

templon barrier, and epistyle were all covered in gilded-silver re

pouss? work and adorned with pearls and gems.

34. Vita Basilii Imperatoris, bk. 5, sec. 87, in Bekker, Theophanes continuatus,

330; trans. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 196.

35. Marie-France Auz?py, "La destruction de l'ic?ne du Christ de la

Chalc? de L?on III: Propagande ou r?alit?," Byzantion 60 (1990): 445

92; Robin Cormack, "Women and Icons, and Women in Icons," in

Women, Men and Eunuchs: Gender in Byzantium (London: Routledge, 1997), 24-51; Leslie Brubaker, "The Chalke Gate, the Construction of

the Past, and the Trier Ivory," Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 23

(1999): 258-85; and Cyril Mango, The Brazen House: A Study of the Ves

tibule of the Imperial Palace of Constantinople (Copenhagen: B. L. Bog

trykkeri, 1959), 108-42.


36. Auz?py, "La destruction de l'ic?ne du Christ de la Chalc?," 445-92.

37. Philip Grierson, Catalogue of Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Col

lection and in the Whittemore Collection, 5 vols. (1966; reprint, Washing ton, D.C: Dumbarton Oaks, 1992), vol. 3, pt. 1, 160-61, 454-55.

38. The Greek word chalkeos (x?AKeos) does not distinguish between cop

per and bronze. Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, eds., Greek

English Lexikon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); and Liddell, Scott, and H. Stuart Jones, Greek-English Lexicon: A Supplement (Oxford: Clar

endon Press, 1968). See also Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spaw forth, eds., The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), s.v. "bronze."

39. Mango, The Brazen House, 108-42, esp. 116.

40. The second source, the Chronographia of Theophanes, simply states:

"They also killed a few of the emperor's men who had taken down

the Lord's icon which was [set] above the great Bronze Gates,"

Theophanes, Chronographia, ed. Immanuel Bekker, 2 vols., CSHB, 41

42, vol. 1, 623; trans, and ed. Cyril Mango and Robert Scott, The

Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History, AD 284-813 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 559.

41. Vita Stephani Iunioris, bk. 10, in La vie d'Etienne le Jeune par Etienne le

Diacre, trans, and ed. Marie-France Auz?py, Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Monographs, 3 (Aldershot, U.K: Variorum, 1997), 100: 'ev ToirroL? oiw eôixnariKO? ?pa??iievo? tff? aip?creaj?, ireip?tTai

TrapevOv rr}v ? o-7Totiktjv eiK?va XpiaTd??To??(deoi?r}iL&v ri)v

iopv?jL6vriv virepdev tQv ?acrikiK?iv ttvXQv, ev olcnrep ?i? t?v

XapaKTrfpa 7] ?yia Xo??.kt? keyerai, KareveyKai kql? rrvpi

irapaot?vPai.

42. Auz?py has offered a similar translation in La vie d'Etienne le Jeune, 193.

43. Theophanes, Chronographia, ed. Bekker, vol. 1, 439-40: ev ?x?q: KOipL?)yL VOV CiVTCfi} 6??6V OTnOKJlCtV, i? TTp ^??K'?fV TwXj]V T?V TTOtkOLTLOV V T^f LK?VL T?? (T?)Tr]pO<? eOiVTOV 7Tap OT?T?!, KCi? kdOV

Trapecrrc?TOL avrtj^' k ? (?xuvt) yeyove ck TotrâpaKTffpo? roi)

liey?\ov dedv Ka? auyfrfpos thaGjv 'lâduXpiar?i? keyovaa. The sense of an icon in metal relief is lost in Mango's and Scott's

translation, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, 410.

44. Scriptores Originum Constantinopolitarum, 2 vols., ed, Theodor Preger

(Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1901), vol. 2, 219: ev rff keyofx?vxi Xa?Ktf OTTJATJ XahK*?? ̂ \v TC??? KVplOV 7]jJiiuV TTjaO^XpiOT?tT TTCip? TOIT

puey?kov Kcjvo-ravT?vov KTiad?l& ? de Kecav o TTcnj)p to?T

Ka?akkivov ravrr)v Kcnr\yayev. 'H be vvv ?i? if/riî?wv bpejpi?viq eiKoov T?iT Xpio-Totr ?vi(TTop7)dr) trapa E?pr)vr?<; Trf? 'Adiqvaias.

