Antique Statuary and the Byzantine Beholder

Memory Tattered and Torn: Spolia in the Heartland of Byzantine Hellenism

“…This was most forcefully argued by Mango in 1963 and was followed (with much textual reinforcement intended to shed light on the arrangement of sculptures at the Little Metropolis) by Maguire in 1994. The theory holds that the average Byzantine viewer largely distrusted, if not feared, ancient statuary.…”

“…Such a dim view cannot help but color modern interpretations and may be partly responsible for the overwhelming tendency to think of immured spolia in terms of firmly imbedded "superstitions" (Maguire 1994;Mango 1963) rather than the potentially nuanced "memories" of those who built and regarded these monuments.…”

Substitution by Image: The Very Idea

“…If one were to explain the discrepancy while holding on to the assumption that Byzantine icons served as portrayals, one would either have to deny that Photios is talking about the same icon we see today (for example, Grabar , 496–497; Oikonomidès ) or bite the bullet and declare the discrepancy only apparent because the intended audience of the images was trained to “see more than was actually there” (Onians , 15). However, neither explanation is particularly convincing: archaeological analysis suggests that the icon Photios eulogized is identical with the surviving apse mosaic (Mango and Hawkins , 142–144); besides, it is generally recognized that the typically florid Byzantine ekphrasis did not match the austere and schematic content of the icons (Mango ; Onians ; Brubaker ). And the idea that a large community of beholders can be trained to have pictorial experiences of features that go beyond what the image “actually” shows is confusing, if not confused: it suggests a collective perceptual hallucination.…”

The Christian Reception of Sculpture in Late Antiquity and the Historical Reception of Late Antique Christian Sculpture

“…Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 6/21/15 10:15 PM 18 First discussed by Mango (1963) 65-67, who provides textual sources of ekphrases that described Byzantine art as naturalistic, but offered the assessment that it was likely due to their by qualitative judgments about what constitutes naturalism, or likeness. Only as reception theory has grown more important in the minds of scholars has it become evident that the very notion of abstraction is at odds with contemporary perceptions of their art.…”

“…Chapter 4. 20 Mango (1963) Davis 47). Since Symmachus held the office in the early 6th century, this would be a late instance of Christian statuary, though it is possible that these were not made new, but refurbished.…”