All language subtitles for Art of Eternity [2of3] [The Glory of Byzantium]

SHIP'S HORN

The very first art historian

Giorgio Vasari gave the art of
the Byzantine east a lousy press.

It was crude, unsophisticated,

primitive and I sometimes wonder

although he wrote 500 years ago,

I wonder if we haven't taken him
too much at his word.

I've never seen a TV programme
about the art of the Byzantium.

The subject is abbreviated
to a few simplifications

in most histories of world art

and yet the art
that was produced in the East

was amongst the most vibrant,
colourful and energetic

that the world's ever seen.

I want to explore that tradition,

to tell its story,
and it's a story that begins here,

in a city called Istanbul

that was once called Constantinople.

This modern, chaotic port city

was once the centre of a dynasty

so powerful it seemed immune
to change and decay,

but nothing lasts forever

and the story of how a once great
Christian empire grew and spread,

how it reached its zenith,
faded and died,

all that is reflected
in the radiant,

shape shifting forms of its art.

It was Emperor Constantine,
the earliest Christian emperor,

who first came here in 324 AD,

when this place was known
as Byzantium.

Strategically situated on the banks
of the Bosphorus,

the city straddles Europe and Asia.

Emperor Constantine changed
its name to Constantinople.

In this mosaic of the 6th century,

he's seen offering
the new capital to God,

and by the same token seeking God's
protection for his new empire

in the East.

The 1,000 year period that followed
would be known as the Byzantine era,

with Constantinople its centre
of political and cultural thought.

As well as establishing
a whole new Roman headquarters,

Constantine brought with him the
new religion known as Christianity.

The marriage between Christianity
and the folk of the Byzantine world

would create some outstanding works
of art and architecture,

buildings and images designed to
convince those who experienced them

that the Christian faith was
the one true path to salvation.

It's an irony of fate

and history that many great
churches such as the Hagia Sophia

were later transformed into mosques.

But their origins
are very definitely Christian.

There's no greater monument to
the might and splendour of the
glorious Byzantine civilisation

than this great cathedral,
Hagia Sophia.

Walking in is a sense stunning
experience,

this great dome raised up above you
into the vault of heaven.

Almost as extraordinary as the sheer
physical presence of the place

is the fact that it was all built
in just five years.

In the past, this place was the most
prestigious of the Byzantine empire

and the centre of what came to be
known as Orthodox Christianity.

This building dates
from the early 6th century

and is a testament to one
of the most important figures
of the Byzantine empire -

Emperor Justinian I.

His rule coincided
with what might be described

as the golden age of Byzantium,

a time of unparalleled
peace and prosperity

which made possible the very
creation of the Hagia Sophia.

The original scheme was very simple
on the evidence of what survived -

basic crosses
and almost nothing figurative.

Whether this was a planned effect
of sobriety and restraint,

or merely a way of getting
the building finished on time,

we'll never know.

What is certain

is that the building of the
Hagia Sophia changed the course
of world architecture.

Its massive dome seemingly
suspended in mid air

appears to defy gravity,

having no obvious means of support.

The dome of this building

is 32 metres across.

We do, of course, have the dome
of the Pantheon in Rome

which is larger, but this is
a much more daring architectural
construction.

I was thinking about that,
wondering what someone from Rome
would think coming here.

They would have had the Pantheon
in their mind.

What I assume
would have struck them

is yes, there's a dome as big as
the Pantheon's dome

but it's been sort
of vertically propelled

and it's surrounded by this other
huge architectural fabric.

Absolutely, and if you think about
the Pantheon in particular

the dome is supported
on a continuous wall,

on a drum. Here, we've got something
quite different.

When you go into the church,
it's very difficult to see

just how the dome is supported,

because everything
is veiled behind colonnade,

so the main piers don't stand out

when you're looking at the interior.

That's a very interesting point.

Do you think it might have struck
your ordinary Byzantine bloke

as a kind of feat of divine,
miraculous engineering

as visible, tangible evidence that
this guy must have God on his side,

otherwise how could he float
something like that?

I'm sure. Yes, I'm sure.
In Byzantine imperial philosophy,

the emperor was God's representative
on earth.

By building a cathedral like this
on such a massive scale,

Justinian was making the point

that his power was supported

by God.