45. Mango, The Brazen House, 108-9. Albrecht Berger has also translated the passage using "bronze statue." Yet, relying on the evidence of the

Life of Saint Stephen the Younger, he has suggested that the original Chalke image was a bronze relief, which was replaced after 843 by a

mosaic. Berger, Untersuchungen zu den Patria Konstantinupoleos, Poikila

Byzantina, 8 (Bonn: Dr. Rudolf Habelt, 1988), 252-55.

46. Patriarch Methodios, epigram for the Chalkites icon, in Mango, The Brazen House, 126-27: odev irepiypatytov ere kol? yp?<?)0)v tOttol?.

47. Michaelis Glycae Annales, ed. Immanuel Bekker (Bonn: Impensis ed.

Weberi, 1836), 623.

48. Basil of Caesarea, De Sancto Spirito 18.45, 45, in PG, vol. 32, col. 69D; and John of Damaskos, De imaginibus, I, in PG, vol. 94, col. 1264A; both are discussed in Barber, Figure and Likeness, 74-76, 122.

49. In fact, the medallion image came to be understood as the canonical icon of Christ already in the late seventh century. See Kathleen Corri

gan, "The Witness of John the Baptist on an Early Byzantine Icon in

Kiev," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 42 (1988): 1-11, esp. 10.

50. Marfa V. Scepkina, Miniatjury Khludovskoi Psaltyri (Moscow: Isskustvo,

1977); and Kathleen Corrigan, Visual Polemics in the Ninth-Century Byz antine Psalters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). There are roughly seventeen depictions of icons, fourteen of which display the image in a medallion shape. Only three show a rectangular icon; two of these depict Saint Peter, the other the Virgin and Child.

51. Corrigan, Visual Polemics, 131-34.

52. For the evolution of processions with icons, see Pentcheva, Icons and

Power, 37-59.

53. Ibid., 109-43.

54. Pliny, Natural History bk. 35, lines 64-66.

55. On Painting/Leon Battista Alberti, 1436, trans. Cecil Grayson (London:

Penguin, 1991).

56. Ernst Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study of the Psychology of Pictorial

Representation (New York: Pantheon Books, 1960).

57. Norman Bryson, Vision and Painting: The Logic of the Gaze (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 163; Jonathan Crary, Techniques of the Ob

server: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge,

Mass.: MIT Press, 1990); and Georges Didi-Huberman, Devant Vimage: Question pos?e aux fins d'une histoire de l'art (Paris: ?ditions de Minuit,

1990).

58. Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexikon, s.v. "typos."

59. In the eyes of outsiders Byzantium has been identified correctly as the

culture of the imprint. See the recent discussion of Alexander Nagel and Christopher Wood, "Interventions: Toward a New Model of Re

naissance Anachronism," Art Bulletin 87 (2005): 403-15, esp. 407 and

note 28 (referring to the writings of Theodore of Stoudios).

60. Konstantinos Manaphes, ed., Sinai: Treasures of the Monastery of Saint

Catherine (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1990), 140-46, nos. 6-7, 10-15; and Kurt Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai:

The Icons (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), nos. 50ff; with a recent revision of the dating of some of these icons in Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era (ca. 680

850): The Sources; An Annotated Survey, Birmingham Byzantine and Ot toman Monographs, 7 (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2001).

61. See Antonio Pasini, II tesoro di San Marco in Venezia, 2 vols. (Venice: F. Ongania, 1886), vol. 1, 73-74, cat. no. 4; Michelangelo Muraro and Andr? Grabar, Treasures of Venice (Milan: Skira, 1963), 65-69; Klaus

Wessel, Byzantine Enamels from the Fifth to the Thirteenth Century (Green wich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1968), 89-91, cat. no. 28;

Grabar, catalog entry in // tesoro di San Marco, ed. H. R. Hahnloser

(Florence: Sansoni, 1971), 25-26, cat. no. 17; and The Treasury of San Marco (Milan: Olivetti, 1984), 141-47, cat. no. 12. The central plaque

is dated to the late tenth century. The transverse bands are Byzantine, as are the enamels, but they no longer form their original sequence. The outside frame is Venetian, thirteenth century. The reverse side is

possibly Byzantine; the cross is part of the original back of the icon. The medallions are out of sequence. The daisy-pattern frame around the plaque with the cross is modern.

