Byzantine Art Quotes

Getting dressed for a woman is an art form, surreal, vaguely abstract, figurative and byzantine. When you undress a woman you enter her subconscious kingdom, her scents, her secrets and her fantasy.

...the Byzantine style, which so few care for to-day, but which moves me because these tall, emaciated angels and saints seem to have less relation to the world about us than to an abstract pattern of flowing lines that suggest an imagination absorbed in the contemplation of Eternity.

Across the broken apses and shattered naves of a hundred ruined Byzantine churches, the same smooth, cold, neo-classical faces of the saints and apostles stare down like a gallery of deaf mutes; and through this thundering silence the everyday reality of life in the Byzantine provinces remains persistently difficult to visualise. The sacred and aristocratic nature of Byzantine art means that we have very little idea of what the early Byzantine peasant or shopkeeper looked like; we have even less idea of what he thought, what he longed for, what he loved or what he hated. Yet through the pages of The Spiritual Meadow one can come closer to the ordinary Byzantine than is possible through virtually any other single source. Dalrymple, William (2012-06-21). From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium (Text Only) (Kindle Location 248). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition.

If the European grows accustomed not to rule, a generation and a half will be sufficient to bring the old continent, and the whole world along with it, into mortal inertia, intellectual sterility, universal barbarism. It is only the illusion of rule, and the discipline of responsibility which it entails, that can keep Western minds in tension. Science, art, technique, and all the rest live on the tonic atmosphere created by the consciousness of authority. If this is lacking, the European will gradually become degraded. Minds will no longer have the radical faith in themselves which impels them, energetic, daring, tenacious, towards the capture of great new ideas in every order of life. The European will inevitably become a day-to-day man. Incapable of creative, specialized effort, he will always be falling back on yesterday, on custom, on routine. He will turn into a commonplace, conventional, empty creature, like the Greeks of the decadence and those of the Byzantine epoch.

Sylvia Plath's greatest poetry was sometimes conceived while she was baking bread, she was such a perfectionist and ultimately such a fool. The trouble is, of course, that the role of the goddess, the role of the glory and the grandeur of the female in the universe exists in the fantasy of the male artist and no woman can ever draw it to her heart for comfort, but the role of menial, unfortunately, is real and that she knows because she tastes it everyday. So the barbaric yawp of utter adoration for the power and the glory and the grandeur of the female in the universe is uttered at the expense of the particular living woman every time. And because we can be neither one nor the other with any piece of mind, because we are unfortunately improper goddesses and unwilling menials, there is a battle waged between us. And after all, in the description of this battle, maybe I find the justification of my idea that the achievement of the male artistic ego is at my expense for I find that the battle is dearer to him than the peace would ever be. The eternal battle with women, he boasts, sharpens our resistance, develops our strength, enlarges the scope of our cultural achievements. So is the scope after all worth it? Again, the same question, just as if we were talking of the income of a thousand families for a whole year. You see, I strongly suspect that when this revolution takes place, art will no longer be distinguished by its rarity, or its expense, or its inaccessibility, or the extraordinary way which in it is marketed, it will be the prerogative of all of us and we will do it as those artists did whom Freud understood not at all, the artists who made the Cathedral of Chartres or the mosaics of Byzantine, the artist who had no ego and no name.

Ben developed a similarly Byzantine system for memorizing binary digits, which enables him to convert any ten-digit-long string of ones and zeros into a unique image. That’s 210, or 1,024, images set aside for binaries. When he sees 1101001001, he immediately sees it as a single chunk, an image of a card game. When he sees 0111011010, he instantaneously conjures up an image of a cinema. In international memory competitions, mental athletes are given sheets of 1,200 binary digits, thirty to a row, forty rows to a page. Ben turns each row of thirty digits into a single image. The number 110110100000111011010001011010, for example, is a muscleman putting a fish in a tin. At the time, Ben held the world record for having learned 3,705 random ones and zeroes in half an hour.