The church of the Hagia Sophia
is an architectural marvel

that became THE great church
of the Byzantine empire,

which at the time
of Emperor Justinian I

stretched from modern-day Turkey
in the east

to Spain in the west.

The work created in Constantinople

was the alpha and omega
of Byzantine art,

but tragically, many
of its very earliest masterpieces

have been lost.

For centuries, the traditions
forged in Constantinople

shaped European art.

You can see the extent
of its impact

in the satellite cities
of the empire.

GREEK ORTHODOX CHORAL SINGING

One of the key Byzantine centres
was Thessaloniki

in modern-day northern Greece,

Nestling beside the sea
in a natural harbour,

it was a crucial outpost
of the empire.

A thriving port today,

as it was
in the 5th and 6th centuries,

its prosperity was built
on maritime trade.

Such was its strategic importance,

Emperor Constantine
almost chose it

as his first city
over Constantinople.

He was probably right not to

as this was a city
under constant threat of invasion,

but it's the fact that it was
almost under permanent siege

that lends the art
that developed here its
particularly intense quality.

This part of town is built up now,
a honeycomb of streets and houses,

but 1,500 years ago, these were
fields perched above the city

and standing alone
at the summit of the hill

was a monastery dedicated
to Saint David.

Inside is the church
of Osios David

which contains
a stunning 6th century mosaic

in near pristine condition,

a fascinating glimpse of the forces
shaping Christian art

in the early Byzantine world.

It's a work of art
that shows us very clearly,

how strong the Greco-Roman
tradition, the Hellenistic

tradition of culture and art
was in this city,

but it doesn't really look like
a Byzantine mosaic.

One thinks of Byzantium as having
lots of gold and glitter.

The colours are very low,
these beautiful muted blues,

reds and greens, and the modelling
of the figures is very sculptural

and if you look at that
central figure of Christ,

you can really sense the way
in which the artist

is taking the powers
of the old gods,

the pagan gods and giving them
to the new Christian god.

The subject's taken
from the Book of Revelation.

It's the vision of Ezekiel.
You can see Ezekiel

on the left-hand side,
this urgent crouching figure

with his hand to his ear,
experiencing this great vision

of Christ and we see him
surrounded by the attributes
of his evangelists.

There's Mark the lion,

Matthew the angel,

John the eagle,

and Luke the ox.

It was actually quite a new subject
for an artist to be taking on

in the Byzantine empire
in the 6th century because

the Book of Revelations had only
relatively recently been accepted
into the canon of Christian text.

But the message of the image
was unambiguous.

The end of the world is nigh.

Pray and repent. Get your
spiritual house in order

or you won't be saved.

Now, this image acquired
even more potency

later in the city's history

because by the 9th century,

this monastery was in a relative
state of disrepair

and the image had long been covered
over and forgotten about.

Now, the story goes that
an old monk was in here one day
sheltering from a storm,

when suddenly, an earthquake struck.

There was a shattering noise
behind him.

All the covering fell away,

and this image suddenly appeared.

The monk was so devastated
that he actually died on the spot.

As a result of this act
of divine intervention,

this place became
a site of pilgrimage.

Thousands would come here
to look at this image

which they believed had actually
been created by God Himself

in the belief that they might
almost touch divinity

by looking at it.

CHORAL SINGING

The character who came to dominate
the imagination of Thessalonians

in the Byzantine era, perhaps
even more than Christ himself,

was their Patron Saint -

the spiritual protector,
Saint Demetrios,

as can be seen in the church
dedicated to him.

The church dates back
to the 5th century,

and although it was extensively
renovated following a fire in 1917,

some of the 6th and 7th century
mosaics that can still be seen here

are among the best surviving
examples of early Byzantine art.

What's most interesting about them
is the emphasis

they place on Demetrios himself.

A warrior saint whose life and
legends are enshrouded in myth,

but who came to seem as present and
actual as a real father or brother

to the people who lived here.

In Byzantine culture,
the emperor himself

was so closely associated
with Jesus,

but the people at large
didn't feel they had the right
to approach Christ directly.

Their emperor was the only mortal
with a direct hotline to God.

So they had to approach
a figure rather lower down

the divine hierarchy.