62. Glenn Peers, Subtle Bodies: Representing Angels in Byzantium, Transfor mation of the Classical Heritage, 32 (Berkeley: University of Califor nia Press, 2001), 167-71, 177, 191.

63. Muraro and Grabar, Treasures of Venice, 65.

64. Georges Didi-Huberman, Fra Ang?lico: Dissemblance and Figuration, trans. J. M. Todd (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 3, 5, 45-60.

65. Patriarch Nikephoros, Apologeticus pro sacris imaginibus, in PG, vol. 100, col. 777C: r?? tBv imepovpav??ov ovv?fie?ov evTVTrcuTLK?iq cru/ui?oAotc 6K(j)aivea6aL. See Peers, Subtle Bodies, 89-125, esp. 113.

66. Alois Riegl, "Late Roman or Oriental," in Abis Riegl: German Essays on

Art History, ed. Gert Schiff, the German Library, 79 (New York: Con

tinuum, 1988), 173-90, esp. 181: "Whereas the optical qualities disap pear in the dark, the tactile qualities remain. Extent and delimitation are thus the more objective qualities, color and light the more subjec tive ones, for the latter depend to a great degree on those chance circumstances in which the perceiving subject finds itself."

67. Robin Cormack, Painting the Soul: Icons, Death Masks, and Shrouds

(London: Reaktion, 1997), 26-27.

68. Suidae lexicon, ed. A. Adler, Lexicographi Graeci, 1, 4 vols. (1928-38;

reprint, Leipzig: Teubner, 1971), vol. 4, 828-29: tovto 8? ?art to

Xpf?p<a' t? y?p ev tyf emp?vela xp?l?a t?vto ?ori t? bpaT?v, Kai TOVTOv al ?if/eic avTika\x?avovTai. The passage is discussed in Liz

James, Light and Color in Byzantine Art (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 74-75.

69. Liz James, "Color and Meaning in Byzantium," Journal of Early Chris tian Studies 11, no. 2 (2003): 223-33.

70. Book of Gifts and Rarities: Kitab al-Hadaya wa al-Tuhaf trans, and ed. Ghada al Hijjawi al-Qaddumi, Harvard Middle Eastern Monographs, 29 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), no. 62 (a belt

with gold enamel), no. 73 (rock crystal vessels caged in gold enamel,

gemstones, and pearls), no. 82 (enamel vessels), no. 86 (enameled

gold vessels), no. 97 (enamel bracelets).

71. Ibid., no. 97.

72. Digenis Akritis, trans, and ed. Elizabeth Jeffreys, Cambridge Medieval

Classics, 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1.164

(gilded spear with blue enamel), 4.220-22 (golden hems enameled with pearls), 4.239-40 (saddle and bridle), 6.555 (saddle and reins).

73. Digenis Akritis 7.28-29: t?l Xa iracrTpaTTTOvTa xpoGv etyov 0ak?aar?<; / ev yakr\vr\ Wo ? tttt]<? aakevo?JLevr)<; avpa?.

74. Digenis Akritis 7.23-27: o AeijLLwv </>ca?p?<? edakke t?Sv 8?v?po)v mroKaTu) / TroiK?kr)v eycov TT)v xpo?v, toT$ avQediv aCTTpaTTTCuV, / Ta

li?v v?)07] v?pKMj&a, p?oa Te Kai ?ivpaivai' / Ta p??a yff? eTvyxavov Trop(j)vpo?a(j)o<; KO0710?, / y?kaKTO? e&TLk?ov xpo?v o? v?pKiaaou ev

fiepet.

75. Dominic Janes, God and Gold in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 126. "Jeweled inflation" refers to the appropri


ation of imperial splendor in church ritual in the course of the fourth

century.

76. Helen C. Evans and William D. Wixom, eds., The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843-1261 (New York:

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997), cat. nos. 143 (Coislin 79), 149

(Auxerre silk), with bibliography. For Auxerre, see also Danielle Ga

borit-Chopin, ed., La France Romane au temps des premiers Cap?tiens (987-1152) (Paris: Mus?e du Louvre/?ditions Hazan, 2005), no. 128.

77. For a similar use of the dazzling effect of gold to emphasize power and divinity, see Janes, God and Gold, 3, 23, 26-27, 84-86, 89, 121, 139-52. See also Peers, Sacred Shock, 107-17, 126-31; and Franses, "When All That Is Gold," 13-24.