Belisarius had developed a new-style tactical instrument with which he knew that he might count on beating much superior numbers, provided that he could induce his opponents to attack him under conditions that suited his tactics. For that purpose his lack of numbers, when not too marked, was an asset, especially when coupled with an audaciously direct strategic offensive. His strategy was thus more psychological than logistical. He knew how to provoke the barbarian armies of the West into indulging their natural instinct for direct assault; with the more subtle and skillful Persians he was able at first to take advantage of their feeling of superiority to the Byzantines, and later, when they learnt respect for him, he exploited their wariness as a means of outmanoeuvring them psychologically. He was a master of the art of converting his weakness into strength; and the opponent's strength into a weakness. His tactics, too, had the essential characteristic of the indirect approach-that of getting the opponent off balance, so that a joint becomes exposed and can be dislocated.

There is nothing in the Quran or early Muslim religious literature to suggest an iconoclastic attitude. Grabar has argued that Muslim calligraphy and vegetal arts were most likely a pragmatic adaptation to the need for a new imperial-Islamic emblem distinct from the Byzantine and Sasanian portraits of emperors. The use of vegetal designs and writing was prior to any religious theory about them. Once adopted, they became the norm for Islamic public art. Theories about Islamic iconoclasm were developed later.

Toutefois, l'architecture musulmane connaît également un plan concentrique, celui du mausolée recouvert d'une coupole. Le prototype de ce plan se retrouve aussi bien dans l'art byzantin comme dans l'art asiatique, où il symbolise l'union du ciel et de la terre, le soubassement recangulaire correspondant à la terre et la coupole sphérique au ciel.

Throughout the Middle Ages, Jews had no part in the culture of Christian countries, and were too severely persecuted to be able to make contributions to civilization, beyond supplying capital for the building of cathedrals and such enterprises. It was only among the Mohammedans, at that period, that Jews were treated humanely, and were able to pursue philosophy and enlightened speculation. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Mohammedans were more civilized and more humane than the Christians. Christians persecuted Jews, especially at times of religious excitement; the Crusades were associated with appalling pogroms. In Mohammedan countries, on the contrary, Jews at most times were not in any way ill treated. Especially in Moorish Spain, they contributed to learning; Maimonides (1135–1204), who was born at Cordova, is regarded by some as the source of much of Spinoza’s philosophy.Mohammedan civilization in its great days was admirable in the arts and in many technical ways, but it showed no capacity for independent speculation in theoretical matters. Its importance, which must not be under-rated, is as a transmitter. Between ancient and modern European civilization, the dark ages intervened. The Mohammedans and the Byzantines, while lacking the intellectual energy required for innovation, preserved the apparatus of civilization—education, books, and learned leisure. Both stimulated the West when it emerged from barbarism—the Mohammedans chiefly in the thirteenth century, the Byzantines chiefly in the fifteenth.

Throughout the Middle Ages, Jews had no part in the culture of Christian countries, and were too severely persecuted to be able to make contributions to civilization, beyond supplying capital for the building of cathedrals and such enterprises. It was only among the Mohammedans, at that period, that Jews were treated humanely, and were able to pursue philosophy and enlightened speculation. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Mohammedans were more civilized and more humane than the Christians. Christians persecuted Jews, especially at times of religious excitement; the Crusades were associated with appalling pogroms. In Mohammedan countries, on the contrary, Jews at most times were not in any way ill treated. Especially in Moorish Spain, they contributed to learning; Maimonides (1135–1204), who was born at Cordova, is regarded by some as the source of much of Spinoza’s philosophy. (..) Mohammedan civilization in its great days was admirable in the arts and in many technical ways, but it showed no capacity for independent speculation in theoretical matters. Its importance, which must not be under-rated, is as a transmitter. Between ancient and modern European civilization, the dark ages intervened. The Mohammedans and the Byzantines, while lacking the intellectual energy required for innovation, preserved the apparatus of civilization—education, books, and learned leisure. Both stimulated the West when it emerged from barbarism—the Mohammedans chiefly in the thirteenth century, the Byzantines chiefly in the fifteenth.