And in Thessaloniki,

that was Saint Demetrios.

They prayed to him in the hope that
he'd pass the message upstairs,

and their wishes would be granted -

a pattern of belief touchingly
reflected in this image

of him sheltering the children
of the city.

These mosaics show the devotion of
Byzantine communities

to their chosen saints.

And because Thessaloniki
was so regularly besieged,

this was a city that needed
a never-ending supply of miracles.

Reading through annals of the city,
it seems

that Saint Demetrios was forever
saving the people of Thessaloniki
from one disaster or another.

In times of plague, they'd pray
to him and be miraculously cured.

Or if the city was being invaded,
he'd come to there aid.

On one occasion, the Slavs
attacked by knights

and suddenly, this
church burst into flames,
waking up all the people.

They put out the fire, realised
they were being attacked, and
repelled the invaders.

Once again, Saint Demetrios
had come to their aid.

But my favourite story concerns
a particularly mischievous
deacon called Onesiphorus

who was in the habit of sneaking
into the sacristy at night,

and stealing the candles, which were
worth a lot of money in those days.

Then one night, while he was
about this dastardly deed,

the voice of Saint Demetrios
boomed out,

"Onesiphorus, you're at it again!"

The moral of the story being,

as ever, that Saint Demetrios
has his eye on you

at all times.

And this is where
Saint Demetrios lies.

Local people come each day
to worship in the shrine

that is said to contain his body
and to ask for their prayers

to be answered.

Thessalonians still
look to Saint Demetrios

for their health, protection
and spiritual well-being.

Even today, a high percentage
of boys born in the city

are christened Demetrios.

Thessaloniki's
geographical position

made is vulnerable to
attacks by land or sea.

But another of the Byzantine
empire's great centres

proved to be a more
robust stronghold.

However, even here,
the tensions of the time

are subtly reflected in
the character of its art.

For 200 years,
the Italian town of Ravenna

was the capital of the western
half of the Byzantine empire.

From the year 479,

one of the Germanic tribes, the
Ostrogoths, controlled the town

until Justinian I recaptured
it for the empire in 540.

In Ravenna's great monuments,

we can sense the pendulums swings
of Byzantine art as a whole -

an art born out of struggle
and suffering,

but also capable of
unparalleled magnificence.

San Apollinare-Nouvo is famous for
its great frieze of mosaic imagery,

a grand procession of Christian
martyrs bearing palms.

They seem to step in slow march
around the walls of the church.

The procession culminates on
the northern side of the church

with this wonderfully vivid
representation of the three magi -

the wise men from the East,

fantastically dressed
and offering their gifts

to the infant Christ,

just as the martyrs who accompany
them have offered to God

the gift of their lives.

For all the splendour
of the decoration,

you can feel that
what lies behind it

is a very strong sense
of the human cost

of defending and sustaining
Christianity -

a faith that's implied here steeped
in the blood of its martyrs,

encircled by enemies on all sides.

I love the stark simplicity
of the basilica church.

It's almost just a light box
for the shimmering message

of the mosaics.

San Apollinare-Nouvo

is one of no fewer than eight
World Heritage sites in Ravenna.

Most magnificent of all is
the church of San Vitale,

its greatest treasure
being the cycle of mosaics
in the apse of its church.

Here, we'll see not a Christian art
of supplication as at Thessaloniki,

nor a Christian art of martyrdom
as at San Apollinare.

Instead, we'll see
a resoundingly confident
assertion of imperial might

confident that God is on its side.

It's a great mosaic decoration
which shows us Justinian himself

surrounded by his retinue
and opposite him,

his empress with her ladies
of the court.

Above them, Christ is seated
on a great globe.

Now, all of this was created
nearly 1,500 years ago

by a team of artists from the East,

and it took them 20 years
to complete.

For my money, it represents
the absolute high watermark

of Christian art in the early
Byzantine period.

But to really appreciate
how extraordinary it is,

you need to get up close
and personal.

CHORAL SINGING

You enter the space through
an arch containing the image of
Christ and his disciples

and here in the presbytery, we have
a series of Biblical scenes

that establish the two themes of
this great chapel

which are the theme
of making an offering

and the theme of receiving
divine wisdom from God himself.

Here we have Abel and
Melchisedec making a sacrifice.

