Byzantine Icons in Byzantine Life

3 units

The contemporary eye commonly sees the Byzantine icon as a static and unreal image of foreboding religiosity. But Byzantines saw their icons as full of life and believed these objects provided access to the divine figures pictured there within. Produced before the modern phenomenon of the display object, Byzantine icons were touched, kissed, held, and even eaten, all in an effort to gain assistance from the holy persons they represented. This course introduces the history of Byzantine icons, addressing their function in religious and secular life of the private and the public realms. It focuses on the anthropology of the icon, examining ways in which these objects were used in personal and public rituals and how these works of art reflected shifts in Byzantine religious doctrine and social ideology. Beginning with the emergence of icons in the first centuries of Christianity, we follow their zenith in popularity through pilgrimage and monastic cults of the sixth and seventh centuries. We then consider the period of Iconoclasm (720s-840s), and its effects on the production, alteration, and function of images in Byzantium. The post-Iconoclastic reintroduction of religious imagery is examined with particular attention to the role of miraculous icons in the promotion of imperial and civic authority and the function of monumental and portable images in the middle Byzantine liturgy. Tracing the trajectory of Byzantine icons into the late Byzantine and modern eras, we address parallels and differences in the use and ideology of images in Byzantium and western medieval Europe; the contribution of Byzantine icons and image theory to the development of Renaissance art; and the possible impact of the Byzantine icon on modern artists, including the Impressionists, the Bloomsbury Group, and Andy Warhol.