DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55208#0037
- Startseite des Bandes
- Alle zugehörigen Werke
- Bibliographische Information
- Frühchristliche und byzantinische Kunst
28 THE DEESIS PANEL OF THE SOUTH GALLERY
to the end of the series, probably to the last years of the eleventh century or to
the first half of the twelfth.
THE FACES
The unsymmetrical face of Christ, seen full but with the right half broader
than the left, must be examined in an historical survey of the Deesis. It is clear
that such an absence of symmetry has its rise in the pictures of Christ turning
His head in a Hellenistic three-quarters gaze, as in the Roman catacombs [74]
and in the Church of Santa Pudenziana in Rome [75]. Medieval painters, with
their inborn predilection for frontality, prefer to represent Christ full-faced
[76]. Nevertheless, the foreshortening of one of the eyes, of one of the cheeks,
and of a part of the hair is sometimes observed bringing in a rather unexpected
asymmetry to the image.
One of the earliest instances of this lack of symmetry known to us is in the
Zoe Panel, dated in its present state to the year 1042. The same features distin-
guish several Russian icons of the fifteenth century, of which two are attributed
with all reason to the illustrious brush of Andrej Rublev [77]. Thus the face
of Christ of the Deesis Panel is to be considered in a large chronological frame
encompassing a period from the end of the Macedonian Dynasty to the last of
the Palaeologoi.
The fourteenth century mosaics in the Church of Our Saviour in Chora
[Kahriye-Cami] present an actual iconographic consanguinity with the earlier
Christ of Haghia Sophia [78]. There is to be observed not only a like con-
struction of the face, but similar features in a final iconic phase.
Yet the treatment of an image so similar is in each case quite different. The
face of Christ is every man’s face. The solemnity of Christ differs in each age
in accepted and sanctified reason. The spontaneous scale painting of the mosaics
of Haghia Sophia gives place in the Church of the Chora to a dry intellectual
conventional use of colours filling a purely linear diagram. The Deesis of
Haghia Sophia is an architectural mosaic wall painting, whereas the mosaics of
the Chora are enlarged miniatures, albeit once mosaics and now again mosaics
transferred from the leaves of an open book. In the same city we have one of
the earliest appearances known to us of an iconographic type in full effulgence
as well as its late schematized imitation.
The Theotokos of the Deesis Panel belongs in her features to the twelfth
century. Similar thin elongated oval face and slightly arched nose mark the
countenance of the Mother of God in the Panel of John II [79]. A formal
to the end of the series, probably to the last years of the eleventh century or to
the first half of the twelfth.
THE FACES
The unsymmetrical face of Christ, seen full but with the right half broader
than the left, must be examined in an historical survey of the Deesis. It is clear
that such an absence of symmetry has its rise in the pictures of Christ turning
His head in a Hellenistic three-quarters gaze, as in the Roman catacombs [74]
and in the Church of Santa Pudenziana in Rome [75]. Medieval painters, with
their inborn predilection for frontality, prefer to represent Christ full-faced
[76]. Nevertheless, the foreshortening of one of the eyes, of one of the cheeks,
and of a part of the hair is sometimes observed bringing in a rather unexpected
asymmetry to the image.
One of the earliest instances of this lack of symmetry known to us is in the
Zoe Panel, dated in its present state to the year 1042. The same features distin-
guish several Russian icons of the fifteenth century, of which two are attributed
with all reason to the illustrious brush of Andrej Rublev [77]. Thus the face
of Christ of the Deesis Panel is to be considered in a large chronological frame
encompassing a period from the end of the Macedonian Dynasty to the last of
the Palaeologoi.
The fourteenth century mosaics in the Church of Our Saviour in Chora
[Kahriye-Cami] present an actual iconographic consanguinity with the earlier
Christ of Haghia Sophia [78]. There is to be observed not only a like con-
struction of the face, but similar features in a final iconic phase.
Yet the treatment of an image so similar is in each case quite different. The
face of Christ is every man’s face. The solemnity of Christ differs in each age
in accepted and sanctified reason. The spontaneous scale painting of the mosaics
of Haghia Sophia gives place in the Church of the Chora to a dry intellectual
conventional use of colours filling a purely linear diagram. The Deesis of
Haghia Sophia is an architectural mosaic wall painting, whereas the mosaics of
the Chora are enlarged miniatures, albeit once mosaics and now again mosaics
transferred from the leaves of an open book. In the same city we have one of
the earliest appearances known to us of an iconographic type in full effulgence
as well as its late schematized imitation.
The Theotokos of the Deesis Panel belongs in her features to the twelfth
century. Similar thin elongated oval face and slightly arched nose mark the
countenance of the Mother of God in the Panel of John II [79]. A formal