On the other side, it's the story
of Abraham and Isaac.

Both stories involve making
an offering, which after all,

this whole church is,
that's what it does.

It makes an offering to God.

Now, you have to imagine
a kind of invisible membrane

separating the presbytery
from the apse

because suddenly if you move
from those scenes

to these scenes which contain
the kingdom of Heaven

paradise itself,

with depictions of the empress here
and the emperor here,

you are actually moving...
I'm stepping literally
from the realm of the world,

of the mundane, of the finite,

into a space that represents
the infinite.

And all the materials in this part
of the mosaic decoration

are suddenly different,
much more gold, mother-of-pearl,

silver, these extraordinary
representations of the emperor,

seen with his great general
Belisarius,

who would re-conquer the empire
under his command.

He's facing the empress Theodora.

What's fascinating about her is
that she has sewn into her cloak,

an image of the three magi,
the Three Wise Men,

processing towards Christ.

What's that's expressing
is the idea that these courtiers,

the elite of the Byzantine world,

they are another set of magi
processing towards God.

They are in direct touch
with divinity.

That's why they are allowed to have
their representations in this space.

Quite apart from anything else,
these two panels on either side

are really the only surviving
portraits, and they are portraits,

that we have of the Byzantine
imperial court in the time
of Justinian.

What's wonderful about this
is the sheer actuality of it.

It's a Byzantine 6th century
fashion parade.

They're dressed up
to the nines.

They've got the Byzantine
equivalent of bling in the form
of bracelets

that look almost like gold
Rolex watches.

And yet there's also
a tremendous solemnity

because these are images
of the emperor and the empress
transfigured.

What these images predict
is their future.

They will be absorbed into paradise,
into the kingdom of Heaven.

They will sit in majesty with
the greatest emperor of them all,
Christ.

In these extraordinary colours,
these colours like fire,

we have a great offering,

a great kind of fire
of colour and images

perpetually burning
to the glory of God.

And it's a fire that's been lit by
the emperor and the empress

and it continues burning
to this day

bringing good fortune onto
the people of Ravenna

and by extension, the people of
the whole Eastern empire.

I met an art historian who spent
her life studying these mosaics,

but who still can't fully explain
their magic.

The centuries after Justinian
and Theodora's golden age,

were marked by war
and internal strife.

In 751, Ravenna was seized
by Lombard invaders
from Northern Italy.

This coincided with a huge
theological split

over the production
of religious images

known in the Church as
the "iconoclast controversy".

Those who believed it was right to
depict God, Jesus and the saints

clashed with those
who considered it heresy.

These iconoclasts considered
the second commandment

"Thou shalt not bow down
and worship any graven image",

to be sacrosanct.

The struggle was violent
and destructive.

All over the empire, precious works
of art were obliterated.

The controversy lasted for
120 years

until it was finally resolved
in 843

when the empire authorised
the use and production

of icons once and for all.

The decision to allow religious art

is commemorated in a special
service in the Orthodox church

on the first Sunday in Lent.

Having won the battle,
the supporters of icons
in the Christian East,

embraced art.

Icons were placed at
the very centre of Orthodox
Christian worship.

And everywhere, churches decked
themselves with ever more
conspicuous displays

of religious imagery.

The victory of the icons allowed
painting and mosaic

to flourish once again

often at the most remote edges
of the empire.

Some of the best surviving examples
of this new wave of Byzantine art

can be found in the monasteries
of Greece.

Monastic life was an important
aspect of the Byzantine world.

The monks enjoyed the patronage
of wealthy Christians

and used the money to create rich
works of art

dedicated to the glory of God.

Clinging to the steep slopes of
Mount Helikon in the southwestern
corner of Greece,

is the ancient monastery
of Hosios Loukas,

one of the most important Byzantine
monuments

built in the years after the defeat
of the iconoclasts.

In the Byzantine scheme of things,

while the emperor was Christ's

representative on Earth,

the monks were every bit as
important because they lived the
life of Christ on Earth.

It was their job through their
prayers, their acts and their works

to create a kind of
spiritual ladder

by which all might ascend
to salvation.

If you want to see what that could
mean in practice,

this is the place to come.

The church of Hosios Loukas
is a compression chamber

of spiritual aspiration.