78. On Byzantine purple, see Alexander Kazhdan, ed., Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, 3 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), vol. 3, 1759-60, with bibliography. For the association of purple with gold and the link it preserved between imperial power and divinity, see

Janes, God and Gold, 20-21, 28, 37, 84, 86, 89, 129-30, 150-51.

79. James, Light and Color, 50, 74, 99. For porphyreos and pyravges, see also the entries in Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon.

80. The Treasury of San Marco, 159-65, cat. no. 16; and Wessel, Byzantine Enamels, 72-73, no. 20.

81. In fact, by the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, usually only the

patriarch and the emperor would continue to receive Communion

directly from the chalice. Robert Taft, "Byzantine Communion

Spoons: A Review of the Evidence," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 50 (1996): 209-38. Thus, the chalice's exquisite synesthetic experience was re

served for the select few. Political power in Byzantium translated into the fullness of sensual delight.

82. On a twelfth-century icon from Sinai, an image of the Virgin is identi fied as êi/iei/n], a word that conflates the roots of both "to alloy" and "to freeze." For this icon, see George Sotiriou and Maria Sotiriou, Eikones tes mones Sina, 2 vols., Collection de l'Institut Fran?ais d'Ath?nes, 100 (Athens: Institut Fran?ais d'Ath?nes, 1956-58), vol. 1, 125-28, vol. 2, figs. 146-49; and Nicolette Trahoulia, "The Truth in

Painting: A Refutation of Heresy in a Sinai Icon," Jahrbuch der ?ster reichischen Byzantinistik 52 (2002): 271-85.

83. Patriarch Nikephoros on the nature of cherubims, in PG, vol. 100, col. 776D.

84. Eve Borsook, "Rhetoric and Reality: Mosaics as Expressions of Meta

physical Idea," Mitteilungen des kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz 44, no. 1 (2002): 3-18, esp. 4-5; John Gage, Color and Culture: Practice and

Meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction (Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1993), 39-64; and Franses, "When All That Is Gold," 13-24. So far, the dis cussion has focused only on mosaics. Yet enamel presents the same

polymorphous glitter and privileges dazzle over hue.

85. Pikilia (ttoikiXiol) has a long tradition in Byzantium. Already in late

antiquity, ordinary body remains were transformed into spiritual ob

jects (relics) by being staged in sensually enhanced environments. See Patricia Cox Miller, "'The Little Blue Flower Is Red': Relics and the

Poetizing of the Body," Journal of Early Christian Studies 8 (2000): 213 36.

86. Grabar, catalog entry in Hahnloser, II tesoro di San Marco, 25.

87. In Byzantium, ekphrasis presents a description of a building written and received from the point of view of a subject moving through space. Oskar Wulff, "Das Raumerlebnis des Naos im Spiegel der Ek

phrasis," Byzantinische Zeitschrift $? (1929-30): 531-39; and Ruth

Webb, "The Aesthetics of Sacred Space: Narrative, Metaphor, and Mo tion in Ekphraseis of Church Buildings," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 53

(1999): 59-74. On the creation of the visual equivalent of this genre of literature in the twelfth century, see Pentcheva, "Visual Textuality," 225-38.

88. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 185; Photios, Homily X, sec. 4, in Photiou Homiliai, ed. V. Laourdas, Hetaireias Makedonikon Spou

don, 12 (Thessaloniki: Hetaireias Makedonikon Spoudon, 1959), 101:

?? odrrep r?? ?ipeis ovv?xovcrai koli 7rpo? eaur?? kiricrTpefyovcrai ovK kdeXeiv iroidvcrai tov ?earrjv iL Tax(opr}aai irpo? r?

kvS?repa, ?XX' kv otvr? irporepiev?o-fiaTL toV KaXXd?? Oeajutaro? ?

TTpoai?v kjJLTTLTrX?^jievo^ Kai toV; bp iL?vois kpei?ojv r? ?jipbara ?HTTTep Tt? kppL???lx?vO? T? QOLVILOLTI ?CTT7]K?V.

89. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 185; Photios, Homily X, sec. 5, in Photiou Homiliai, 101: 'fk elavrbv y?p tov ovpavbv pL7}8evb<;

kiMTpoa?dvPToc ?jnr)Oa?ji?dev kp,?e?ir}Ku)<; Kai toT? TToXvp,?p<\>oi<; Kai iravTax?dev wrofyaivoyLevois K?XXecriv <w? aorpoi?