Like all disappearing forms, art seeks to duplicate itself by means of simulation, but it will nevertheless soon be gone, leaving behind an immense museum of artificial art and abandoning the field completely to advertising. A dizzying eclecticism of form, a dizzying eclecticism of pleasure - such, already, was the agenda of the baroque. For the baroque, however, the vortex of artifice has a fleshly aspect. Like the practitioners of the baroque, we too are irrepressible creators of images, but secretly we are iconoclasts - not in the sense that we destroy images, but in the sense that we manufacture a profusion of images in which there is nothing to see. Most present-day images - be they video images, paintings, products of the plastic arts, or audiovisual or synthesized images - are literally images in which there is nothing to see. They leave no trace, cast no shadow, and have no consequences. The only feeling one gets from such images is that behind each one there is something that has disappeared. The fascination of a monochromatic picture is the marvellous absence of form - the erasure, though still in the form of art, of all aesthetic syntax. Similarly, the fascination of trans sexuality is the erasure - though in the form of spectacle - of sexual difference. These are images that conceal nothing, that reveal nothing - that have a kind of negative intensity. The only benefit of a Campbell's soup can by Andy Warhol (and it is an immense benefit) is that it releases us from the need to decide between beautiful and ugly, between real and unreal, between transcendence and immanence. Just as Byzantine icons made it possible to stop asking whether God existed - without, for all that, ceasing to believe in him.

It is no wonder that historians trace the birth of Western civilization to these jewels of the Aegean, Ionian, and Mediterranean seas. The Greek Isles are home to wide-ranging and far-reaching cultural traditions and mythic tales, not to mention the colorful history and unforgettable vistas that still draw thousands of tourists to the region every year. Minoan ruins stand alongside Byzantine churches and Crusader fortresses. Terra-cotta pots spilling over with hibiscus flowers adorn blinding-white stucco houses that reflect the sun’s dazzling light. Fishing villages perched upon craggy cliffs overlook clusters of colorful boats in island harbors. Centuries-old citrus and olive groves dot the hillsides. Lush vegetation and rocky shores meet isolated stretches of sand and an azure sea. Masts bob left and right on sailboats moored in secluded inlets. Each island is a world unto itself. Although outsiders and neighbors have inhabited, visited, and invaded these islands throughout the centuries, the islands’ rugged geography and small size have also ensured a certain isolation. In this environment, traditional ways of life thrive. The arts--pottery, glass blowing, gem carving, sculpture, and painting, among others--flourish here today, as contemporary craft artists keep alive techniques begun in antiquity. In the remote hilltop villages of Kárpathos, for example, artisans practice crafts that date back eons, and inhabitants speak a dialect close to ancient Greek. Today, to walk along the pebbled pathways of a traditional Greek mountain village or the marbled streets of an ancient acropolis is to step back in time. To meander at a leisurely pace through these island chains by boat is to be captivated by the same dramatic landscapes and enchanted islets that make the myths of ancient Greece so compelling. To witness the Mediterranean sun setting on the turquoise sea is to receive one of life’s greatest blessings.

She was looking out at the ocean again. “He showed me that story you wrote. The one about the table leg.” “Oh,” Benny said. “That.” He’d forgotten all about the table leg. “That was stupid.” “It was sad.” “I’m sorry,” he said, because he didn’t want to make her sad. “No. I mean, sad in a good way.” “Oh, good,” he said, because he wanted to make her happy, but then he realized he didn’t understand. “Wait, is there a good way to be sad?” “Sure. Art can make you sad. Or music. Or a book.” “A book?” “Sure. Hasn’t a book ever made you cry?” He thought about Medieval Shields and Armaments and Byzantine Garden Design. “No.” “Okay, wow. Well, maybe you should try reading different books.” He fell silent. Books were what he read in order not to feel sad.

