Organizer and session chair

Is Ornament a Space of Liberty or of the Subordinate? The Case of Cappadocian Frescoes Because of its lack of self-sufficiency, ornament was not considered a work of art in itself, but as an attachment to something that is without decorative appendage. This is also the case in Byzantine art, where scholars did not consider such study of the ornament. For some years now, Istanbul University, Byzantine Art Department, has undertaken a study of the Byzantine decorative repertoire of the paintings and architectural sculpture surviving on Turkish territory. In this context, work is in progress about the inventory and study of Cappadocian church paintings. Here, a rich number of different motifs form a large repertoire of those typically used in other contemporary art objects, such us illuminated manuscripts, metal works, sculpture in stone and ivory. Geometrical, floral, stylized and abstract designs frame figurative scenes or cover all of the surfaces. Some derive from the classical tradition, from late-antique reinterpretation and from new medieval creations. But other motifs – or their derivatives - come from other cultures - Islamic, Caucasian, Sirian - on account of the geographical position of the region as a melting point and crossroad of different civilizations. The aim of this paper is to present an analysis of the development of the ornamental gusto of Cappadocian paintings paying particular attention to characteristics in some later buildings such as the Theodoros Tagark and Saints Stephanos and Mikhail churches in Ürgüp.

Reconsidering Mamluk Textiles and Jewelry: New Questions, New Approaches, New Connections

As “minor arts,” textiles and jewelry have long remained specialized sub-fields of medieval art history. Yet as objects worn on bodies and decorating homes, textiles and jewelry were key components of everyday visual culture in the medieval eastern Mediterranean. Produced in multiple workshops, in substantial quantities, and for a range of communities of different social and religious standing, textiles and jewelry featured motifs commonly encountered in daily life. Although today separated into distinctive scholarly realms, contemporary medieval textual sources like the Cairo Geniza and Byzantine wills make clear that these objects together counted as the most precious possessions of a household. As important aspects of medieval visual culture, close study of their patterns reveals much about period tastes and aesthetics. Because Mamluk textiles and jewelry remain woefully understudied in scholarly literature, they present a particularly fruitful focus of inquiry for considering tastes and aesthetics of ornament in the medieval eastern Mediterranean.  

This paper is structured around three case studies that address broader theoretical questions concerning the circulation of motifs across media, among different social classes, and across cultures in the context of medieval Egypt. I start with precious metal Mamluk jewelry, which demonstrates patterns paralleled in contemporary metalwork, woodcarving, and architectural decoration, to argue that artists drew on a shared ornamental vocabulary when producing elite products. I then move to embroidery samplers, made by women in domestic environments and mirroring many of the same motifs, to suggest the broad appeal of certain ornamental patterns among the wider populace. In my final example, I compare imported Indian resist-dyed and block-printed pieces and contemporary, locally-made Mamluk pieces to show that Egyptian weavers replicated not only foreign motifs, but also particular techniques of manufacture. Taken together, these case studies raise broader questions about aesthetics and tastes for ornament in the medieval eastern Mediterranean, as well as the mechanisms of its exchange.

‘The Emperor ́s New Clothes’ – Ornamented Bodies in Late Byzantium and the Public Eye

The vast genre of ‘ornaments’ is traditionally divided into several groups, dominated by two main classes usually labelled ‘geometric’ and ‘vegetal’. According to common art-historical opinion, ‘language-simulating scripts’ form a special category in this field. Recent scholarship has shown the double nature of such pseudo-scripts. While appearing to be strictly decorative, they also carry semantic values. These are properties that pseudo-scripts share with the group of genuine or ‘authentic’ scripts, executed in an ornamental or ‘calligraphic’ style. On a primary visual level, both groups of ornamental scripts pretend to be purely decorative and not infused with ideological content, but on closer inspection they turn out to convey specific cultural meaning.

My aim is to explore an example of the second group of ornamental scripts. I want to discuss the ‘transcultural’ history of a genuine Arabic inscription, embroidered on a luxury garment which was produced under the Mamluk sultan al_Mu’ayyad Abu al-Nasr Shaykh (r. 1412-1421) in Egypt. The precious garment was presented as a diplomatic gift to the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople at an unknown date – and worn by John VIII Palaeologus on certain occasions during his long stay in the West, while he was moderating the council of Ferrara-Florence in 1437-38. The Renaissance artist Pisanello meticulously recorded the Arabic script decorating the Islamic textile around that time. It appears on one of his study sheets which is kept to this day in the Louvre. The same leaf also contains, on a smaller scale, Pisanello’s portrait studies of emperor John VIII Palaeologus wearing an oriental garment. Scholars have identified this tiraz fabric as the ‘robe of honour’ (khil’a), given as a gift to the Byzantine emperor by the Mamluk sultan.

For Pisanello to be able to copy the Arabic script true to scale, he must have had direct access to the garment, which leads us to the conclusion that the owner of the textile, John VIII Palaeologus, was actively displaying the garment with its Arabic inscription and the rest of the accessories, and allowing it to be visually recorded. It seems to have been his wish that the precise meaning of the calligraphic thuluth inscription be remembered in the West, thus preventing the script’s semantic content from being lost by spectators looking at it simply as an exotic ornament.

Why would the Byzantine emperor consciously use an Arabic inscription, glorifying the Mamluk sultan, to construct his new imperial image in the West? While Rosamond Mack has already suggested possible political reasons for the emperor’s oriental attire at the council of Ferrara-Florence in 1437/38, there may be other, perhaps more urgent, Byzantine cultural concepts behind the emperor’s ‘new clothes’, which I want to present in my talk.

