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Report Information from ProQuestFebruary 24 2012 12:32_______________________________________________________________

Document 1 of 1The Performative IconPentcheva, Bissera. The Art Bulletin 88.4 (Dec 2006): 631-655,629.

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Abstract

The medieval icon was experienced not simply through sight, as in visual studies andmuseums today, but also through touch, sound, smell, and taste. Nor was it static: the iconbecame animated in its interaction with the faithful. Its rich, highly reflective materials andsurface textures, combined with its setting-flickering candles and oil lamps, sounds of musicand prayer, the fragrance of incense, and the approach and breath of the faithful-saturatedthe material and sensorial to excess. It led to a vision that transcended this materiality andgave access to the intangible: a taste of the divine. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT] _______________________________________________________________

Full Text

(ProQuest Information and Learning: ... denotes formulae omitted.)(ProQuest Information and Learning: ... denotes "strike-through" in the original text omitted.)Icon (ikon, ...) in Greek is understood as image, representation, and portrait. In Byzantiumthe word also acquired a very specific meaning as a portable portrait of Christ, the Virgin, andsaints with scenes from their lives on wood panels or precious surfaces such as ivory, metal,enamel, mosaic, and steatite (Figs. 1-4).1 The icon was perceived as matter imbued withcharis (...), 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 portableportrait. Over the years, this sensory and sensual experience (aesthesis) of the image hasbeen lost from view in the scholarship.3The icon is in fact a surface that resonates with sound, wind, light, touch, and smell. Thisobject thus offers us a glimpse into what vision meant in Byzantium: a synesthetic experiencein which the whole body is engaged. The term synesthesia as employed in modern art theoryand psychology refers to concomitant sensation: the experience of one sense through thestimulation of another, such as color experienced as sound. Instead, I will use the wordsynesthesis (syn-, together, plus aesthesis, sensual apprehension) to focus attention onconsonant sensation: the simultaneity of senses. This synesthetic experience is verycharacteristic of Byzantium. Yet it is rarely discussed in medieval studies. Whenever a linkbetween the senses and the spiritual is made, it is often drawn primarily on the basis of thewritings of Abbot Suger.4According to Byzantine image theory as it emerged in the ninth century, the icon is theimprint (in Greek, typos) of Christ's visible characteristics (appearance) on matter. Thequintessential Byzantine image ideally should not be thought of as a painting created bybrushstrokes but as an imprint-a typos impressed on a material surface. The relief icon mostclosely 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.5According to this model, the eye of the beholder is active, constantly moving and sendinglight rays that touch the surfaces of objects. The eye seeks the tactility of textures and reliefs.Sight is understood and experienced as touch.6 Not surprisingly, Byzantine icons addressthis tactile desire with their rich decoration, varied materials, and reliefs. They employ abaroque pastiche of metal repouss, filigree, cloisonn and champlev enamels, pearls, andgemstones. Some of these panels also contain poetic inscriptions embedded in the metalsurface (Fig. 21).The later and better-known production of wood panel paintings covered with metalrevetments (Fig. 4) differ significantly from the Middle Byzantine relief icon. In the latter, theholy figure projects in relief, whereas in the former, the sacred form recedes in darkness. It ispainted on the flat surface of the wood and surrounded by a raised silver-gilt or enameledcover, which floods the eye with its radiance and shimmer. When illuminated by the tremblingflicker of candles and oil lamps rather than the steady and harsh spotlights of museumdisplays, the painted holy face on the revetted icon sinks and disappears in the shadow.These panels operate 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 thesense of touch through the textured surface of their repouss and enameled-filigree metalrevetments.7Because they are luxury objects, relief icons are now considered exceptions among anotherwise largely panel-painted icon production. However, the way relief icons in metal,enamel, steatite, and ivory integrate the iconophile theory of images and die way theysensorially engage the faithful through their tactile representations suggest that theseobjects, rather than being exceptions, lead us instead to a fundamental expectation andexperience of icons as textured surfaces in Byzantium. The relief icon, which dominatedartistic production in the ninth and tenth centuries, most closely fulfilled the qualities ofByzantine tactile and sensorial visuality.In its original setting, the icon performed through its materiality. The radiance of light reflectedfrom the gilded surfaces, the flicker of candles and oil lamps placed before the image, thesweetly fragrant incense, the sounds of prayer and music-these inundated all senses. Insaturating the material and sensorial to excess, the experience of the icon led to atranscendence of this very materiality and gave access to the intangible, invisible, andnoetic.8 This phenomenological aspect of the icon has been largely overlooked in modernscholarship. By treating it as art, confining it to a glass-cage museum display, subjecting it touniform and steady electric lighting, the icon has been deprived of life-its surface, dead.9In Byzantine culture, mimesis is the word closest to the definition of "performance." It standsfor an admixture of presence and absence.10 The icon exemplifies just such an admixture.While itself an absence (appearance), the Byzantine icon enacts divine presence (essence)in its making and in its interaction with the faithful.11 A person's approach, movement, andbreath 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 theair, the sense of touch and taste, and the sound of prayer to animate the panel.12 The iconthus goes through a process of becoming, changing, and performing before the faithful.These shifting sensations triggered through sight, touch, sound, smell, and taste stir thefaithful. They are then led to project their whirling psychological state and sensual experience(pathema, ...) back onto the object to make the icon appear alive. Animated by the projectedhuman ..., it turns into a living painting: an empsychos graphe (...). A new meaning of "livingpainting" emerges from my analysis.13The Byzantine icon has a legacy of tactile visuality, sensually experienced. Because theEastern Orthodox liturgy maintained its late antique tradition of saturating the senses, theobjects embedded in its rite gave rise to a sensorially rich performance. While all five sensesare engaged, a subtle hierarchy is established. Sight, touch, and sound emerge as thesenses through which the materiality of the icon as the imprint of the divine appearance isempirically formed. At the same time, smell and taste give access to divine essence throughan almost Eucharistie participatory knowledge of God.Byzantine Mimesis: Essence and AppearanceThe Byzantine icon is a surface that has received the imprint of divine form. Thisnonessentialist definition of the icon developed in the ninth-century writings of PatriarchNikephoros and Theodore of Stoudios. Charles Barber has already reconstructed their theoryin his excellent study Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in ByzantineIconoclasm.14 What remains to be explored is how this nonessentialist model affected theicon production of the post-Iconoclastic period. The definition of the icon as absence hasparadoxically heightened the materiality of this object. A tension lurks on the icon's surfacebetween absence and presence, a tension that will be resolved in the icon's performance(mimesis) : the way it plays with appearances before the faithful. In contrast to our Westernnotion of mimesis as the imitation of form, Byzantine mimesis is the imitation of presence.The icon is just an imprint of form, but it simulates divine essence through the interaction ofits imprinted surface with the changing ambience.Byzantine image theory emerged during the Iconoclastic period, 730 to 843. At the verycenter of this controversy lay the tension between matter and spirit. Can the icon representChrist's divinely human nature? The eighth-century defense of icons presents an essentialistmodel. Its major proponents were John of Damaskos (ca. 675-749) and Patriarch Germanos(ca. 634-732).15 Using Christology, they drew a connection between the icon and theincarnate Christ. The Incarnation manifests the divine acquiring a human form, lendingvalidity to the visible and representation. By extension, the icon shows the process throughwhich 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 prefigural divine, represented by the throne, book, dove, and inscription, istransformed into the Child held in the arms of the Virgin in the apse. We witness ametamorphosis by following the central ray of light, most likely made of silver tesserae.17They catch and reflect light as they lead us to the carnal light: the golden-clad Child in Mary's

