Contesting the Logic of Painting: Art and Understanding in Eleventh-Century Byzantium (2) (Visualising the Middle Ages)

Studies of the icon in Byzantium have tended to focus on the iconoclastic era of the eighth- and ninth-centuries. This study shows that discussion of the icon was far from settled by this lengthy dispute. While the theory of the icon in Byzantium was governed by a logical understanding that had limited painting to the visible alone, the four authors addressed in this book struggled with this constraint. Symeon the New Theologian, driven by a desire for divine vision, chose, effectively, to disregard the icon. Michael Psellos used a profound neoplatonism to examine the relationship between an icon and miracles. Eustratios of Nicaea followed the logic of painting to the point at which he could clarify a distinction between painting from theology. Leo of Chalcedon attempted to describe a formal presence in the divine portrait of Christ. All told, these authors open perspectives on the icon that enrich and expand our own modernist understanding of this crucial medium. Contents 8 List of Illustrations 10 Foreword 12 Acknowledgements 16 List of Abbreviations 18 Chapter One The Synodikon of Orthodoxy and the Ground of Painting 20 Chapter Two Symeon the New Theologian: Seeing Beyond Painting 42 Chapter Three Michael Psellos: Seeing Through Painting 80 Chapter Four Eustratios of Nicaea and the Constraints of Theology 118 Chapter Five Leo of Chalcedon, Euthymios Zigabenos and the Return to the Past 150 Afterword 178 Bibliography 184 Index 196 Illustrations 202 Drawing on a range of philosophical and theological writings produced in eleventh-century Byzantium, this book offers a reading of the icon and Byzantine aesthetics that not only expands our understanding of these topics but challenges our assumptions about the work of art itself.