Kufic Script in Late Byzantine Ornamental Sculpture

Pseudo-Kufic ornaments, which had first appeared and flourished in the 10th and 11th centuries, witnessed a new revival in the 13th century and are encountered on numerous works of sculpture, which can be classified under two main groups. The first comprises works in Macedonia and Thessaly and includes the door lintels of the narthex of the Hilandar monastery main church, the pulpits in the cathedrals of Beroia and Ohrid and the sculptures adorning a group of funerary monuments in the region of Mount Pelion; the second group  is located in southern Greece: in Mistra, on the epistyle from Agioi Theodoroi, the lintel of the Pantanassa and the decorative friezes attached to the walls of the Hodegetria church, and in various monuments in Athens and surrounding Attica.

This late phase of Kufic ornament in Byzantine art is understudied compared to the literature on Middle Byzantine pseudo-Kufic, which has focused on famous examples (such as the decoration of the monastery of Hosios Loukas) within the context of Arab-Byzantine relations. Therefore, a fresh analysis and re-evaluation of the later material is crucial for an understanding of the fluid cultural realities that emerged during and after the crusades. This analysis will look at examples from contemporary Islamic contexts, such as Mamluk and Seljuk art in order to describe the various degrees of interaction between the Late Byzantine and the Islamic worlds. What makes this approach even more fascinating is that several examples come from Frankish Southern Greece, where Kufesque decorative themes co-exist with traditional Byzantine ornaments and "Frankish" borrowings.

Besides geographical boundaries, the presentation will also be expanded with a focus on the various media through which Kufesque motifs travelled from Islam to Byzantium and the Latin East. This path will be traced among original works of art from Islamic lands and their dissemination in the Mediterranean, namely textiles, metalwork, ceramics, and objects of everyday use. This approach, which will discuss trade and dissemination of motifs within a wide geographic area, will help grasp the material aspects of cultural interaction. A comparison with Middle Byzantine and earlier Medieval predecessors will shed light on the transformation of older models and the impact of past traditions of interaction between Christian and Islamic art.

Thus, the paper will discuss the ‘migration’ of kufic ornament and its adaptation in Late Byzantium through a complex process of mutual exchange, occasionally through the mediation of what is generally described as “Crusader Art”. Interaction with the art of the Seljuks and the Mamluks will shed light on important aspects of cultural symbiosis within the eastern Mediterranean. Therefore, traditional views that interpret the meeting of different cultures as a story of confrontation and conflict, as well as one of religious battles, will be challenged.

Looking into an Eastern Mediterranean Architect’s Design Portfolio: Brickwork Decorative Elements in Transfer Among Byzantium, Egypt and the Ottomans

Middle and Late Byzantine era architecture developed a specific idiom in wall masonry with the implementation of a variety of stone and brick or all-brick patterns and decorative designs. Ceramoplastic ornamented façades of churches became a canvas on which a variety of ornaments were applied. One of the early and most striking examples were the Pseudo-Kufic freezes of churches of Southern Greece such as the Panagia Church of Osios Lucas dated ca. 962-963. This Kufesque ornament, which lasted up until 13th century, is an apparent example of cultural transfer among Islamic world and Byzantium.

This paper focuses though on a few other brick ornaments such as ‘ivy leaf,’ ‘sun,’ and ogee blind arches that have attracted comparatively less the interest of scholars. Those ornaments either in single occurrence or in combination are met on façades of mosques, churches, fortification walls, dervish convents in a wide geography all around Eastern Mediterranean under the Byzantine and the Islamic cultures of the Fatimids, Ayyubids, Mamluks, and Ottomans. In this context Venice should also be taken into consideration. Cultural transfer through this example of mobility of ornaments apparently is beyond religious limitations. It becomes clear that there is a flexibility in what enters an architect’s or mason’s design portfolio compared to what enters a priest’s bag.

Double-headed Eagles Accompanied by Other Emblems as Ornaments in Works of Late Byzantine Art (End of 13th to Middle 15th Centuries): Some Proposed Limits of Imperial Significance

The byzantine double-headed eagle is a well-studied symbol and is considered by almost all scholars as an imperial emblem of the Palaeologan dynasty. This emblem was also used in the Seljuk court before the middle of 13th c., but the context of this symbolism has nothing to do with Byzantium.  

This paper seeks to put new light in representations of double-headed eagle together with other symbols (lion, winged dragon, fleur de lys, Palaeologan monogram of ΠΑΛΓ, four crossed bars, etc) in objects of minor arts (earrings, rings, elements of decoration of vestments), in costumes of byzantine and oriental origin, in bookbinding, in sculptures (e.g. capital from the basilica of St. Demetrius Thessaloniki).

Some scholars have supported the opinion that the above-mentioned symbols just form part of a byzantine “limited” “heraldic” repertoire. Yet, it seems that Byzantium never used the science of Heraldry in the “Western” sense of the term. As a result, byzantine “heraldic” figures or animals are not used within crests of badges, but only accompanying them, or above them, as are the cases of the seals of the last Despots of Mistra.

In this paper I discuss the above-mentioned symbols, as well as their interpretation in some combinations (e.g. double-headed eagle with lions, double-headed eagle with dragons) and the fusion in iconography of elements of different origin (double-headed eagle, fleur de lys). It is noteworthy that certain combinations of these symbols are not at all “heraldic” (e.g. the struggle of double-headed with two dragons in the sculpture of Anna Maliassene, Pelion) and have nothing to do with byzantine art, but they derived from oriental models.