arms. By equating the icon with the body of Christ, making it participatory in the divineessence, this essentialist model exposed itself to charges of idolatry.18 The figuralrepresentation at Nikaia shows traces of such an iconoclastic intervention, for the image ofthe Virgin and Child in the apse was replaced by the aniconic shape of the cross sometime inthe mid-eighth century. With the reestablishment of image veneration in 843, the figuralrepresentation was restored.To counteract the charges of idolatry in the incarnational model, the iconophiles of the laterpart of the eighth and early ninth centuries developed a nonessentialist interpretation of theicon.19 Patriarch Nikephoros (ca. 750-828) defined the icon as the imprint (typos) of thevisible characteristics of Christ on matter, or appearance imprinted on matter: "Paintingrepresents the corporeal form of the one depicted, impressing its appearance (schema) andits shape (morphe) and its likeness (empheria)."20Schema, morphe, empheria (...) all converge on the sense of appearance/likeness andemphasize the nonessentialist relation between copy and prototype. The two are connectedby form, not essence. The icon as imprint of appearance no longer participates in Christ'ssacred energy and therefore does not reveal his hypostasis (divinely human essence). Inbearing only the visible characteristics and lacking the miraculous essence, the iconbecomes 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 ofTheodore of Stoudios (759-826):The crafted icon modeled after its prototype brings the likeness of the prototype into matterand 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 andbronze; each takes matter, looks at the prototype, receives the imprint of that which hecontemplates, and presses it like a seal into his matter.21In this passage, the icon is likeness that participates only in the form, not the essence, of theprototype. The act of looking at the model is understood as a primary imprint. Theappearance of the prototype has been impressed onto the memory of the artist. In the nextstep, this impressed form is imprinted (literally impressed like a die) for a second time on thematerial surface (bronze or gold, marble or encaustic). The making of the icon becomes aprocess of double imprint (typos).This nonessentialist theory of the icon does not account for miraculous images. As in anyother culture, the theoretical model exercised some but not total control over artisticproduction and ritual practices. It gave a conceptual line through which to defend the validityof icons.At the same time, a belief in miraculous icons did exist in Byzantium, and this belief wentagainst the theoretical definition of the icon as absence. Because these thaumaturgie imageswere 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 coveredby 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-workingimages were fully revealed only at swift climactic points of the ritual.22Typos and SphragisThe nonessentialist model of the icon as a double imprint, I believe, originates from the veryimage production practices available to men of letters in ninth-century Constantinople andfrom the stronghold of the extramission theory in Byzantine visuality. Many documents, oncetheir writing was concluded, were secured with a seal.23 For instance, in a memorandum bya judge of Thessaloniki written in 927, the seal is still in its original position, affixed with acord at the edge of the parchment. It completes the writing and ensures the inviolate state ofthe letter (Fig. 7).24 The characteristic Byzantine sealing practice was to use lead blanks witha channel going through their diameter (Fig. 8). The silk cords were first threaded through theparchment and then strung through the seal's channel. After being heated, the lead blankswere placed between the valves of iron pliers (Fig. 9). The pliers were struck shut with ahammer, impressing a relief on the softened surface of the lead (Figs. 10, 11). While creatingthe 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 andpainting) was understood as a seal (sphragis, ...), for the seal completed it. By analogy, theicon as a manifestation of graphe also became a sphragis.The typos/sphragis concept is not new. It has been explored most prominently by HerbertKessler in connection with the acheiropoietos of Christ (miraculous image not made byhuman hands, a-, without, heir, hand, poietos, made): the imprint (typos) of the Holy Face ona material surface.25 This thaumaturgie object is allegedly the product of a single imprint ofthe divine form and essence. It is created like a coin or seal. Christ's body functions like anintaglio impressed on the material surface (Figs. 10, 11). As an extension of the divine form,which bears the divine touch, the achieiropoietos participates in the essence.Yet the typos/sphragis concept has never been applied to the regular icon. In contrast to theacheiropoietoi, the icon is created through a double imprint and participates only in theappearance of the prototype. Again, the making of a seal or a coin exemplifies this process.The die and its imprint (...) furnish not just a metaphor for the relation between Christ and theicon but also a process that entirely maps the concept of the icon as absence, lackingessence. The sacred body leaves a physical imprint. By displacing matter, it produces anegative space, a shell in which a body once resided but no longer remains. This shell isequivalent to the negative intaglio on the heads of the pliers (Fig. 9). It is this form of absencethat is then imprinted on the warm metal surface, reifying in relief the shape of absence (Figs.10, 11). Here, absence turns into a projection, penetrating the physical space. The reliefparadoxically is transformed into the materialization of the form of absence. The icon thenbecomes a reified, sensual, sensory manifestation of absence. It self-consciously drawsattention to absence, making it tangible, apprehensible through the senses.26 As presentabsence, the imprint neutralizes the icon and makes it immune to charges of idolatry. Itprovides access to appearance, which is materially realized and sensually experienced.

The understanding of the icon through the seal-making model also places an emphasis ontangible versus intangible absence, rather than on the visible versus the invisible. In itsimprinted relief, the icon materializes the absent sacred figure. It gives it shape. Therefore,medieval objects in general and Byzantine icons in particular attempt to express the paradoxof the tangible versus the intangible rather than the visible versus the invisible (in which myanalysis differs from that of the existing scholarship on medieval image theory) .27 Thetangible appeals to and mobilizes all five senses, while the visible addresses itself just to theeye. It is our modern culture's obsession with making things visible, fueled by opticalvisuality, that makes us project a similar framework onto medieval art.28 By contrast, theByzantine icon presents an eloquent example of tactile visuality sensually experienced.According to the preferred theory of vision in Byzantium, extramission, the eye casting itsrays seeks a tangible form that can be "touched with the eyes, hands, and lips."29Moreover, the same desire for materiality is present in the passage quoted from Theodore ofStoudios: "[the artist] takes matter, looks at the prototype, receives the imprint of that whichhe contemplates, and presses it like a seal into his matter."30 In the making of an icon, theactive eye of the artist casts optical rays over the saint. They touch the sacred form andreturn, impressing the gathered shape into the memory of the craftsman. This first image (theimprinted vestige of touch) is thus internal. Like a negative intaglio, it is subsequentlyimpressed by the hands of the artist into a material surface.The Byzantine sacred portrait can be seen to function in Neoplatonic terms. It presents amaterial manifestation of what is immaterial and ineffable (divine essence). The image is apriori internal. Its external manifestation is the icon. The eye "touching" its surface reaffirmsthe reality of the internal prototype. Touch authenticates this internal imprint. The validity ortruth 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. Itslack of essence is compensated by the materially manifested likeness: palpable, tangible,and sensual. It is this materiality of the icon that is overlooked in the recent studies ofByzantine image theory.31The Relief IconFor 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 beenattributed to wood's vulnerability to deterioration. Perhaps a different interpretation, whichtakes 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 Byzantineimage theory furnishes an insight into the art produced after Iconoclasm.Already in his discussion of the sixth-century decoration of the chancel barrier in HagiaSophia, Paul the Silentiary mentioned metal-repouss disks with the figures of Christ, theangels, prophets, Apostles, and the Virgin.32 Similarly, after Iconoclasm, icons in metalrepouss adorned the epistyle of the imperial foundation called Nea Ekklesia (the NewChurch) 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 ofluxury 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 ofthe imperial palace. Its story summarizes the entire Iconoclastic period (730-843). It wasallegedly taken down on the orders of Emperor Leo III in 730, and this act of publicaggression against images signaled the outbreak of Iconoclasm in the capital.35 Since thisstory is not mentioned by any contemporary eighth-century source and appears in the writtenrecord only after 800, it casts some doubt on the existence of a Chalke Christ in about 730.Marie-France Auzpy has correctly argued that the legend was developed in order to justifyEmpress Eirene's placement of such an icon for the first time during the iconophile interimperiod, 787-814.36 Through the invention of a legendary past for the Chalkites, it acquiredlegitimacy. Then again in 814 Emperor Leo V removed this image from the gates in anattempt to emulate the legendary actions of his iconoclast predecessor, Leo III. Finally, a newChalkites was set up in 843. The Chalke Christ marked the final triumph of orthodoxy andcelebrated the renewed alignment of imperial power with image veneration. As the gate tothe Great Palace, the Chalke visually and tangibly defined and propagated imperial policy. Itwas probably this same image that reappeared on imperial coinage in 843.37What 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 overwhich it hung or to the fact that the image itself was made of metal? Scholars, notably, CyrilMango in 1959, have argued that the Chalkites was a painted panel because the iconoclastssent 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 onwood.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 theincident of 730 or 814. In fact, fire would have been the only and perhaps best way to destroyit. Moreover, its burning would have had a strong symbolic value by alluding to the biblicalGolden Calf (Exod. 32:20). Burning, indeed, would have justified the icon's destruction in theeyes 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 twoearliest Byzantine sources describing the Chalke incident of 730, the Life of Saint Stephenthe Younger (written about 809), the icon appears as a copper relief image. The passagementions the icon and its location at the gates:40In these days [the patriarch Anastasios,] having become the leader of heresies, immediatelyattempted 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).41The syntax of the dependent clause is rather difficult to interpret. It is introduced by a relativepronoun (...), which refers to the gates, yet the rest of the sentence has a subject in thefeminine singular, and the only other word in the feminine singular in the main clause is

