Middle Byzantine Aesthetics Of Power And The Incomparability Of Islamic Art: The Architectural Ekphraseis Of Nikolaos Mesarites
The Palace Revolt of John Komnenos by Nikolaos Mesarites, an author of the middle Byzantine period , contains a passage that briefly describes an Islamic-style building, the Mouchroutas, which was part of the imperial palace complex in Constantinoples. Scholars typically treat the passage as a descriptive document upon which to base hypothetical reconstructions of the Mouchroutas. While the archaeological potentials of the ekphrasis are unusually rich, a focus on these aspects of the text has obscured other possible interpretations, in particular its significance as a record of the Byzantine reception of Islamic art. The building marks an intriguing instance of artistic emulation in the midst of a predominantly adversarial political relationship. The kiosk tiles are executed in mināʾī, a highly refined overglaze technique of polychrome painting more commonly found in ceramic vessels. Keywords: Byzantine aesthetics; ekphrasis; Islamic art; John Komnenos; Mouchroutas; Nikolaos Mesarites
Edinburgh Research Explorer Brick Muqarnas on Rum Saljuq buildings
Although the majority of architectural muqarnas compositions constructed during the R ū m Saljuq period in Anatolia are in stone, there is a small and poorly understood corpus of brick muqarnas to be found in central and eastern Anatolia. This paper focuses on the earliest examples, dating from the last quarter of the sixth / twelfth century to the end of the first quarter of the seventh/ thirteenth century. The aim is to document the surviving examples as well as trace their connection to each other and their Iranian ante-cedents. The corpus of brick muqarnas is spread across an array of structural types, including minarets, tombs, a palace and a hospital. The use of brick muqarnas can be seen on both brick and
The Exaltation of David
T here is perhaps no other single Byzantine illuminated manuscript which has caught the imagination of scholars, and has been the object of so many controversies, as the tenthcentury psalter in Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, grec 139. The various opinions have recently been ably and fairly summarized by Kurt Weitzmann.1 Nothing is further from the mind of this writer than to re-open the debate. The object of this note is to re-examine one point only, and to introduce one new fact which has so far not received attention. One of the problems once so extensively discussed was the role of the manuscript as a key document of the Macedonian Renaissance, and its evaluation as an original work and the fountain-head of a whole group of psalters of later date. Gabriel Millet considered it 'l'ancetre de toute une famille' and 'l'oeuvre maitresse dont tout depend'.2 Kurt Weitzmann, on the other hand, argued that it was not the first psalter to be recast in the spirit of the Renaissance but a copy, incomplete in many details.3 It is Weitzmann's point of view which is now almost generally accepted. At the same time, it is evident that the Paris manuscript cannot be dated much later than its presumptive archetype; and that it does reflect to an amazing extent the working habits of the imperial scriptorium-the palace school, to borrow a term commonly employed in the case of Carolingian manuscripts4-which flourished under the active patronage and personal supervision of the scholar and connoisseur on the throne, Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, who died in 959. The main facts are these. There can be no doubt about the very high quality and accomplishment of the script of the text;5 the manuscript itself may well be the product of an imperial scriptorium. As some of its illuminated ornament has very close though perhaps slightly later parallels in a Moscow codex dated 975,6 a date just after the middle, and in any case during the third quarter of the tenth century, need not be doubted. But the miniatures were not produced for the manuscript in which they are now contained; they were originally intended for a slightly bigger volume, and had to be cut down round the lateral edges, in some cases not without some loss of their broad ornamental frames.7 Thus, text and pictures do not necessarily go together. The miniatures are at present each on its own separate folio, some with stubs, others merely pasted in. It is true that there is no reason to assume that they were done at different dates or places. But it must also be said that they are anything but uniform in style and quality. Three and even five different hands have been proposed;8 and two pictures9 are of such abysmally low quality that they cannot by any stretch of the imagination be connected with imperial patronage, even though they reveal themselves at first glance as inferior copies of excellent models. Finally, the present set of fourteen miniatures is not complete; some of the odes are not illustrated at all, and one or two pictures may be inserted in the wrong places-though it is difficult to be positive about this as the cycle in its present form does not represent a standard set. All these shortcomings do not prima facie argue for a de-luxe illustration produced under the trained and watchful eyes of a discriminating imperial patron. In other words, the miniatures are at best copies, in some cases almost caricatures, of models which may indeed have been of imperial scope and quality. In a few instances it is possible to be quite specific. Some pictures are extremely close to those of the so-called 'Leo' Bible,10 similarly pretentious