It's a grand space,

but the eye is always drawn upwards

to a multitude of scenes created in
the glittering tessera

of the mosaic makers' art.

I think what's really striking
about the style of these mosaics

is their austerity and solemnity.

But what's also fascinating about
the faces of these prophets

and saints and angels,

is that all the figures have
these wide, staring eyes,

as if they are literally more open
than the rest of us

to the light of God.

To me it suggests the idea
almost of ecstasy,

that state of spiritual
contemplation

where you literally feel as if
you are outside your body.

The names of those who created
these 10th and 11th century images

are lost in the past.

Sadly because there are lots
of brilliantly fresh touches
of invention here.

Look at the way Christ's baptism
has been depicted,

how the water's been rendered
as a series of circular rivulets

that ripple and coil around
the body of Christ.

For the thousand years
following their creation,

the mosaics of Hosios Loukas
have been cared for and revered
by generation

after generation of monks.

SINGING

TRANSLATION:

Yet in the West, there's been
a deep-seated prejudice,

even contempt, for this art,

starting with Giorgio Vasari,
but by no means stopping with him.

The French Enlightenment writer
Voltaire summed up the whole history

of Byzantine civilisation

in two sentences...

"This worthless history is full
of nothing but declamations

"and miracles. It is a disgrace
to the human mind."

But if he could have come here,

he might just have changed his mind.

This monastery is on top
of a mountain,

and when we look at these fantastic
mosaics, we really are seeing

the summit of the Byzantine art
of mosaic, I think.

They're absolutely wonderful.

The figures are created in this
very austere style -

austere, severe,

geometrical,

reticent...

and yet they're full of these sort
of flashes of passion

and engagement

with the emotional reality
of the story.

There's Christ washing the feet of
his disciples. And in the figures
of those disciples,

which are wonderfully actual and
vivid - they have the same faces you
might see of people in the street

in Athens today - you can see

their mixture of humility and almost
shame that he should be doing this
for them.

I think this Crucifixion scene
is also...

extremely impressive
and very moving,

despite the very severe, upright,
geometrical character
of the figures.

It seems to me to be almost MORE
moving than much later Crucifixions
in Western art,

where Mary and John are twisted
into an agony

of sorrow.

Because they seem to be sort of
holding their emotions back,

those emotions seem
all the stronger.

That figure of the crucified Christ
is extraordinary, that bent body

and blood pouring from hands
and feet. I think this image

of St Peter...

St Peter, the rock on which Christ
built his church...

his robes have been formed into this
extraordinary...crystalline,

geometrical pattern.

He's a human monument. It's an
extraordinary, beautiful figure.

But for me, the whole spirit
of this place

is summed up by this great...

Christ pantocrator over the door.

And unlike a lot of other Christs,

who very much give you the feeling
that Big Brother is watching you,

this figure seems very benign.

And with brilliant ingenuity,
the artist

has shaped Christ's body

over the door, as if to suggest
that his body would continue down

and BE the door,
so that you enter...

you enter this sacred space

through Christ's body,

as you find your salvation through
his worship. I think it's
just a beautiful idea.

One enduring enigma of Byzantine art

is its apparent lack
of spatial depth.

It's hard to believe

that the artists who created
such powerful and complex imagery

didn't know exactly
what they were doing.

But there was something about their
use of space that I was finding it
hard to put my finger on.

To get a better understanding of the
subtleties of Byzantine artistic
technique,

I thought it might be helpful to
talk to a modern-day living and
breathing painter of icons.

There are over 2,000 iconographers,
as they're called, in Greece,

many living and working
in the monasteries,

but by far the majority
are here in Athens.

And over 80% of their work is
for the Greek Orthodox Church.

'Giorgos Kordis is one of the
biggest names in icon painting.

'He's been working
with these images for 20 years

'and recently accepted the
commission to paint an entire
Orthodox church in Beirut

'with frescos.'

Is it important...? I mean,
I assume it's important
you are a believer,

that you are a Christian... Yes.
..to make this art?

Yes, I think that's...important.

Pretty basic requirement?
Yes, of course.

OK. Otherwise, it's going to be very,
very difficult

to paint things that you don't
believe in.