"icon" (...). While the Greek for gate (pyle, ...) is in the feminine gender, a switch from theplural to singular and the subsequent description of this object as holy suggest that thesubject of the relative clause is not the Brazen Gates but the Chalkites icon. The relativepronoun can then be translated as referring to the locale, where the icon is set.42The word used to describe the metal object in the quoted passage is charakter (...). It meansan imprint, relief, and engraved surface. In fact, its first definition is connected to thestamping of an intaglio on a metal surface in order to produce a coin. The same word alsoappears in the description of the Chalkites in Theophanes' Chronographia (early ninthcentury). The passage narrates the events of 602 CE, when Emperor Maurice (r. 582-602)dreamed of his judgment by Christ, which resulted in his deposition. Theophanesembellished the story by ahistorically inserting the Chalkites icon-the very object that wasmost likely first placed at the gates almost two centuries later, in the period 787-814. Theicon became the medium through which Christ appeared and judged the emperor: "One nightas [Emperor Maurice] was sleeping, he saw a vision; he was standing before the icon of theSavior at the Chalke gates and a crowd was standing around him. A voice from the relief iconof our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ came and spoke."43Later sources also indicate a copper relief icon for the Chalkites. In the Patria (a compilationof various sources on the topography of Constantinople, edited about 995), we read thefollowing: "In the so-called Chalke Gates a copper stele of our Lord Jesus Christ was erectedby Constantine the Great. The emperor Leo [III], father of Kavallinos, took it down. Nowdecorated with mosaics, this icon is restored by the [empress] Eirene the Athenian."44The icon is called a copper relief slab (stele chalke, ...). These words have hitherto beeninterpreted as a bronze statue and discredited as corrupt information because Byzantium didnot produce three-dimensional statues of Christ or the saints.45 Yet the Byzantine choice ofwords is quite clear. Just as the Greek word stele presents figures in low relief, so, too, theByzantine Chalkites icon displays a basrelief of Christ on a metal surface. The rest of thepassage states how this icon was decorated with mosaics by Empress Eirene, which couldbe interpreted as a metal icon adorned with glass tesserae or even enamel.Similarly, the epigram written by Patriarch Methodios sometime between 843 and 847identifies the orthodox images as typoi: "I am representing [Christ] with imprints [typoi]."46This poetic inscription most likely surrounded the Chalkites icon, thereby linking image andtext visually. The holy face was rendered as a relief, while the epigram as letters incised onmatter. Both draw attention to the textured and imprinted surface. Finally, Michael Glykas inthe twelfth century reinforces the idea of the Chalkites as a metal relief icon by calling it animprint (...).47What is the importance of identifying the Chalkites with a metal relief icon? This was the mostprominent icon in Constantinople during and after Iconoclasm. It symbolized proimage policy.Therefore, its form would have been understood as the ideal icon. If my interpretation of thewritten sources is correct, the Chalkites served as the model for the Byzantine metal relieficon. As a typos, the Chalke Christ also fulfilled Byzantine image theory. According to itsnonessentialist 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 writingsthe legitimacy of the icon is frequently argued on the basis of the imperial coin. A reciprocityis established between the emperor and his representation on the gold solidus (Fig. 11). Bothare linked by one identity yet separated by natures.48 The same reciprocity reigns betweenthe icon and Christ. Both represent the same identity but differ in nature: a materialsubstance versus a divinely human hypostasis. The roundel icon evokes in its shape the veryarguments used to defend its legitimacy. The medallion panel thus becomes an idealdevotional object protected by form and theory from charges of idolatry.49Similarly, the majority of icons depicted in the mid-ninth-century Khludov Psalter (StateHistorical 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 anicon: a rectangular wood panel painting. In employing the shape of coins and seals, therepresentations in the Khludov Psalter activate the nonessentialist definition of the icon asimprint of absence on matter. Hence, the circular form validates the veneration of images.The manuscript begins with a depiction of a youthful Christ set within an arch (Fig. 12).Underneath the tympanum, King David dressed in imperial attire sits on a throne and strumsthe strings of his lyre. Divine and imperial are joined through the seal of the icon. King Davidemerges as a protector of images and vice versa: as a recipient of the icon's protection. Thisidea captures the climate of ninth-century Constantinople, where imperial policy had justfirmly embraced icon veneration. The Chalkites Christ established the seal of affirmation in843.The medallion icon and its setting in the Khludov Psalter within the tympanum of animaginary arch recall the shape of a gate. Given the manuscript's polemical depiction ofcurrent political events and its avid defense of images, it is likely that the preface miniature ofthe Khludov Psalter is not just a visualization of an author portrait (King David as the poet ofthe Psalms) but is possibly meant to configure in two-dimensional form a memory image ofthe Chalke gate and Chalke Christ. Such a commemorative image would be quiteappropriate for the particular patron of the manuscript: most likely Patriarch Methodios.51 Hisepigram adorned the Chalkites, and, by extension, his Psalter begins with a miniatureemulating his most prominent public act of image veneration. If this reading of the prefaceminiature as a vision of the Chalkites at the Bronze Gates is correct, then all medallion icondepictions in this manuscript acquire greater significance as copies sharing in the Chalkites'stradition, form, and legitimacy. The ideal Byzantine icon emerges as a Chalke icon: amedallion metal relief.Finally, a dominance of relief icons over panel paintings in the ninth and tenth centuries isalso evident in the contemporary function of images. In this period icons were not carried inpublic processions (litaniai), so they were not the focal point of public ceremonies. The smallsize 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 liturgicalprocessions 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. Thesacred figure painted in tempera lacked relief and functioned primarily optically (Fig. 4). Onlythe 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 theWay), exemplifies this development (Fig. 4). Until the late tenth century, the iconographictype without the toponymic name occurred mostly on small luxury relief icons. Once theHodegetria became the focus of a cult and acquired its own weekly liturgical procession, itestablished the first example of a monastery in Constantinople investing its identity in an iconrather than a relic of the Mother of God.53 Consequently, Marian devotion in the Byzantinecapital was shaped through icons and icon processions. These processional icons (laterreferred to as signa) had the effect of shifting the perception of the ideal image in Byzantiumfrom a medallion relief (typos) to a painted panel (signon).Painting as ImprintIn modern Western culture we are predisposed to conceive of painting as the markings of thebrush on a material surface. Traced to its source, this perception derives from the NaturalHistory of Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE). In one of his anecdotes the painter Zeuxis creates avirtuoso mimetic picture of grapes, which deceives the birds. His competitor, Parrhasios, inturn paints a curtain so skillfully that Zeuxis himself is deceived as he attempts to draw thecurtain in order to see the supposed painting behind it.54 The same definition of graphe asthe marks of the brush on a surface creating a mimetic image of the world also obtains in theRenaissance theory of Leon Battista Alberti written in 1436.55 In recent times, ErnstGombrich has offered the best-known discussion of painting as a naturalistic, mimeticpictorial copy of the world.56 Although Norman Bryson and other scholars have challengedhis perceptualist theory, they have not questioned the understanding of painting as a pictorialform of art: brushstrokes on a material surface.57By contrast, in what emerges in the Byzantine theory and practice, painting (graphe) is bestunderstood as imprint (typos and sphragis). The image is not the imitation of form but ratherthe imprint of form. This Eastern perception of painting-and, by extension, the icon-as imprintgives an insight into Byzantine culture. As mentioned earlier, Byzantine mimesis isunderstood 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:impression, imprint and mark, mold, representation, image, exact replica, shape, form, type,pattern, model, example, decree, and, finally, rite. One gradually proceeds from the individualmark to the state, from the private to the public, from the particular to the cultural. Allmeanings are interlinked through the model of the imprint of an intaglio on metal. Just as theicon is an imprint of visible characteristics on matter, so, too, the rite becomes the imprint of aset of gestures and speech acts in time and space. Both icon and ritual present endless

