Wonderful Things: Byzantium Through its Art

Antony Eastmond and Liz James, eds.

Ashgate, 328 pp., hb., £65   ISBN 978-1-4094-5514-1

These are collected papers from the 2009 Spring Symposium of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies which was framed around the ‘Byzantium’ exhibition at the Royal Academy, 2008-9, and include work by some scholars who contributed to the volume of essays plus catalogue accompanying that exhibition.  ‘Wonderful Things’ (the title has been ‘lifted’ from Howard Carter) has three sections:  behind-the-scenes perspectives of the exhibition, studies of specific objects grouped by medium and discussions of Byzantium as see through its art.

I was keenly interested in the first two papers, by Robin Cormack and Maria Vassilaki who were the principal organisers of the exhibition, hoping they might shed light on the most extraordinary feature of that show, which was a black hole where Istanbul/Constantinople should have been. Hagia Sophia itself, the primary monument of Byzantium, was represented only by nineteenth century lithographs and a solitary great chandelier contributed by the lighting designer. However, these essays repeat the bland account that the Academy could not afford the expensive loan conditions imposed by the Turks and do not explain the overwhelming dominance of items from the Benaki Museum in Athens.

The papers on ivories and icons in the second part of the book are valuable, if very specific, studies, particularly Eileen Rubery’s minutely detailed comparison of the ‘Empress’ ivory in Vienna  with another in the Bargello which was not shown in London.  Art historians may find particular interest in Elena D-Vasilescu’s contribution which greatly expands the original catalogue information on  the striking ‘Celestial Ladder’ icon from Sinai, relating it to other ‘ladder’ paintings and to a monastic text, while Georgi  Parpulov gives extensive information on the Sinai depictions of Moses and Elijah.

The third section includes papers with a wider scope, albeit still with a specifically material focus, such as that of Anna Muthesius on textiles, a subject greatly under-represented in the exhibition volume. Anthony Cutler’s ‘The Idea of Likeness in Byzantium’ opens  out into a well-illustrated discussion of notions of portraiture,  especially useful as the exhibition was noteworthy  for  its lack of  emperor representations (an empress was represented) except on coins.  Cutler also introduces the notion of realism in other medieval cultures, including a Muslim tradition set within the context of diplomatic exchange, a valuably expanding the original limited focus, as is the paper by Rowena Loverance. She has an interesting comparison between a 1958 exhibition held in Edinburgh and at the V&A with the recent Royal Academy show and notes the omission from the Academy exhibition of  any evidence for the often-fruitful  relationship between Byzantium and Islam (the more recent  ‘Byzantium and Islam’ at the Metropolitan Museum made little contribution in this respect),  helpfully pointing to some pieces which could have demonstrated this cultural interchange.

A final contribution by Averil Cameron, which originally formed the opening paper of the symposium, unobjectionably concludes that  “art, archaeology and ‘texts’ (literary, documentary and epigraphic) are not separate spheres … .  She also raises the more profound point of whether Byzantine art can be reduced to the realm of material culture. This is a thorny question, the answer to which must surely ultimately depend on broad issues such as the reaction of the viewer and his or her beliefs on the nature of art. In general, however, this is a volume for those who inspect  the objects of Byzantium in microscopic detail. Non-specialists can save their solidi.