Are there days

in your life where you...

as it were, just feel like you just
don't have the right spiritual
energy

to make an icon, so you don't paint?
Um...

yes, sometimes...

..I can't paint, so I don't do it.

'I told Giorgos that on my journeys
so far,

'I'd met people who'd described the
images portrayed in Byzantine art

'as having a mystical sense
of reality.

'Both Cetti and Ravenna
and Father Mantzouranis

'in Hosios Loukas refer
to the icons as being alive.'

An icon...

is living when it has rhythm

and when it communicates
with the spectator

through rhythm,

cos this is the most important thing.

So you use the word rhythm a lot...

Yeah.

Is it possible for you to explain
it to me?

I'm not sure I quite understand
what you mean by it.

Um...yeah.

Probably it's better
to draw you something

in order to show you what exactly
I mean.

This is the Byzantine art
perspective.

If we want to draw a house...

..we have to draw it in this way.

You see? Mm-hm.

The back side goes up,

and the front side down.

And the same thing happens here.

See?

Back...it's going up.

And the other goes down.

So...this figure

comes to us.

It moves towards here.

The perspective brings this figure
to us.

So we have two dynamics,
two different dynamics.

And in this way,

we create rhythm.

You see? Rhythm is the balance
between these two dynamics.

So, in a sense, the image is...

drawing out a cone... Exactly.
..into the world. Exactly.

And I almost enter the space...the
space of the image comes out.

The pictorial space is in front
of the icon.

And the spectator enters

the pictorial space.

And the spectator becomes
part of the icon.

Now, that's massively different
from the Italian Renaissance...

It's the opposite. ..type of
pictorial space. It's the opposite.
Exactly the opposite.

So, in the Renaissance,
the painting is a window... Yes.

..and I want to go through there...
Yes.

..whereas the Byzantine...

And what, so to speak,
what is the...

what's the point? Why...why?

That's a good question.

Why? Because, in Byzantine
tradition...

which is very...

influenced by Orthodox theology,

knowledge is participation.

If you want to know God,

you have to participate in God.

So, if we want to know this iconic
reality,

we have to have a kind of
participation

in this reality.

That's why, when we...

paint a church, we have to create
this kind of communion

between the icons

and the spectators.

Listening to Giorgos, I really did
feel that the penny had finally
dropped.

It's not that this art
doesn't have perspective,

but that it uses perspective
in a different way.

I'd responded to Byzantine art
instinctively.

But while I'd been walking around
and looking at it,

I hadn't quite realised the extent
to which it had been choreographing
my movement,

making me stand in a particular
space

within the cones shaped
by its lines of force

emerging from the images.

I realised I had literally
as well as emotionally

been moved by this art.

98% of the people of Greece are
Orthodox Christians.

They take the art and the religion
that's central to their faith
very seriously.

Most families create dedicated
shrines

full of images that can encompass
photographs, postcards,

even outright kitsch.

Iconic art's part of the everyday
lived experience here.

For the Orthodox Church icons are
fundamental to the faith.

Can you tell me a little bit about
the importance of icons, paintings,
mosaics, to the Orthodox Church?

Well, one the most important
qualities of an icon

is to help you pray. All right?

And this has to do with the artistic
style of the icon.

With the fact that the icon is a
representation of the kingdom of God.

To give an example, a Byzantine icon
is filled with light.

There is no single source of light,
there is no shadow.

It's the light of the grace of God.

All this affects the soul
of the viewer and um...

it gives him something of the peace,
the joy, the serenity
and the calmness

that is characteristic of Christian
life and of the kingdom.

SHE PRAYS

CONGREGATION SINGS

The icon is not venerated in
and for itself.

The icon also always points towards
a certain person

and the person's venerated through
the icon.

Icons support prayer, and of course,

people have some needs and they pray
for them

and they somehow relate with
the saint through the icon.

SACRED SINGING

Within the Greek Orthodox faith,
icons cement the connection between
saints and the people.

It's a process that begins
very early in life

When we baptise a child we give him
or her the name of a saint

partly in order to establish
a relationship between this child
and the saint

so the saint may act
as a kind of a role model

to inspire the baptised person
to follow in his steps.

The saint followed in the steps
of Jesus Christ

and Christians feel that they have
a certain connection with the saint

whose name they bear as well as with
many other saints.