faithful reproduction rather than imitation of form.59 The imprint as a cultural practice ensuresuniformity and secures traditions. Byzantium emerges as the culture of the typos: the imageunderstood as the impression, mold, form, and decree, all authentic and limitlesslyreproducible, linking image production to ritual practices and cultural identity.The coin or seal model ( typos/sphragis) of the icon explains why after Iconoclasm enamelbecame the medium par excellence. It, too, gives theory a palpable shape by displaying theimprint of divine appearance in a material form. The enamel's underlying metal foundation ofcells functions like a negative intaglio. The glass powder poured into this grid becomes theimprint (typos). Once the powder is fired into glass, it acquires mass, giving shape to divineabsence. The congealed glass forms the materiality of the enamel image. As with the relieficon, 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 relief icons displaydivine appearance through textured matter.While enameled relief icons best embody the concept of the icon as imprint, panel paintingcontinued to be produced in the period right after Iconoclasm, as attested by the preservedcollection of icons at St. Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai.60 However, the graphe oftempera could not compete with the perfect reciprocity of theory and production practicessignaled by the metal icon, because the latter displayed in its making the actualmaterialization of the typos. Nor could tempera compare to encaustic, a form of relief thatimparts a vivid sensation of imprint. The surface of the warm wax is pushed, impressed, andincised by the palette knife, "imprinting" a figure in relief.This understanding of graphe as imprint simultaneously engages touch, sight, and sound.Touch, because graphe is the actual physical impression made on a material surface: itleaves a relief, a texture that has tactile presence. Sight and sound, because both are modesof perception of graphe, as both painting and writing, graphe unites image and letter. Just asthe image is an imprint of visible characteristics on matter, so script is the impression/trace ofletters incised, inscribed, imprinted onto a surface (Fig. 21). Only through matter can abstractideas be realized and perceptually accessed. They need to be embodied, incarnated. Grapheas imprint predetermines the importance of the material surface in the Byzantine perceptionof the icon.The Icon's Materiality and the Sense of TouchThe textured surfaces of the Byzantine icon engage the five senses, as demonstrated by thesensual 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 cangrasp him only through the imprint he leaves on matter. For instance, Saint Michael's shrinesat Chonai and Monte S. Gargano are perceived as imprints left by him on the landscape. Achasm (Chonai) and a shrine carved in the rock (S. Gargano), they form giant fossils: contactrelics giving tangibility to the angel's present absence.62 For this reason, the relief icon as atypos becomes the only truthful form of representation for the Archangel. By its definition, it isthe imprint of absence. His enamel icon in S. Marco is even closer to the truth, for it is animprint 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 whenthe city fell to the Crusaders in 1204. Andr Grabar and Michelangelo Muraro havecommented on the "unusual" medium and technique of this icon. Their reaction betrays onceagain our modern preconception that icons should be primarily identified with paintings.63 Asdiscussed earlier, the relief icon of the Archangel might have been more characteristic of theMiddle Byzantine period than wood panels painted with tempera. The S. Marco enamel isone of the few extant examples of this exquisite production. It displays a mastery of metaltechniques (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 ina gesture of intercession. His enormous wings press to the sides (Fig. 15). A subtle tensionemerges between the figure projecting in relief and the sunken central plaque. The faceextends outward the most, yet this projection is immediately checked by the palm turned tothe 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 anaturalistic style.64 Rather than a mimetic figuration of the angel's appearance, the enamelicon of the one who is fire and spirit offers a dissemblant re-presentation of the angel'snature. It is made of glass powder, placed in a metal mold, and fired to a high temperature.As an imprint, the enamel icon responds to the Byzantine definition of an angel'srepresentation: a symbolic impression that allows for the contemplation of higher heavenlyreality beyond matter.65 The enamel icon itself is thus a dissemblant material imprint of theunfigurable created by fire-a dissemblant semblance of the symbolic imprint.The Archangel's nature of fire and spirit is nonmimetically reproduced and hapticly enfiguredon the diverse surfaces of this icon. The ample textures are sensually and sensoriallyavailable to the gaze, touch, and taste. Tactility combats the optical experience. Alois Rieglreferred to the tactile qualities as the true aspect of an object as opposed to the illusiongenerated through the optical frame.66 It is this haptic aspect (relief and textured surfaces)that engages both the Byzantine theory of vision (extramission) and the practical venerationof the icon. The viewer's gaze seeks the tactility of the icon's textures. The active eye sendsoff rays that touch the surfaces of objects. At the same time, the glitter of light emanatingfrom the gold surface visualizes the rays that the "animated" image itself sends off to touchand in a sense capture the viewer. The space between icon and beholder becomes activatedthrough the exchange of gaze and touch.The desire to touch is also expressed in the manner in which a Byzantine icon is expected tobe venerated: aspasmos (kiss) and proskynesis (lighting of candles, making the sign of thecross, 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 breathingand movement, making the wicks tremble. The agitated lights dance off the metalrevetments. This shimmering, glittering effect gives rise to a sense that the image isanimated. The body of the worshiper is thus fully engaged in the spectacle of the icon'sperformance/minwsis.Color and Light and the Sense of SightIn 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 isvisible and vision receives this."68 Looked at in this light, color is an equivalent of form-thecorporeal, material aspect of the image.69 The enamel best exemplifies this materiality ofcolor. It is glass packed in a metal mold. After firing, it becomes a congealed, gemlike mass.Not surprisingly, 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, enameland purple silk were the two most highly valued Byzantine exports.70 A description of onesuch gift, a set of enamel bracelets given by Emperor Michael VII to the Fatimid caliph'smother in the 1070s, reads: "five bracelets inlaid with glass in five colors: deep red, snowwhite, jet black, sky blue, and deep azure. They were fashioned with the best goldsmith'swork. Their inlaid design was of the finest craftsmanship."71 While this text gives us theperspective of the Arab importers rather than the Byzantine exporters, it still attests to thehigh quality and craftsmanship of the Constantinopolitan production.Similarly, in the Byzantine sources, such as the twelfth-century epic Digenis Akritis, enamelsdecorate the borders of luxury clothing, saddles, and armor.72 Being on the fringe of thegarment, these sparkling objects were subject to the most intense movement, where theygave a dynamic coruscating effect. The colored glass mimics the look of gems and is alwaysset into a glittering metal plaque. As such, the medium combines the two most importantelements of the perception of color in Byzantium: form and radiance.Words for color in Byzantium describe the brilliance and light-emitting qualities of asubstance rather than its hue. A characteristic passage in Digenis Akritis relates: "theglittering violets were the color of the sea with its calm ruffled by a light breeze."73 Thesewords do not define the hue, instead conjuring a picture of the shimmer of ruffled water. Thechanging vibrancy denotes the visible characteristics of this surface. Radiance is most highlyvalued. In the same passage the garden is described as gleaming and shining: "a meadowbloomed 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 shimmeringradiance, their colors constantly fluttering and changing. Color becomes the reflected lightfrom 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 andceremony and remained dominant in Byzantine aesthetics.75 Gold and purple continued tobe the two most significant elements in it. Both appear prominently in the celestial andterrestrial 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-Eusebe, Auxerre) and the contemporary depiction of such cloth in the miniature from theHomilies of John Chrysostomos (Bibliothque 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 increase the visibility of the eagle design in theAuxerre fragment. At the same time, the alternation of gold and purple enhance the radianceof the silk. With each step and gesture, the body dressed in the purple silk will animate thefabric, revealing its vibrancy of hues and shimmer. The coruscating effect of purplecomplements the glitter of gold.This fascination with gold can easily be explained by its radiance and glitter, but purple has amore culture-specific meaning in Byzantium.77 Like gold, it has a changing, mutablecharacter that imitates both fire and turbulent waters. The highest-quality dye was derivedfrom the murex, a marine mollusk, and each batch could differ in hue and saturation.78 TheGreek word for purple (porphyreos or pyravges, ... or ...) captures this changing quality.Porphyreos derives from the colors of the heaving, surging waters of a stormy sea or gushingblood, while pyravges expresses the luminous spectacle of fire. Therefore, unlike the limitedEnglish 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 ofporphyreos exemplifies the Byzantine love for glitter and change and makes it a fitting actorin Byzantine mimesis.The affinity between purple and gold is made prominent in the way they are paired on luxuryobjects. Besides silks and imperial accoutrements, enamel icons and liturgical chalices fromthe same period employ the fiery splendor of gold and purple. A late antique sardonyx bowlknown as the chalice of the Patriarchs (in the treasury of S. Marco) is set in a tenth-centuryByzantine gold enamel mount (Figs. 18, 19).80 Depending on the intensity and position oflight, the body of the chalice can glow like burning ambers (Fig. 18) or coagulate into a deepblood color (Fig. 19). Through its changing appearance, it performs divine presence. Forinstance, when empty, its translucent fiery body of sardonyx gives the impression of liveflesh: the body of Christ. When filled with wine, the deepened purple color is overwhelmed bythe dazzle of gold, suggesting the presence of divinity. Finally, as one lifts the cup to drinkthe wine, the diminishing liquid gradually reveals an enamel icon of Christ at the bottom ofthe bowl (Fig. 20).81 As it is consumed, the wine becomes visually equated to the humanbody of Christ. The worshiper is whirled through the many changes of the sardonyx under thespectacle of light and gold, experiencing it as flesh, blood, body, and divinity.The late-tenth-century enamel icon of the Archangel exploits the same shifting fiery vibrancyof the Byzantine porphyreos (Figs. 13-15). The tunic and feathers of the wings play with themutability of Byzantine purple: the deep green of the dalmatica is picked up in the outer rimof the feathers, which are followed in turn by feathers dappled in ruby red and emerald green(Fig. 15). The spectrum of hues is arranged to perform, to act like fire. The enamel could belikened to fossilized tongues of fire contained in a golden armature. The icon is paradoxicallyan iridescent imprint of fire on matter. The asomatos (bodiless) angel, who is fire and spirit, is

