It’s the sort of rescue that Indiana Jones could have made, but instead it was the intrepid art collector Dominique de Menil, who along with her husband John founded Houston’s Menil Collection. In 1983, Mrs. de Menil learned of the sale of two thirteenth-century Byzantine frescoes—or rather the 38 fragments left after Turkish looters chiseled them from the walls of an Orthodox chapel in Lysi, Cyprus. She alerted the church authorities in Cyprus and offered them more than $500,000 in exchange for the restoration of the frescoes and long-term loan. The frescoes were restored and have been on display in the Menil’s Byzantine Chapel since 1997. In February 2012, the frescoes return Cyprus to be exhibited in the Byzantine Museum in capital city of Nicosia. The frescoes will not be returning to Lysi because Turkey still occupies that area.
Conceived as a chapel museum to “to restore the sacred fragments to their original spiritual function,” the stone and concrete chapel was designed by architect François de Menil, Mrs. de Menil’s son. It is an exceptional space. Intimate in scale with indirect natural light and simple wooden benches, the chapel reflects the original spiritual context of the frescoes while drawing attention to their delicate position in the parlous world of religion and politics. Menil director Josef Helfenstein has stated that the chapel will be repurposed, but no plans have yet been released.
The frescoes hang in a cocoon of translucent glass, a setting that replicates the dome and apse of the original chapel. The Byzantine idea of a domed chapel combined the Roman taste for circular mausoleums with the early Christian cruciform basilica. Byzantine architects ensured their place in history by perfecting this model of a dome resting on pendentives. The most well-known example is Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, originally called Constantinople when it was the capital of the Byzantine empire. Even the modest chapel of Lysi follows this form.
The apse fresco shows the Virgin Mary flanked by archangels Gabriel and Michael, her hands raised in an invitation for intercession. The archangels were each present at an important event in Mary’s life. Gabriel announced to Mary that she had found favor with God and would give birth to a son conceived by the Holy Spirit. Saint Michael the archangel was said to have uncovered the Madonna’s tomb so that her soul could be reunited with her body and carried up to heaven in what is known as The Assumption of the Virgin. The Lysi Virgin wears the blue gown that is her traditional color along with a royal purple cloak—a double assertion of her place in celestial hierarchy. A medallion of the Christ child on her breast calls to mind the Immaculate Conception. Her sensitive features and feminine demeanor impart a sense of both Mary’s humanity and her queenly nature.
The dome fresco of Christ Pantokrator, or Christ Almighty, is ringed by 12 angels who seem to be asking “Men of Galilee, why stand you gazing up into the heavens?” (Acts 1:11). Characteristically, the Pantokrator’s right hand is raised in benediction and his left holds a jewel-encrusted Bible. The rendering of this monumental figure of Christ is quintessentially Byzantine. His expression is forbiddingly stern with strongly delineated features and a down-turned mouth. His rich garments in gold and blue are outlined in heavy black with the mannered flatness of drapery common to this period. The haloed angels surround the central figure in graceful attitudes against a brilliant Mediterranean blue background (in richer churches, this blue was ground lapis lazuli).
The figure of Christ as Pantokrator became one of the dominant images of the Almighty following the end of the Iconoclasm Controversy in 843. After more than a century of debate about Christian iconography and church decoration, Byzantine artists settled into certain forms of representation that have come to exemplify that period’s style—an almost abstract decorative style with an emphasis on formalism and linearity. Illustrated books, metalwork, ivory carvings, and mosaics (especially those of Ravenna) reached exquisite heights of artistry during this period. The artists of the Lysi Christ also followed Byzantine iconography by including a Bible with a hammered gold and jeweled cover in order to make clear the connection between Scriptures and art.
© Leann Davis Alspaugh. All rights reserved. Photography: Menil Collection, Byzantine Chapel exterior by Hester + Hardaway; interior by Paul Warchol; Christ Pantokrator and Virgin Mary with archangels, Hester + Hardaway, The Menil Collection.
Impressive blog! -Arron
Posted by: rc helicopter | December 21, 2011 at 07:52 AM