The Art Bulletin

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The Performative Icon

Bissera V. Pentcheva

To cite this article: Bissera V. Pentcheva (2006) The Performative Icon, The Art Bulletin, 88:4,
631-655, DOI: 10.1080/00043079.2006.10786312

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00043079.2006.10786312

Published online: 03 Apr 2014.

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The Performative Icon
Bissera K Pentcheva
Icon (ikon, ~ i ~ i r vin) Greek is understood as image, repre-
sentation, and portrait. In Byzantium the word also acquired
a very specific meaning as a portable portrait of Christ, the
Virgin, and saints with scenes from their lives on wood panels
or precious surfaces such as ivory, metal, enamel, mosaic, and
steatite (Figs. 1-4).’ The icon was perceived as matter im-
bued with chunk ( x h p ~ s )or, divine grace.2 As matter, this
object was meant to be physically experienced. Touch, smell,
taste, and sound all contributed to the experience of “seeing”
the portable portrait. Over the years, this sensory and sensual
experience (aesthesis) of the image has been lost from view in
the scholarship.’
The icon is in fact a surface that resonates with sound,
wind, light, touch, and smell. This object thus offers us a
glimpse into what vision meant in Byzantium: a synesthetic
experience in which the whole body is engaged. The term
synesthesia as employed in modern art theory and psychology
refers to concomitant sensation: the experience of one sense
through the stimulation of another, such as color experi-
enced as sound. Instead, I will use the word synesthesis (syn-,
together, plus aesthesis, sensual apprehension) to focus atten-
tion on consonant sensation: the simultaneity of senses. This
synesthetic experience is very characteristic of Byzantium.Yet
it is rarely discussed in medieval studies. Whenever a link
between the senses and the spiritual is made, it is often drawn
primarily on the basis of the writings of Abbot S ~ g e r . ~
According to Byzantine image theory as it emerged in the
ninth century, the icon is the imprint (in Greek, typos) of
Christ’s visible characteristics (appearance) on matter. The
quintessential Byzantine image ideally should not be thought
of as a painting created by brushstrokes but as an imprint-
a typos impressed on a material surface. The relief icon
most closely conformed to this theoretical model; it defined
Byzantium as the culture of the imprint, mold, or seal
(Figs. 1-3).
The relief icon also best responds to the prevailing theory
of vision known as extramission.’ According to this model, the
eye of the beholder is active, constantly moving and sending
light rays that touch the surfaces of objects. The eye seeks the
tactility of textures and reliefs. Sight is understood and expe-
rienced as touch.6 Not surprisingly, Byzantine icons address
this tactile desire with their rich decoration, varied materials,
and reliefs. They employ a baroque pastiche of metal re-
pousst, filigree, cloisonnC and champlevt enamels, pearls,
and gemstones. Some of these panels also contain poetic
inscriptions embedded in the metal surface (Fig. 21).
The later and better-known production of wood panel
paintings covered with metal revetments (Fig. 4) differ sig-
nificantly from the Middle Byzantine relief icon. In the latter,
the holy figure projects in relief, whereas in the former, the
sacred form recedes in darkness. It is painted on the flat
surface of‘the wood and surrounded by a raised silver-gilt or
enameled cover, which floods the eye with its radiance and
shimmer. When illuminated by the trembling flicker of can-
dles and oil lamps rather than the steady and harsh spotlights
of museum displays, the painted holy face on the revetted
icon sinks and disappears in the shadow. These panels oper-
ate at the brink of the extramission and intromission models of
visuality. They deny the tangibility and even visibility of the
sacred image, while they appeal to the sense of touch through
the textured surface of their repousst and enameled-filigree
metal revetments.’
Because they are luxury objects, relief icons are now con-
sidered exceptions among an otherwise largely panel-painted
icon production. However, the way relief icons in metal,
enamel, steatite, and ivory integrate the iconophile theory of
images and the way they sensorially engage the faithful
through their tactile representations suggest that these o b
jects, rather than being exceptions, lead us instead to a
fundamental expectation and experience of icons as textured
surfaces in Byzantium. The relief icon, which dominated
artistic production in the ninth and tenth centuries, most
closely fulfilled the qualities of Byzantine tactile and sensorial
visuality.
In its original setting, the icon performed through its
materiality. The radiance of light reflected from the gilded
surfaces, the flicker of candles and oil lamps placed before
the image, the sweetly fragrant incense, the sounds of prayer
and music-these inundated all senses. In saturating the
material and sensorial to excess, the experience of the icon
led to a transcendence of this very materiality and gave access
to the intangible, invisible, and noetic.’ This phenomenolog-
ical aspect of the icon has been largely overlooked in modern
scholarship. By treating it as art, confining it to a glass-cage
museum display, subjecting it to uniform and steady electric
lighting, the icon has been deprived of life-its surface,
dead.g
In Byzantine culture, mimesis is the word closest to the
definition of “performance.” It stands for an admixture of
presence and absence.” The icon exemplifies just such an
admixture. While itself an absence (appearance), the Byzan-
tine icon enacts divine presence (essence) in its making and
in its interaction with the faithful.’’ A person’s approach,
movement, and breath disrupt the lights of the candles and
oil lamps, making them flicker and oscillate on the surface of
the icon. This glimmer of reflected rays is enhanced by the
rising incense in the air, the sense of touch and taste, and the
sound of prayer to animate the panel.I2 The icon thus goes
through a process of becoming, changing, and performing
before the faithful.
These shifting sensations triggered through sight, touch,
sound, smell, and taste stir the faithful. They are then led to
project their whirling psychological state and sensual experi-
ence (pathema, mMqpCL(y)back onto the object to make the
632 ART BULLETIN VOLUME L X X X V I I I NUhlBER 4
1 Icon of the Archangel Michael, late 10th century, enamel on
gold, 17% X 14% X % in. (44 X 36 X 2 cm). Treasury of the
basilica of S. Marco, Venice (artwork in the public domain;
photograph by Cameraphoto, provided by Art Resource, NY)
icon appear alive. Animated by the projected human
.rrhtl.r)pa,it turns into a living painting: an empsychos graph
(&u/qyoq ypa@j). A new meaning of “living painting”
emerges from my analysis.13
The Byzantine icon has a legacy of tactile visuality, sensu-
ally experienced. Because the Eastern Orthodox liturgy main-
tained its late antique tradition of saturating the senses, the
objects embedded in its rite gave rise to a sensorially rich
performance. While all five senses are engaged, a subtle
hierarchy is established. Sight, touch, and sound emerge as
the senses through which the materiality of the icon as the
imprint of the divine appearance is empirically formed. At
the same time, smell and taste give access to divine essence
through an almost Eucharistic participatory knowledge of
Cod.
Byzantine Mimesis Essence and Appearance
The Byzantine icon is a surface that has received the imprint
of divine form. This nonessentialist definition of the icon
developed in the ninth-century writings of Patriarch Nike-
phoros and Theodore of Stoudios. Charles Barber has al-
ready reconstructed their theory in his excellent study Figure
and Likeness: On the Limits of &/wesentation in Byzantine Icono-
~lasm.’~ What remains to be explored is how this nonessen-
tialist model affected the icon production of the post-Icono-
2 Icon ofthe kchangel Michael, late Ilth-12th century,
enamel on gold, 8% X 7% in. (22 X 18.5 cm). Treasury of the
basilica of S. Marco, Venice (artwork in the public domain;
photograph by Cameraphoto, provided by Art Resource, NY)
clastic period. The definition of the icon as absence has
paradoxically heightened the materiality of this object. A
tension lurks on the icon’s surface between absence and
presence, a tension that will be resolved in the icon’s perfor-
mance (mimesis):the way it plays with appearances before the
faithful. In contrast to our Western notion of mimesis as the
imitation of form, Byzantine mimesis is the imitation of pres-
ence. The icon is just an imprint of form, but it simulates
divine essence through the interaction of its imprinted sur-
face with the changing ambience.
Byzantine image theory emerged during the Iconoclastic
period, 730 to 843. At the very center of this controversy lay
the tension between matter and spirit. Can the icon represent
Christ’s divinely human nature? The eighth-century defense
of icons presents an essentialist model. Its major proponents
were John of Damaskos (ca. 675-749) and Patriarch Germa-
nos (ca. 634-732).15 Using Christology, they drew a connec-
tion between the icon and the incarnate Christ. The Incar-
nation manifests the divine acquiring a human form, lending
validity to the visible and representation. By extension, the
icon shows the process through which the Logos acquires a
visible human shape.
The original seventh-century mosaics at Nikaia offer an
example of this incarnational dialectic (Figs. 5, 6).16 The
prefigural divine, represented by the throne, book, dove, and