reified in enamel and gold. This icon constantly transforms before the viewer as light intomatter, matter into light, the whole dematerialized by the scintillating glitter of gold.The word enameled in Greek, chimevtos (...), derives from chimio (...), "to alloy," yet it couldalso be phonetically linked to chimeo (...), "to freeze."82 According to the latter, the mediumimitates the effect of the shimmering and reflective surface of ice. This appearance isparadoxically achieved through its opposite: fire. Enamel thus presents matter purifiedthrough fire. The S. Marco icon uses a dissemblant substance frozen through fire anddappled in coruscating purple and gold in order to perform the angel's kinetic essence: adynamic, energetic, ever-moving being (...).83The polymorphy of this glittering metal and enamel is also captured in the Greek wordmetallaxo (...), describing metal's reaction to temperature changes.84 Metallon (...) is anotherterm used to designate gems and mosaic cubes, again with the idea of change introduced bythe scintillating quality of light and the transformative nature of metal. The icon of theArchangel exemplifies this polymorphous substance that melts into fire and freezes into glassbefore the gaze.Pikilia (...) as Synesthetic VisionAlthough only a symbolic imprint, dissemblant in both form and essence, the icon of theArchangel enacts presence. Its light-emitting, glimmering, and shimmering surfaces imbuethis icon with life. Through its performance (mimesis) of changing appearances, it conveysthe angel's kinetic essence of fire and spirit. The diversity of textures that appeals to touchalso gives rise to a dynamic polychromacity of matter, surfaces, and shimmering light.85 Thischanging effect of sight and touch is captured in the Greek word pikilia (...), meaning"diversity," an arresting sight of varied and shifting sensual impressions, all gained throughchanging colors, textures, and smells.Pikilia is at the core of both the spectacle (mimesis) of the enamel icon of the Archangel andthe description of the dazzling and fragrant meadow in Digenis Akntis. On the S. Marco icon,this diversity is optically and hapticly configured through the use of gold, enamel, glass (withhues 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, subtlytransmuting under the effect of ambient light. In fact, in one of the catalog descriptions of thisobject, Grabar remarked that the Archangel's image was photographed under enormousdifficulties because of the shimmering multiple reflections of light that constantly changed theexpression of the face.86 This kinetic effect of the Byzantine relief icon defies modernphotography and display and gives rise to the icon's mimesis.A similar synesthetic vision (pikilia) emerges in the ekphraseis of palatial churches, in whosearchitectural 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 istransfixed by the incessant whirl of aesthetic sensations. The spectator is first enchanted bythe diversity of veins in the exterior marble revetment: "Arresting and turning towardsthemselves the spectator's gaze, they make him unwilling to move further in; but taking his fillof 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."88The approach of the interior only escalates the sensory overload. The spectator is stirred bythe diversity of shimmering materials and textures:It is as if one had entered heaven itself with no one barring the way from any side, and wasilluminated by the beauty in all forms shining all around like so many stars, so is one utterlyamazed.... It seems that everything is in ecstatic motion, and the church itself is circlingaround. For the spectator, through his whirling about in all directions and being constantlyastir, which he is forced to experience by the variegated spectacle on all sides, imagines thathis personal condition is transferred to the object.89The rich aesthetic of scintillating gold, mosaic, silver, marble revetments, silks, andgemstones is orchestrated in order to perform before the spectator a reeling vision ofchange. The effect of this vision on the subject causes a reciprocal projection of his or herexperience back onto the object, making it appear animate. The visitor is continuously astir,spinning round in a whirl, sensations that arise from the polymorphous and polychromaticvision (pikilia).Pikilia seduces the moving eye. In trying to grasp the object, the eye, according to theextramission model of vision, moves energetically across the surface, scanning, spinning inan attempt to take in more of the spectacle.90 In a similar way, the agitated spectator of theArchangel icon is dazzled by the diversity of sensations triggered by this object. The whirlingspectacle of this mimesis makes the worshiper reproduce in his/her own excited state thevery essence of the subject depicted in enamel: a living, energized, ceaselessly movingangel. The spectacle of the icon equates the essence of the being depicted to thepsychological state of the subject experiencing the image.These sensations are materially generated. The performance of shimmer and radiance isfulfilled on the surface of the relief icon. The gems and gold enamel mutually reinforce eachother in creating a vision of splendor: photismos, a spectacle of light (Figs. 13, 14). It is in thissplendor that a vision of paradise emerges. It is encoded in the gold repouss and raisedfiligree of the enamel revetments of icons.91 On the Archangel icon they display vegetal andflower motifs. The pearly dot profile of this delicate gold file coruscates, enlivening thebackground and halo of the angel with vibrant glitter (Fig. 14).The sparkling blossoms evoke the evergreen gardens of paradise, for the icon is a materialincarnation of the ineffable paradise. This connection between Edenic gardens and the icon'sdecoration is fully explained in the metric prayers (epigrams) written on the surfaces of someByzantine icons (Fig. 21). They draw attention to the material gifts, silver, gold, pearls, andgemstones, and ask in exchange for these tangible riches to be granted a place of rest in theimagined evergreen gardens of Eden: "give me enjoyment in the verdant radiant green ofdivine delights [... ]."92 The shining gold on the material surface of the icon appears as adissemblant material vision of the verdant paradise and the means through which to imaginethis ineffable place of rest and delight. The same idea is voiced in the fourteenth-centurypoem of Manuel Philes, again written as an epigram for an icon: "I contemplate the GoldenEden 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 connectedthrough brilliance. Gold (chrysos, ...) and green (chloros, ..., but especially chloe, ..., whichmeans "the radiant first green of spring") radiate light. They shimmer and sparkle. Since theByzantines categorized color according to brilliance rather than hue, fresh green (chloe) andgold were for them equivalents. Like the first green of spring that appears in its brightness asgold, or the leaves of the ginkgo tree in autumn, half golden yellow, half vibrant green, thesurface of Byzantine icons stirred the faithful to imagine in the radiance of gold the verdantparadise of divine delights.94 Another enamel icon of the Archangel (also in the treasury ofS. 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 emergesas a vision of paradise.The image of gemstones shimmering on a glittering gold surface appears in many of thetenth-century visions of paradise such as the Life of Basil the Younger (Vita Basilii Iunions).Yet, while the synesthetic vision (pikilia) is materially generated on the icon, the samespectacle is beyond the tangible in the celestial realm. There, color exists without form, asradiant, 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 enumeration, flashing the brightest gleam as if from the sun's rays, andimmaterially, and spiritually flashing inexplicably by the hand of God with many colors as if oflinen-white and divine purple light.''15The floors are of immaterial gleaming gold tiles outlined by ineffable plants. The blossoms ofthese flowers fill the space with an extraordinary perfume:We came to a courtyard, which was wondrous and incomparable. And its floor was flashinglike lightning, adorned with golden tiles, and there was no dirt at all on it, and the air whichwas like lightning illuminated it, and in the joints of those golden tiles there were floweringplants of every sort, fragrant and abounding in fruits, beautifully cultivated, and they weresending forth inexpressible and indescribable pleasure and joy and filling those who sawthem with divine happiness.96The table decked out for the feast, quarried of scintillating emerald, is laid with ruby dishesframed in gold:[The table was] 30 pecheis large, it was beautifully quarried and constructed from emerald,emitting flashing rays, . . . and on this table there were also visible red gemstones lying likedishes set with gold like lightning, which were similar to all the precious stones and gold thatcome from paradise.97The angels appear in scarlet tunics with loroi radiating the colors of paradise. On their headsthey 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 likelightning, and on their heads they were wearing diadems of gold which were exceedinglyglorious and variegated with gems and precious pearls like sunbeams.98