TTepiXa?j?TTOixevo<; oXo? kKTTeTrXr\yixevo<; ylverai. AoKeT?? Xonrbv

kvrevOev r? re ?XXa ev eKcrravei elvai kol? avrb irepL?iv??&dai to

t?/x ?>o?* toV; y?p otKeiai? Kal 7rai^To?a7raT^ irepicrTpoâV; Kai

ovvex?crL KLvqaecriv, ? 7r?vT0)q iraOeTv t?v 0eaTJ)v r? iravrax?Bev TToiKiX?a ?iaCerai to?? Be?jiaToc, ei? avrb t? bp(?p,evov to oiKeTov

<j>avT??eTai Tr?BiqfjLa.

90. On the concept of the moving eye in extramission, see Mathew, Byz antine Aesthetics, 30. On the wandering gaze in ekphraseis, see Wulff, "Das Raumerlebnis des Naos," 534-35.

91. Pentcheva, "Epigrams on Icons"; and Jannic Durand, "Precious-Metal Icon Revetments," in Byzantium: Faith and Power, 1261-1557, ed.

Helen C. Evans (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), 243 51.

92. Spyridon Lambros, "O MapKiavos k&?l? 524," Neos Hellenomnemon 8

(1911): nos. 73, 109. For a discussion of the role of these metric

prayers, see Pentcheva, "Epigrams on Icons."

93. Manuelis Philae Carmina, ed. Emmanuel Miller (Amsterdam: Hakkert,

1967), vol. 1, 65-66: Xpv&ffv de pG? tt/i> JE?e/x Tff? eiK?vos, / ev tjt?

(f)vT?: TexvLKB? rfpfxoo-fx?va / boKoVcri KVKkoVv Tf/? JE??p< t?v

epy?TT\v. Discussed in Andr? Grabar, Les rev?tements en or et en argent des icones byzantines du Moyen ?ge, Biblioth?que de l'Institut Hell?nique d'?tudes Byzantines et Post-Byzantines de Venise, 7 (Venice: Institut

Hell?nique d'?tudes Byzantines et Post-Byzantines, 1975), 6; and Du

rand, "Precious-Metal Icon Revetments," 247.

94. For the association of gold and green with paradise in late antiquity, see Janes, God and Gold, 100.

95. Trans. Denis Sullivan, Stamatina McGrath, and Alice-Mary Talbot, from Aleksandr N. Vesselovskji, "Razyskanija v oblasti russkago du

hovnago stiha," Sbornik' Otdelenija russkago jazyka i slovesnosti Imperators koj akademii nauk' 46 (1889-90), suppl., 3-89 (henceforth, Vita Basilii

Iunioris), 39: 'Air?pavTes oltv 6K T0ev km r?? T??v ayi&v crevas

eiTopevdrjixev. avrai be rjcrav irokkal cr<f>?8pa crty?bpa ?jlt]

\moK???xevai ?pidpA$, axnrep e? r)kiaKr?<; aKtTvos <f>ai8poT?Tiqv a?ykr)v acrTpaTTTOwai, al be ?k [ivpio?a^cov o>? k ?ixraov Kai

TToptyvpa? deia? a?y?rj? onDAco? Kai votjtS?? acnp?movcrai. I

thank Alice-Mary Talbot for allowing me to use their draft transla tion.

96. Trans. Sullivan et al, ibid., 42: Eio-r?k0oiiev eis Tiva irepiavkov ??vov Kal iravTekSs k^rjkkayfjb?vov Kai r\v to b?irebov avro?r eâarp?irrov, TrepiKeKO(T?jLr)iJL vov xpwaV; irka?l, Kal pimoq ev avtQS ov Trpoafjv to

ovvokov, Kal ar)p aaTpaTr??JLOp^)o<; Trepir\vya?,ev amo, ev be toV;

apixov?ais t?JSv xpvo~o<j)av?j5v eKeiv v irkaKBv vTff\pxov <j>vr?

k^r?vdLO-jxeva T?avTt??a tBv r\bvrrv?(x)v Kal ?ykaoKap v (?pai s

TTe(f)VTovpyriii va.