3 Harbaville triptych, late 10th century, ivory, 9Y2 X 11 Ya in.
(24.2 X 28.5 cm). Musee du Louvre, Pans (artwork in the
public domain; photograph by Erich Lessing, provided by Art
Resource, NY)
4 Double-sided processional icon of the Virgin Hodegetria,
3rd quarter of the 13th century, tempera on wood, silver-metal
revetment, 38% X 26% in. (97 X 67 cm). Icon Gallery, Ohrid,
Macedonia (artwork in the public domain; photograph 0
I Scala, provided by Art Resource, NY)
T H E PERFORMATIVE ICON 633
5 Mosaic of the Hetoimasia, late 7th or early 8th century.
Church of the Koimesis of the Theotokos, Iznik, Turkey
(Nikaia) (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided
by the Theodore Schmit Archive, 0 The State Hermitage
. iiseii m, St. Pe tersburg)
M
inscription, is transformed into the Child held in the arms of
the Virgin in the apse. We witness a metamorphosis by fol-
lowing the central ray of light, most likely made of silver
tesserae.” They catch and reflect light as they lead us to the
carnal light: the golden-clad Child in .Mary’s arms. By equat-
ing the icon with the body of Christ, making it participatory
in the divine essence, this essentialist model exposed itself to
charges of idolatry.18 The figural representation at Nikaia
shows traces of such an iconoclastic intervention, for the
image of the Virgin and Child in the apse was replaced by the
aniconic shape of the cross sometime in the mid-eighth cen-
tury. With the reestablishnicnt of image veneration in 843,
the figural representation was restored.
To counteract the charges of idolatry in the incarnational
model, the iconophiles of the later part of the eighth and
early ninth centuries developed a nonessentialist interpreta-
tion o f the icon.’9 Patriarch Nikephoros (ca. 750-828) de-
fined the icon as the imprint (typos) of the visible character-
istics of Christ on matter, or appearance imprinted on
matter: “Painting represents the corporeal form of the one
depicted, impressing its appearance (schema) and its shape
(’‘l0qile) and its likeness (emphha).”*o
Schema, moqhe, emphen’a (uxFjpcw, pop+$ i p + i p e ~ a )all
converge on the sense of appearance/likeness and empha-