The images that emerge in this vision are polymorphous, changing their shape under flashingiridescence and radiance. About thirty words for light come up in this ekphrasis. They derivefrom light ...; fire ...; ray ...; sun ...; gold ...; lighting ...; and radiance .... Light conveys theineffable essence of souls, buildings, and surfaces in paradise.99 The polymorphous andpolychromatic vision (pikilia) reifies out of light immaterially created.In contrast to this immaterial celestial light, the tenthcentury icon of Michael exploits amaterial splendor of light that is reflected from the metal and glass surfaces-a photismos thatbounces off bodies. Paradise is materially "en-figured" in the Archangel's icon. An imperfectembodiment that evokes the immaterial perfection of heaven (Figs. 1, 13), the icon falls shortof the celestial exactly in its materiality.Although the realm of paradise is ineffable, within the Vita Basilii Iunions, which seeks tomake it tangible, an extraordinary effort is placed on sensual experience. All five senses areengaged in the pikilia. This whirling vision is addressed to the eyes, fingers, ears, mouth, andnose, but the effect is titillatingly invisible to sight, inaudible to hearing, intangible to touch,and beyond taste and smell. A list of words and phrases reveals how this immaterial pikiliaaffects the body: " [visions] inexperienced; noetic; unspoken, inexpressible; unseen;impossible to render in human words; beyond description; beyond human reason and words;immaterial beings that cannot be held by human hands; beauty and pleasure inexpressibleby human voice and inaudible for hearing; richly nuanced taste beyond expression andrecount; fragrance of violets and roses beyond human knowledge and experience; perfumebeyond recount; indescribable sweet fragrance; inexpressible sweetness."100 Thissynesthesis lacks material stimuli. Ineffable, immaterial, inaudible, testing and teasing, thisoverload of sensations gains reality in the way it is so profoundly bodily experienced, yet sobeyond expression and articulation.The Sound of Prayer: The CircuitWhile all five senses are engaged in the pikilia of paradise, this sensorial agitation is createdby ineffable stimuli. By contrast, the icon replicates this experience through material, tangiblemeans. Its lush decoration and epigrams demonstrate a desire to imagine the ineffable. Bothbeing a graphe, letter and image form a prayer. While the image visualizes the performanceof prayer, the epigram reinforces this action by sonorously replicating it. The poeticinscription contributes a visceral, material presence of sound, transforming the icon into asonorous body.101The faithful's needs and wishes for help materialize in the shape of the depicted sacredfigure-in this case, the Archangel (Fig. 13). He is shown raising his hand in a gesture ofintercession. The Archangel not only receives the prayer of the faithful, but with his ownstance and hand movement he replicates the position and action of the supplicant.Simultaneously, the image ensures the continuation of the prayer because the angeltransfers the received request to a higher level and supports it through his own power ofintercession. The icon thus sets up a circle: a mirror reflecting the faithful in their process ofprayer 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 arecord of this perception. In the preface miniature of the Khludov Psalter, sight and sound arelinked (Fig. 12). Music and writing coexist as King David strums the chords on his lyre. Thesound of his tune grows in the accompaniment of the musicians flanking him. Two morefigures appear above the arch. One brings the audience into the space of the open book anddirects 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. Musicvisually emanates from this miniature, associating the act of praying with the sonorous soundof the lyre and the imagined melodious human voice.The image triggers the memory of a performance: a prayer pronounced. The sound of thisperformance, its music, is then linked to the script. The letters on the page then becometransformed from a silent string of characters to a record of a corporeal experience of soundand sight that can be activated the moment the lips begin to pronounce the poem. Themultisensory experience triggered by the performance of the Psalms resembles the sensualexperience of other genres of writing. For instance, in Byzantium, letters were often sent withgifts, so that the sound of reading the letter was linked to the smell and taste of the gifts.102The resulting experience was simultaneously aural, visual, tactile, and olfactory.The link between music and prayer, established through the Davidic Psalms, alsomaterializes in the epigrams of icons (Fig. 21).103 Most of these poems are written in theframe of icons, encircling and customizing the central image to respond to a particularrequest. Even when the panel does not contain an epigram, it does not lose its music, for itcontinues to avail itself of the sound of the faithful praying before it. Poetic inscriptions areperformative; they are prayers meant to be pronounced, similar to high literature inByzantium, which was meant to be read aloud (Fig. 23).104 All epigrams on icons arecomposed of twelve syllables, which means that everyone will uniformly put the stresses atthe same point, and all prayers will create the same sonorous framework. This repetitive,standardized form generates the prayer's performative magic, ensuring its efficacy.Similarly, sound reverberates in the vaulted interiors of Byzantine churches, bouncing off thecurves of arches, domes, and semidomes (Fig. 24). The same perception is found inPhotios's ekphrasis of the Pharos church: "It seems that everything is in ecstatic motion, andthe church itself is circling around."105 Robert Nelson has recently defined the icon's systemof signification as circular and tautological.106 Byzantine architecture exploits the samecircular paradigm insofar as it captures meaning in the confines of the sphere: the arch, thevault, and the dome. These spatial forms continue to express Byzantium's essence as theculture of the imprint, shaping matter by impressing its circular seal of signification.Smell and Taste: The TransformationThe sonorous icon brings the two aspects of graphe, painting and writing, together: grapheas the imprint of form on matter. Figure and letter, one translates into scintillating light, theother into a sound carried in space. And through the voice bearing the melody in space, thesense 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 yoursweet traits like honey, I hear the echo of the musical tones of this wonder."107 Thisconnection between the pleasure of reading/hearing the voice of the writer, drinking, andmusic is a topos in letter writing.108 The oral performance of letters and prayers (epigrams)depends on a multisensory experience.109 In both cases, it tries to reconstitute presence ofan absent entity through sensual stimuli. In the case of letters, this absent referent is thewriter. In the case of prayers, it is the invisible and intangible God. For the Byzantines,empsychos graphe becomes the performative image/writing that stirs the five senses andtriggers synesthesis.A similar synesthetic experience of hearing and taste emerges in the vision of the Vita BasiliiIunions. The souls of the saints are gathered at an Edenic symposium. They pass around aglowing chalice with a nectar of ambrosia. Drinking this divine substance, the face of eachparticipant transforms into the gleam of budding roses:The mixed wine in those immaterial and sun-bright cups was gleaming intensely like burninghot coals, and when someone received in his hands that wondrous and flashing cup, filledwith nectar of ambrosia and brought it near his own mouth to drink, he was filled with thesweetness of the Holy Spirit.. . . His face gleamed and he was more illuminated, like a roseemerging from the calyx.110The synesthetic experience described in Vita Basilii Iunions could also be demonstrated bythe Eucharist cup at S. Marco. It can show how sight, touch, and sound could be linked tosmell and taste (Figs. 18, 19). An inscription is enameled on the golden rim. The lettersimprinted on the metal surface announce: "Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the NewTestament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matt. 26:27-28).111 As thesewords are pronounced and the lips touch the surface of the chalice, the wine fills up themouth. Then words become body. Sounds become taste and smell. The recipient of thewine, agitated in the synesthetic vision (pikilia) of these corporeal sensations, becomestransformed in this climactic moment of the liturgy. The participation in the Eucharistreplicates the metamorphosis described in the vision of Vita Basilii Iunions where the saints'faces alight as they feel the sweetness of the Holy Spirit after imbibing the nectar ofambrosia.In a similar way, the hands touching the icon and the lips kissing its surface link words withtaste. The textures of the icon trigger a synesthesis: sight, touch, hearing, smell, and tasteare engaged simultaneously. This experiential knowledge of God, this intuition of presence isachieved through an almost Eucharistie experience of the icon.An account of such a spectacle of senses is found in the Life of Saint Theodore ofSykeon (d.613) (Vita Theodori Syceotae) .m The saint, frustrated in his attempt to learn all the Psalms,resorts to an icon of Christ. After praying for help, he experiences the taste of honey in hismouth, followed by his miraculous new ability to learn all the Psalms by heart in a matter ofdays:For as the boy got up from the ground and turned to the icon of our Savior in prayer, he felt asweetness more pleasant than honey poured into his mouth. He recognized the grace of