Greece still remains a Christian
country and people feel very much

attached to the saints.

And the saints, for them,
are not figures of the past,

they are living realities.

When Orthodox Christians go in
Western churches

what they say is that they find them
very cold,

whereas they find our own churches
spiritually warm

with all the icons around, all this
decoration, all this representation

of the visual representation
of the kingdom of God.
It gives us strength to keep going.

The special significance of the icon
within the Greek tradition

can be traced back to the very
origins of the Orthodox Church.

It was effectively created in 1054

when the Pope in Rome sent three
cardinals to Constantinople,

where they delivered a document
severing all links

between the Byzantine east
and the church of Rome.

This became known as
the Great Schism.

In truth, east and west had been
becoming strangers to one another
for a long period of time.

A key issue was the role
of the Pope

whose universal supremacy the
Byzantines refused to acknowledge

150 years after the Great Schism,
the forces would clash head-on.

In April 1204, Crusaders en-route
to the Holy Land

diverted to Constantinople.

After a three-day rampage, they took
control of the city.

For the first time the Byzantines
had yielded to invasion.

It was an event of such magnitude

that it's been drawn and painted by
artists down the centuries.

A contemporary account describes
the blood-curdling events.

'In the streets, in the temples,

'weeping, lamentations,
the groaning of men,

'the shrieks of women, wounds, rape,
captivity.

'The sacred altar formed of all
kinds of precious materials

'and admired by the whole world
was broken into bits

'and distributed among
the soldiers.'

With Constantinople now in the hands
of the West,

the Byzantine empire was doomed

to a slow, lingering process of
disintegration and decline.

But the people of the city were
determined to regain control

of their beloved capital

and restore some of the empire's
earlier greatness.

In 1261, after more than
half a century of occupation

by Western Christian forces,

the city was once more restored
as the Byzantine capital.

It was an event that would herald
the beginning

of a last great artistic resurgence.

And its centre was once more
the Hagia Sophia.

To mark the re-taking of the city
and the reclaiming of the cathedral,

a great series of mosaics was
commissioned from the empire's
leading craftsmen.

And if you want to have a sense of
just how sophisticated,

beautiful, subtle mosaic art
could be in Constantinople

in the second half of
the 13th Century,

there's no better place to be
than here.

This mosaic is called the Deesis.

It's one of the true masterpieces
of Byzantine art.

It shows the figures of the Virgin
Mary and St John the Baptist

pleading with Christ
for the salvation of Man.

It's typical of the final flowering
of Byzantine art

that followed the restoration
of the empire in 1261.

It's hard to believe that this
degree of subtlety of modelling

can be achieved in mosaic.

These faces look forward to
the pinnacle of Renaissance art

which was indeed hugely influenced

by this earlier
Byzantine renaissance.

Although the composition of the
image and the poses of the figures

are reflections of medieval
Byzantine tradition,

its psychological
and emotional realism is quite new.

With hindsight, it's easy
to see all kinds of things in art
that simply aren't there,

but I wonder if there isn't some
portent of the end of empire,

the end that was to come, in the sad
and solemn eyes of these figures.

And they're just a fraction
of what was once here.

In looking at the modern fabric
of the building,

occasionally you come across
these little windows, so to speak,

that have been cut
into its mosaic past,

revealing these beautiful fragments.

It leaves you with a strange sense
of not just how much has been lost,

but how much
might still lie beneath.

By far the most complete example
of late Byzantine art

can be seen in one of the last
buildings of the Byzantine empire -

the Chora monastery.

It once stood on the very outskirts
of Constantinople,

but today it's been swallowed up
by modern Istanbul.

The Church of the Chora is one of
the real jewels of Constantinople

because it represents
almost the only surviving example

of the late style of Byzantine art
in the city.

This extraordinary mosaic cycle

was created in the second decade
of the 14th century,

and it shows scenes from the life
of the Virgin and the life of Jesus.

If you look at the style of these
mosaics, they're a world away

from the statuesque,
solemn monumentality

of earlier Byzantine art.

Suddenly, there's this tremendous
emphasis on action, emotion,

far more figures in the scenes.