97. Trans. Sullivan et al., ibid., 43: eyyiora b? tQv ?v?biov avrBv loraTo

Tp?ire?a jmey?oTTf Trr?xe(?v Tpi?Kovra, Kal avTr\ r\v ?k kiOov

o~iLap?ybov oip??ox; kekaToyLT\?x?vr\ Kal KaTeaKevao-fx?vri, ??KTlVa?

kKTrefXTTOvaa (fxoTo?okovs, . . . crel ?X??'ol TTpoKeifievoi bi?xpvo'oi

?o-TpairoeubeV; kvxvi>TO?Cbi Kal <W??? ?k iravTwv TBv evTijxojv kiO v

Kal xpvo~6iv tQv ck toI? irapabeiaov k?epxojJL?vcjv Kal b?xoio^>epeV;.

98. Trans. Sullivan et al., ibid., 44-45: 01 b? vrn)percfvVTe<s avroV; veavicTKOL (?pd?Oi iraw kivyxavov, eveubeV; toV; 7rpoo"?>7roi?, kevKol

&el x??v, ci ?paxeioves avrtSv Kal ci b?KTvkoi, w? ?v Tt? euroi

tovtov? ib?)v, ?K y?kaKTO? oit? (frvpa??vTos KaTao-ev?ada?, k?kklvov

r?ijL<l>ieo-iJL?voi oto?t/v ?vkco? ?e?afjbfxevriv Kal 7r?errjc wpai?rrjToc Treirkripwixevriv, ol b? Trabes avtBv xwvoetbeV;, irepLe?(uo~p,?voi ?wvaq (ocnrep kcjpovs K T?&ovpaviov to?ov tt]v evxpoiav KeKTrux?vov? Kal

airao-TpaTTTOvTac, em be toV; KopwfraV; avf&v xpwfx: e<f>epov

biabr\ixaTa ev kidois koI fxapy?poic TrokvT??xoLs cocrei ?okal k?av

TTavevrrpeireo-TaTa Kal TTOiK?ka vrr?pxovTa.

99. For the scriptural tradition of associating whiteness and transparency with paradise, see Janes, God and Gold, 72-74, 84-86.

100. Trans. Sullivan et al., Vita Basilii Iunioris, 36-46: ??Treip?crTo?; ctKaTav?riTo?; ?<j>pao-T?)?; ?v?K<f>pacrTO<;; ?d?aTov; ovbel? bvvaTai

k?yos ?p?Teis bir\yecrao~Bai'y ?ireipo?; aveKk?kr\Toc\ ?vepixiqvevT s;

vor\T?<;; voV? koX koyo? oC bvvaTat ?v$p6)7nve<; bir\yr\o~ao,Qai\ ?pprfro?; ?vkai odaai ?>? ai T/?iaKai aKTTve?', KpaTeTcrdai irap? cr piaTiK?dv x^P^v abvvaTov; evfypocrvvr) Kal eimp?rreLav

?ovyKpLTOv wpat?TT/T? T Kal T)bovr)V yk?)craxi ?vdpo)7rivxi

?vep[Xf}V VTOV Kal O?KOX? avT?KOVO~TOV, y??m? /XVptOjLLtKTW? ?v pp,T)vevT?)<; tc Kai ?v K?iT)'yf/T?)?; TravT?Ta ?wv Kal p?bcjv

v?crp,(x)v Ib?ai eTreKeivro; kv k?yq> ?(j)paaTov; kv oo-<f>pr)cr i Kal

aicrdr)o- L avdp?)Trivr?<; biavo?as ?KaTavor)To? Kal avekbir)yr\Tov tt\v evocrpXav; a(/)pao"To? t/?vtt/to?; r?bovrJ<; Kal 6vpiiqb?a<; aireipov

Trkr)povp, voi.

101. See Pentcheva, "Epigrams on Icons." Here, I am concerned with the

epigram's performative aspect and circular structure.

102. Margaret Mullett, "Writing in Early Medieval Byzantium," in Uses of

Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cam

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 156-85, esp. 179-85.

103. The connection between the icon and the Davidic Psalms will appear

again in the discussion of the sense of taste.

104. On the performative nature of epigrams, see Amy Papalexandrou, "Text in Context: Eloquent Monuments and the Byzantine Beholder,"

Word and Image 17, no; 3 (2001): 259-83. On the orality of Byzantine


literature, see Guglielmo Cavallo, "Trace per una storia d?lia lettura ?

Bisanzio," Byzantinische Zeitschrift 95, no. 2 (2002): 423-44; idem, "Le

rossignol et l'hirondelle: Lire et ?crire ? Byzance, en Occident," An

nales: Histoire et Sciences Sociales 4, no. 5 (2001): 849-61; and Mullett,

"Writing in Early Medieval Byzantium," 156-85.