God, partook of the sweetness and gave thanks to Christ, and from that hour on hememorized the psalter easily and quickly and had learnt the whole of it by heart in a fewdays.113According to Paul Speck, the excerpt about the icon that caused the sensation of honey afterthe saint had prayed to it was interpolated in this passage during Iconoclasm: the associationof the icon with psalms and prayer was established during that period.114The panel becomes the channel of direct divine response. The role of the icon is equated tothe effect of prayer. Sacred presence translates into the sensation of honey in the mouth ofthe faithful. Like the Davidic poems, the sonorous icon triggers the sense of taste: thesweetness 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 grantshim or her forgiveness. Similarly, in the climactic moment of the liturgy, the Communion, thesupplicant is exhorted with Psalms 33:8: "taste and see that God is good."115 Taste leads toparticipatory knowledge of God.Saint Theodore of Sykeon participates in the sweetness of God. The verb used, "partake"(metalamvano, ...), is usually associated with the Eucharist.116 It refers to this transformativemoment when the worshiper loses his or her identity, dissolving into the sacred presence andsharing in the sacred essence. The performance of the icon is equated to that of the breadand 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 process of prayer. He orshe then projects this experience (pathema, ...) back onto the icon.Sight and touch, triggered by proskynesis (prostration, veneration, prayer) and aspasmos(kiss) give rise to sound in the enunciation of prayer. Sound in turn precipitates the sensationof taste and smell. The olfactory experience of the icon is more difficult to gauge, yet it islinked to taste and the Eucharistie ritual and stems from the integration of the icon in theliturgical rite. Incense burning accompanies prayer. As Susan Harvey has argued, the smokeof incense provides a visual and olfactory bridge between the human and divine spheres.Like taste, incense affords a participatory, experiential approach to God. Divine knowledgebecomes sensorially apprehended through the body.This sensual aspect of the Byzantine rite is fully integrated in the way the icon operates. Liketaste, smell engages essence, not appearance, and this ensures divine knowledge. Smell isaffective yet intangible. While burning, incense becomes transformed from materialsubstance into smoke: an ineffable yet sensorially present essence. As such, smell becomesa perfect means through which to experience divine presence: intangible yet palpablypresent through the olfactory sense.117Perfumes, incense, and spices traditionally accompanied imperial and liturgicalceremonies.118 It is in such aromatic settings that luxury icons like the enameled panel ofArchangel Michael performed. The sweet smells are part of the synesthetic vision (pikilia),which is addressed to the participant. The Book of Ceremonies reveals many instanceswhere a variety of smells and spices are distributed to the court, or are carried by the crowd,or simply waft in the ceremonial space.119 The most elaborate account appears in the