Over there we see the rarely
depicted Miracle of the Woman
with the Issue of Blood,

and she flings herself
at Christ's feet

with this extraordinary
sort of energy in her pose.

We just haven't seen this before
in Byzantine mosaics.

Over there, there's
a very strong emphasis here

on Christ and his miracles.

He's healing a blind man,

healing a dumb man,
healing a leper.

The emphasis is very strongly
on salvation.

I wonder if this urgency,
this emphasis on salvation

isn't partly to be explained
by this scene here,

because it introduces us
to the man who paid for all this.

His name was Theodore Metochites,

and here he is, on his knees,
offering this splendidly
remodelled church

to Jesus Christ himself.

Now Theodore Metochites was a man
with a distinctly dodgy reputation.

Some even referred to him
as the emperor's evil genius,

and he was renowned for fleecing the
poor to line the imperial coffers.

I wonder if paying for this
splendidly remodelled church

with its mosaics wasn't his way
of putting some of that money back,

of offering it to God
in the hope of saving his own soul.

But the Chora's masterpiece is
in the inner sanctum of the church.

This space is Metochites's
own funerary chapel,

and he had it decorated,
interestingly enough,

in the much poorer medium
of painting.

We don't know why that was so -

could it be that he deliberately
chose it as an act of humility,

or did he simply run out of money?

Once again,
we see scenes from the Bible,

figures of saints, prophets
and angels, all in paint,

but this time there's much less
to detain the eye in these scenes.

All the emphasis
is towards this end,

and towards this extraordinary image
of the Anastasis,

the Harrowing of Hell.

It's full of an energy
that we've really never seen
in Byzantine art before.

Look at that central figure
of Christ.

Whereas before drapery
might seem almost like
a form of abstract geometry,

here you really feel that
there's a body inside that drapery,

pulling its folds apart

as Christ,
with great physical urgency,

pulls Adam and Eve,
the forebears of all mankind,

from their tombs.

It's the Resurrection.
He's pulling them into eternity,

pulling them into salvation.

And salvation is what this space
is all about because salvation
is what Metochites dreamed of.

What I really love in this picture
as well,

is this fantastic detail

that Christ is harrowing Hell,

what he's done is he's broken
the Gates of Hell,

and you can see all this
bric-a-brac, this debris,

this locksmithery. Those are all the
locks that were used to fasten Hell,

but he's broken Hell open
and there we see...almost...

It's quite hard to make out,

but it's the figure of Satan
trampled beneath Christ's feet.

It's a profoundly powerful,
energetic image

of salvation.

And I think it's not hard to
imagine Metochites contemplating it

very much with his own salvation
in mind.

Another thing that's interesting
about this space and this story

is that Metochites's life
did not end up being
entirely a bed of roses.

In the 1320s he was ousted
from the imperial household
during a palace coup,

he lost all his money,
all his power, all his privileges,

and he ended up dying here,
as a monk.

A simple monk in the monastery
church that he'd so richly endowed.

And I don't think, perhaps, that
by the time he did reach his end,

he cared too much about the loss
of all his power and privileges,

because his mind was not on the
here and now. It was on eternity,

on the image embodied
in that extraordinary picture.

Now, this is actually the last
great work of Byzantine art

in Constantinople,

so it's not just one man's
last memorial, last monument.

It's also the swan song
of an entire empire.

The works of the Chora

were indeed the final flourish
of a dying civilisation.

The mighty capital of Constantinople

finally fell to Turkish invaders
in 1453.

Christian art and architecture
continued to exist
under the new Ottoman empire

but over the years
the Christian artistic landscape

gradually changed
into an Islamic one.

Cathedrals became mosques
and minarets rose into the sky.

Mosaics were plastered over
or whitewashed.

Works of art that had survived since
the time of Emperor Constantine

were gradually erased
from the new Ottoman capital.

And yet. The Byzantine art tradition

might have been battled
by centuries of turmoil,

religious conflict,
imperial decline,

but it still survives in a multitude
of powerfully direct images,

forms, and above all, faces,

so intensely eloquent they still
seem on the point of speech.

One last thought - unlike virtually
every other school of Christian art,

the art that began in the Byzantine
East, here in Constantinople,

is still alive and thriving.

Not bad for a supposedly
primitive tradition.

CHORAL SINGING

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 2007

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