105. See nn. 88-89 above.

106. Robert Nelson, "Byzantine Art vs Western Medieval Art," in Byzance et

le monde ext?rieur: Contacts, relations, ?changes; Actes de trois s?ances du XXe

Congr?s International des ?tudes Byzantines, Paris, 19-25 ao?t 2001, ed. Michel Balard et al., Byzantina Sorbonensia, 21 (Paris: Publications de

la Sorbonne, 2005), 255-70.

107. Theodore Hyrtakenos, quoted in Fran?ois Jean Gabriel de la Porte-du

Theil, "Notice et extraits d'un volume de la Biblioth?que Nationale, cot? MCCIX parmi les mansucrits grecs et contenant les Opuscules et

letters anecdotes de Th?odore l'Hyrtakc?nien," Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits de la Biblioth?que Nationale et Autres Biblioth?ques 6 (1800):

1-48, esp. 42, letter no. 75: 'Eyc? 8', kvavTevi?c?v toV; yp?pifxacnv, avrbv cr? ?Xeireiv T)yo?p,iqv, Kai Tff? ?xeXixp&s oifs kpLcfropeTtrdai creipijVoc, Kal T&v kp,fxeXBv a.KpO?to~Bai <$>Qbyyo)v Tff? dva?iacr?aq TjôiT?. Translated into Italian and discussed in Cavallo, "Trace per una storia della lettura ? Bisanzio," 426.

108. Mullett, "Writing in Early Medieval Byzantium," 179, discusses Symeon Metaphrastes on writing and drinking (letter no. 89) and John Mavro

pous on writing and music (letter no. 1). See also Cavallo, "Trace per una storia della lettura ? Bisanzio," 425-26.

109. On the role of orality in Byzantine literature, see n. 104 above.

110. Trans. Sullivan et al., Vita Basilii Iunioris, 44: ??v 8e b krrl t?ls ?vXoi? eKeivoL? rfXioêyyecn irornpioi? KLpv?fievo? oivo?, t tf XP0La

kpvOp? TJVpaK?o~iiaTi Xiav evTrvpio? aTrao-TparrTC?v, Kal birr?v?Ka rt? avTc5v ?m x??jt>a? k???aTo ttjv dav?iaaT7]v eKe?vr\v Kal

<j)?)To?bXov KvXiKa, v?KTapo? api?pocriac Tr TrXr)pa)pi?vr?v, Kal t@

?O?q) ar? fian Tairrr\v irpocrfiyaye to?j meTv. . . . rfiya?e 8e t?

Trpbo~(?Trov avroV Kal ?ri rrXeov kXap,7rpvveTo, (oairep pb?ov ?pTi tG>v KaXvK(ov vire?eXdc?v.

111. The Treasury of San Marco, 159, cat. no. 16: Iltere e? avrd? navres' T?VTO puOi) kcTTl TO ?LjUL?, TO Tff? KOUV?f? ?taOTJKTJ? T? VTTep Vp,i?v KO.I iroXXGv eKXvv?pLevov et? ?êaiv appuaTiBv. The translation comes

from the King James Version.

112. Vie de Th?odore de Sykeon, ed. A.-J. Festugi?re, Subsidia Hagiographica, 48 (Brussels: Soci?t? des Bollandistes, 1970), 11.

113. Vita Theodori Syceotae, bk. 13, trans, in Elizabeth Dawes and Norman H.

Baynes, Three Byzantine Saints (Oxford: B. Blackwell Press, 1948), 95;

A.-J. Festugi?re, ed., Vie de Th?odore de Syke?n, Subsidia Hagiographica, 48 (Brussels: Soci?t? des Bollandistes, 1970), 11: 'Avaor?im yo?v avrt$ 6K toV e??Qov?, Kal TfjeiKbvi To?rX(uff?po<; TTpoa?xovTi Kal

8eo???v?), i) adeTo yXvKvrr)Ta r)8vrepov jut??lto? kyxvd?ttrav kv rQ

or?/mcm avrcfi?. 'O 8? yvov? rrfv x?nv To?T deo?r Kal p.eTaXa?oiv Tff? yXvKVT7)Tos Kal vxapio-Tr)0~a<; Tc$Xpio~T<$ airo Tff? ?opa? eKeiviq? evK?X??s Kal etyiadid? ?ireo'T'qdLê to ipaXTr?piov, kv bXiyai? Tj/x?pai? airav avrb eKpiadcjv.