section on imperial military campaigns. The extensive list of aromatics includes "ointments,various perfumes, mastic, frankincense, sachar, saffron, musk, amber, bitter aloes moist anddry, pure ground cinnamon of first and second quality, cinnamon wood, and otherperfumes."120 This rich assortment served a variety of functions: medicinal, political, evendiplomatic, because some of these rare scents and spices were offered as gifts. Thisfascination with aromatics betrays the sensually rich environment in which both the imperialand liturgical ceremonies were set.Unlike our contemporary olfactory neutrality in regard to power, authority in Byzantium waslinked to aromatic scents.121 The enamel icon at S. Marco with its imperial attire of theArchangel and the court chapel in which it resided likely shared the same aromatized air ofscents, perfumes, incense, and spices (Fig. 13). Power in the Middle Ages manifests itself ina complex synesthetic vision (pikilia) .122These fragrances also enhanced the sensual effect of the panel. Moreover, the elaborategolden filigree and enameled lozenges with flowers conjure an image of the fragrant gardensof the palace and of paradise (Fig. 21). Similarly, the Greek word usually employed todesignate "colors" is flowers (). The polychromatic surface of the enameled icon is, in Greek,"enflowered": virtually filled with the complex perfume of fragrant blossoms. The visual andhaptic aspects of the icon subtly tease out through form and color the memory of aromawafting into space. This perfume, imagined or real, brings to the faithful the scent ofsalvation.123A Circle CompletedAs the worshiper approaches the icon and begins praying, the five senses alight. Thesecorporeal pleasures trigger an intuition of sacred presence. While sight, touch, and soundstem from matter and perform the appearance of the divine, smell and taste engage theessence and make possible a participatory, sensorial experience of the holy. Both taste andsmell are embedded in the liturgy. The icon operates like other liturgical objects, such as theEucharist chalice of the Patriarchs at S. Marco. As wine pours from the cup, sight, touch, andsound transform into smell and taste. Taste itself becomes the seal or affirmation ofparticipatory knowledge of God.124As a result of the performance/mimesis of the icon, this materially triggered synestheticpleasure 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 paradiseand present a prayer. Taste and smell form the answer to this request and provide a prolepticaccess 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 thusresides in the circular dynamic it elicits.125This dynamic begins with the icon's surface, with its concentration of rich materiality-anexcess of materiality that paradoxically reveals a vision of the immaterial. The concept of theicon as surface resembles Martin Heidegger's definition of truth. Starting with the Greek wordalithia or alathia (a-, without, lathia, covering, ...), he argues that truth is the unconcealednessof 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 experienced. Its rich surfaces function as thematerial veil affirming the presence of the intangible underneath. The icon as surfacebecomes the sensual "givenness" of absence. It rises as the saturated phenomenonsynesthetically performing the invisible and intangible to the faithful.127In its original context, the icon's instability, polymorphy of shimmering light, reverberatingsound, and redolent fragrance imbue it with life, making it an empsychos, an "inspirited"image. The Byzantine icon is dependent on a living body in space in order to perform. Theobject reconstitutes itself before the human gaze, touch, hearing, smell, and taste. Thismimesis of surfaces changing by the shifts in ambient light, air, smells, and sounds creates asynesthetic vision (pikilia) that affects the faithful. This performance inundates and saturatesthe human corporeal apprehension. The effect of sight and touch is coupled with hearing andsmell. The last sense to be activated is taste. Through it emerges the climax: themetamorphosis. It is in this crucial moment that the individual, the corporeal, and the tangibledissolve into a spiritual vision of partaking in the sacred. This sensual, physical agitation (...)experienced by the faithful is simultaneously transferred onto the object. The icon becomesan empsychos graphe. From being a mere imprint of visual characteristics, a materiallyreined absence, the performative icon thus stages the most sensually rich experience ofdivine presence.SidebarThe medieval icon was experienced not simply through sight, as in visual studies andmuseums today, but also through touch, sound, smell, and taste. Nor was it static: the iconbecame animated in its interaction with the faithful. Its rich, highly reflective materials andsurface textures, combined with its setting-flickering candles and oil lamps, sounds of musicand prayer, the fragrance of incense, and the approach and breath of the faithful-saturatedthe material and sensorial to excess. It led to a vision that transcended this materiality andgave access to the intangible: a taste of the divine.FootnoteNotesThis article presents an excerpt from my forthcoming book, Sensual Splendor: The Icon inByzantium (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press). Unless otherwiseindicated, translations from the Greek are mine.1. For the definition of icon as a portable devotional object, see Ernst Kitzinger, "The Cult ofIcons in the Age before Iconoclasm," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8 (1954): 83-150; and mostrecently 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.: Ashgate,2005), 3-9. Another, broader definition, which includes representations in all media, fromfrescoes and mosaics to coins, is also current in Byzantine studies. Yet it is problematic, formany of the images included in this definition, especially monumental painting and mosaic,preclude the intimate engagement of proskynesis (reverential bowing) and aspasmos (kiss)that is tied up with the identity of a Byzantine icon. This broader use of the term arose fromOtto Demus'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. LizJames (New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming) .3. Earlier studies on sensual apprehension in medieval art focused on the depiction of thefive senses, such as Carl Nordenfalk, "The Five Senses in Late Medieval and RenaissanceArt," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 48 (1985): 1-22. By contrast, recentwork has drawn attention to the sensual effect of art and architecture: Liz James, "Sense andSensibility in Byzantium," Art History 27, no. 4 (2004): 523-37; and Rico Franses, '"When AllThat Is Gold Does Not Glitter," in Icon and Word: The Power of Images in Byzantium;Studies Presented to Robin Cormack, ed. Anthony Eastmond and Liz James (Aldershot,U.K.: Ashgate, 2003), 13-24. See also the collection of essays I cinque sensi, ed. NatalieBlanchardi, Micrologus, vol. 10 (Florence: Sismel, 2002).4. Dominique D. Poirel, ed., L'abb Suger, le manifeste gothique de Saint-Denis et la pensevictorine (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001); Conrad Rudolph, Artistic Change at St.-Denis: AbbotSuger's Program and the Early Twelfth-Century Controversy over Art (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1990); and Jean-Claude Bonne, "Pense de l'art et pense thologiquedans 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 beaddressed in the future. Robert Nelson's pioneering essay suggests that while bothintromission and extramission were known in Byzantium, extramission appears to be thedominant 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 (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 143-68; and Gervase Mathew, ByzantineAesthetics (London: John Murray, 1963), 29-31. For ancient Greek thought on vision, seeDavid Lindberg, Theories of Vision from Al-Kindi to Kepler (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1976), 1-17.6. Sight as touch resonates with Maurice Merleau-Ponty's ideas expressed in "TheIntertwining-the Chiasm," in Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible (Evanston, Ill.:Northwestern University Press, 1968), 130-55.7. The revetted icon is explored at length in Bissera V. Pentcheva, Sensual Splendor: TheIcon in Byzantium, forthcoming. For preliminary findings, see Pentcheva, "Epigrams onIcons"; and Glenn Peers, Sacred Shock: Framing Visual Experience in Byzantium (UniversityPark: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004), 101-31.8. Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Towards a Phenomenology of Givenness, trans. JeffreyKosky (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002). I thank Robert Harrison for introducing meto this work.9. Only isolated voices have expressed concern about the draining of the icon's meaningwhen subjected to the standard museum display. See Sharon Gerstel, "The Aesthetics ofOrthodox Faith," Art Bulletin 87 (2004): 331-41, esp. 332.

10. For the Byzantine definition of mimesis as performance, see the article by EustratiosPapaioannou 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 embodiment of ideas andthe interaction of viewer and viewed are in Merleau-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. NicolettaMisler (London: Reaktion, 2002), 95-111.13. For an understanding of empsychos graphe as images inhabited by the Holy Spirit or aspictorial equivalents to figures of speech, see Bissera V. Pentcheva, "The Icon of the 'UsualMiracle' 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 ByzantineIconoclasm (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).15. Ibid., 70-81.16. Oskar Wulff, Die Koimesiskirche in Nicaa und ihre Mosaiken (Strassburg: Heitz undMndel, 1903); and Theodor Schmit, Die Koimesis-Kirche von Nikaia: Dos Bauwerk und dieMosaiken (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1927).17. Wulff, Die Koimesiskirche in Nica, 246, 271; and Schmit, Die KoimesisKirche vanNikaia, 39, described the ray as gray (grau and hellgrau). Most likely the tesserae weresilver, still covered in soot and dirt, having lost their luster and shimmer. Only metal couldhave created the glimmer and flicker in the early morning light that would have actualized theprophecy of the mosaic inscription into a visual reality: "I have begotten thee in the wombbefore 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 tesChristianikes 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 Patrologia cursus completus: Series graeca(hereafter, PG), ed. J.-P. Migne, 161 vols. (Paris: Migne, 1857-66), vol. 100, col. 357D: ...21. Theodore of Stoudios, Antirrheticus II, sec. 11, in PG, vol. 99, col. 357D: ...22. For instance, the famous icon of the "usual miracle" at the Blachernai Church of theVirgin in Constantinople was always covered with a silk veil. When on some Fridays the HolySpirit allegedly descended on the image, this veil lifted itself to reveal the animated(empsychos) image of the Virgin beneath. Bissera V. Pentcheva, Icons and Power: TheMother of God in Byzantium (University Park: Pennsylvania State University 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, Securityin Byzantium: Locking, Sealing and Weighing, Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, 2(Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, Trustees for Harvard

University, 1980).24. A. Karakatsanes, ed., Treasures of Mount Athos (Thessaloniki: Organization for theCultural Capital of Europe, 1997), 508, cat. no. 13.1.25. Herbert Kessler, "Configuring the Invisible by Copying the Holy Face," in The Holy Faceand 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'sInvisibility in Medieval Art (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 64-87.26. The way the icon self-consciously draws attention to matter, thus canceling any claims forthe presence of sacred energy (essence), resembles the way images were fashioned anddisplayed in the Latin West before 1140. See Herbert Kessler, "Real Absence: EarlyMedieval Art and the Metamorphosis of Vision," in Morfologie sociali e culturali in Europa fratarda antichit e alto medioevo, 2 vols., Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studisull'Alto Medioevo, 45 (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo, 1998), vol. 2,1157-213, reprinted in Kessler, Spiritual Seeing, 104-48.27. Kessler, Spiritual Seeing. See also idem, Seeing Medieval Art (Toronto: BroadviewPress, 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 CaliforniaPress, 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 theMandylion, mid-tenth century. See Ernst von Dobschutz, Christusbilder: Untersuchungen zurchristlichen 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 Empire 312-1453 (1986; reprint, Toronto: University of TorontoPress, 1993), 87-88. See also S. Xydis, "The Chancel Barrier, Solea, and Ambo of HagiaSophia," Art Bulletin 29 (1947): 1-24.33. Vita Basilii Imperatoris, bk. 5, sec. 83, in Theophanes continualus, ed. Immanuel 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 repouss work andadorned 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 Auzpy, "La destruction de l'icne du Christ de la Chalc de Lon III:Propagande ou ralit," 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 Vestibule of the Imperial Palace of Constantinople(Copenhagen: B. L. Bogtrykkeri, 1959), 108-42.36. Auzpy, "La destruction de l'icne du Christ de la Chalc," 445-92.37. Philip Grierson, Catalogue of Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and inthe Whittemore Collection, 5 vols. (1966; reprint, Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1992),vol. 3, pt. 1, 160-61, 454-55.38. The Greek word chalkeos (?...) does not distinguish between copper and bronze. HenryGeorge 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: Clarendon Press, 1968). See also Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth, eds.,The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), s.v. "bronze."39. Mango, The Brazen House, 108-42, esp. 116.40. The