There were just so many cafés now—bearing conceited names such as Charme, Rembrandt, La Muse—with their chairs and tables made of wicker, zinc, velvet, blond wood, and black metal, each establishment desperately trying to evoke Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Stockholm, or New York. Even the ashtrays bore edgy designer patterns evocative of Art Deco and the Belle Époque. And yet it has to be said that these new cafés of Bucharest lack the enfolding and layered elegance—and especially the intimacy—of cafés in Central Europe. I was still south of the Carpathians, in the former Byzantine and Turkish world. There was simply

What is it, then, that makes the work of Giotto in Padua and Assisi a landmark in the history of art? It is the rhythmic composition, drawing the eye from every angle to the center of interest; the dignity of quiet motion, the soft and luminous coloring, the majestic flow of the narrative, the restraint of expression even in deep feeling, the grandeur of the calm that bathes these troubled scenes; and, now and then, the naturalistic portraiture of men, women, and children not as studied in past art but as seen and felt in the movement of life. These were the components of Giotto’s triumph over Byzantine rigidity and gloom, these were the secrets of his enduring influence. For

Buda, perched on steep hills, her sprawling Royal Palace, and her Citadel carved into jagged cliffs which plunge into the river, craves the attention of the visitor arriving down the Danube from Vienna. Pest, on the flat plain that is the continuation of the Puszta, is all business, commerce and intellect, all conversation and art. Fantastic amalgams of Romanesque, Gothic and Byzantine straining to find their Magyar soul face the boulevards, which are unabashed imitations of both Paris and Vienna. The Parliament, ostentatiously outdoing Westminster, spire for spire, Gothic arch for Gothic arch, faces the dirty, gray Danube, the heart of the city.

Take the architectural legacy of Bucharest: Byzantine, Brâncoveanu, Ottoman, Renaissance, Venetian Classical, French Baroque, Austrian Secession, Art Deco, and Modernist, all writhing and struggling to break free of a dirty gray sea of pillbox Stalinism, like Michelangelo’s Unfinished Slaves struggling to break free of their marble blocks.

as to describe the impact of Francis on his era this way: “ [His life] closed the reign of Byzantine art and of the thought of which it was the image. It is the end of dogmatism and authority. Uncertainty became permissible in some small measure. It marks a date in the history of the human conscience.”3

Byzantium brought great works of art and architecture into being

patronized magnificent contributions to the arts and architecture, and added to the wealth of the Byzantines.

and though universities and libraries continued to preserve literary and scientific knowledge, the arts and education declined.

But I also understand why Steve, who'd sewn his share of panels over the years, would fly into a rage as the end approached: 'And don't put me in that fucking quilt!' Being of a mind to have his body dumped instead on the White House lawn. The guilt had begun to seem too passive, even too nice, letting the war criminals off the hook and providing the media with far too easy a wrap up. Much neater than trying to unravel the Gordian knot of AIDS activism, the Byzantine infighting and turf protection, the in-your-face bad manners of those who wouldn't go quietly. The quilted dead made for prettier sound bites, especially effective at zeroing in on the "innocent" victims, the kids and the hemophiliacs. At the same time there began to appear a certain overview phenomenon under the general rubric of AIDS-and-the-Arts. Typically these were hand-wringing accounts of the impact of so much cultured dying, lamenting for instance the White Way silence left by Michael Bennett, the songs unsung. This litany was something of a mixed bag, bringing under the same umbrella the likes of Way Bandy and Halston, Miss Kitty and Keith Haring. Though it was surely true what Fran Lebowitz so scathingly observed If you removed all of the homosexuals and homosexual influence from what is generally regarded as American culture, you would be pretty much left with 'Let's Make a Deal.' these roundups of the arts tended to foster in the general populace ever new heights of Not me.