114. Paul Speck has contested the seventh-century date of the passages about icons in this life and argued instead that these references were

interpolated in the mid-eighth or early ninth century. His theory brings the date of the text closer to the context and use of the S.

Marco enamel icon. Speck, "Wunderheilige und Bilder: Zur Frage des

Beginns der Bilderverehrung," in Poikila Byzantina, vol. 11, Varia III

(Bonn: Dr. R. Habelt, 1991), 163-247, esp. 245-46.

115. This and the following biblical quotations follow the text and num

bering of the Greek Septuagint, Septuaginta, ed. Alfred Rahlfs (1935;

reprint, Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelstiftung, 1935).

116. Geoffrey Lampe, ed., Patristic Greek Lexicon (1961; reprint, Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 2001).

117. Susan A. Harvey, "St. Ephrem on the Scent of Salvation," Journal of

Theological Studies 48, no. 1 (1998): 109-28; and idem, "Incense Offer

ings in the Syriac Transitus Mariae. Ritual and Knowledge in Ancient

Christianity," in The Early Church and Its Context: Essays in Honor of Ever ett Ferguson, ed. Abraham Malherbe, Frederick Norris, and James

Thompson, Supplements to Novum Testamentum, 90 (Leiden: Brill,

1998), 175-91. Harvey will offer an extensive study on the role of scent in late antiquity in her forthcoming monograph, Scenting Salva tion: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination, Transformation of

the Classical Heritage, 42 (Berkeley: University of California Press,

2006). For an anthropological point of view, see Constance Classen, David Howes, and Anthony Synnott, Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell (London: Routledge, 1994).

118. For an excellent analysis revealing how the lavish imperial ceremonial

shaped the imagined realm of paradise, see Liz James, "Art and Lies:

Text, Image and Imagination in the Medieval World," in Eastmond

and James, Icon and Word, 59-71.

119. Constan tine Porphyrogennetos, De ceremoniis aulae byzantinae, ed. Jo hann Jacob Reiske, 2 vols., CSHB, 9-10 (Bonn: Impensis ed. Weberi,

1829), 160 (bk. 1, chap. 28), 438 (bk. 1, chap. 96).

120. Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus: Three Treatises on Imperial Military Expedi tions, trans. John F. Haldon, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae, 28

(Vienna: ?sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1990), 108-9; Constantine Porphyrogennetos, De ceremoniis, ed. Reiske, 468:

Hapap,r]pLOv ev akeiTTT?, KaTrv?crjxaTa Oi?ôpa, dv?jiia?jba, (xao-T?xr)v, ki?avov, cr?xap, Kp?KOv, fi?crxov, apuTrap, ?vkakor)v vyp?v Kal ?,r\p?v, KLvv??x(?fxov akr)Qiv?v TTp?dTov Kal bevrepov, Kal ^vkoKLvv?pLCjpiov, ?jLVp?criiaTa koiu?. For the specialized terms, see also Charles Du

Cange, Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae graecitatis (Lyons: Anis

son, Posuel, Rigaud, 1688; reprint, Graz: Akademische Druck, 1958).

121. On the contemporary perception of power and smell, see Classen et

al., Aroma, 161-79. Similarly, the modern utopia created by Hollywood is "totally inodorate, existing only in the sensory domain of sight and

hearing," 175, in contrast to the complex fragrance of the Byzantine imperial and liturgical ceremonial and the concomitant image of par adise.

122. See n. 81 above.

123. On the association of perfume with salvation and paradise, see Har

vey, "St. Ephrem," and idem, "Incense Offerings"; and Suzanne Evans, "The Scent of a Martyr," Numen 49 (2002): 193-211. On the connec

tion between odors and dreams and the imagined world of the be

yond, see Classen et al., Aroma, 155-58.

124. Pss. 33:8: "Taste and see that God is good."

125. Conforming to the conclusion of Nelson, "Byzantine Art vs Western Medieval Art," 269-70.

126. Martin Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art," in Poetry, Lan

guage, Thought, trans, and ed. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), 36, 62.

127. On the saturated phenomenon, see Marion, Being Given: Towards a

Phenomenology of Givenness, 199 -221.

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