6 Apse mosaic of the Virgin and Child, late 7th-early 8th and
mid8th century. Church of the Koimesis of the Theotokos,
Iznik, Turkey (Nikaia) (artwork in the public domain;
photograph provided by the Theodore Schmit Archive, 0 The
State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg)
size the nonessentialist relation between copy and prototype.
The two are connected by form, not essence. The icon as
imprint of appearance no longer participates in Christ's sa-
cred energy and therefore does not reveal his hypostasis
(divinely human essence). In bearing only the visible charac-
teristics and lacking the miraculous essence, the icon be-
comes the imprint of absence on matter. This object is thus
set to simulate presence (essence) through appearance.
A similar definition of the icon as an imprint of likeness on
matter emerges in the writings of Theodore of Stoudios
(759-826):
The crafted icon modeled after its prototype brings the
likeness of the prototype into matter and participates in its
form by means of the thought of the artist and the impress
of his hands. This is true of the painter, the stone carver,
and the one who makes images from gold and bronze;
each takes matter, looks at the prototype, receives the
imprint of that which he contemplates, and presses it like
a seal into his matter."
In this passage, the icon is likeness that participates only in
the form, not the essence, of the prototype. The act of
looking at the model is understood as a primary imprint. The
7 Seal attached to the memorandum of a judge of
Thessaloniki written in 927, lead, 7% X 6% in. (19.8 X 17.4
cm). Iviron Monastery, Mount Athos, Greece (object in the
public domain; from Treasures of Mount Athos, 508, cat. no.
13.1)
appearance of the prototype has been impressed onto the
memory of the artist. In the next step, this impressed form is
imprinted (literally impressed like a die) for a second time on
the material surface (bronze or gold, marble or encaustic).
The making of the icon becomes a process of double imprint
(typos)*
This nonessentialist theory of the icon does not account for
miraculous images. As in any other culture, the theoretical
model exercised some but not total control over artistic
production and ritual practices. It gave a conceptual line
through which to defend the validity of icons.
At the same time, a belief in miraculous icons did exist in
Byzantium, and this belief went against the theoretical defi-
nition of the icon as absence. Because these thaumaturgic
images were perceived as repositories of divine presence, they
functioned in a way similar to relics. These icons offered
access to sacred energy. Habitually enclosed in containers
and covered by silk veils, the miraculous images were kept
away from sensual grasp, in contrast to the regular icon,
which was always fully visually and tangibly available. The
miracle-working images were fully revealed only at swift cli-
mactic points of the ritual.'*
Typos and Sphragis
The nonessentialist model of the icon as a double imprint, I
believe, originates from the very image production practices
available to men of letters in ninth-century Constantinople
and from the stronghold of the extramission theory in Byzan-

8 Seal blank, lead, diameter 1% in. (2.9 cm). Dumbarton
Oaks, Washington, D.C. (object in the public domain;
photograph provided by Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine
Collection, Washington, D.C.)
9 Pliers with intaglio relief of a saint, iron, 6% X 6%in.
(17.4 X 15.5 cm). Arthur Sackler Museum, Cambridge, Mass.,
bequest of Thomas Whittemore, 1951.31.6 (object in the
public domain; photograph provided by the Arthur Sackler
Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge)
tine visuality. Many documents, once their writing was con-
cluded, were secured with a For instance, in a memo-
randum by a judge of Thessaloniki written in 927, the seal is
still in its original position, affixed with a cord at the edge of
the parchment. It completes the writing and ensures the
inviolate state of the letter (Fig. 7).24The characteristic Byz-
antine sealing practice was to use lead blanks with a channel
going through their diameter (Fig. 8). The silk cords were
first threaded through the parchment and then strung
through the seal's channel. After being heated, the lead
blanks were placed between the valves of iron pliers (Fig. 9).
The pliers were struck shut with a hammer, impressing a
relief on the softened surface of the lead (Figs. 1 0 , l l ) . While
creating the metal relief, the pliers embedded the silk cord
in the lead and closed the parchment. Writing and sealing
thus became linked in Byzantium. The graph (encompassing
writing and painting) was understood as a seal (sphragis,
u$payis), for the seal completed it. By analogy, the icon as a
manifestation of paphe also became a sphragis.
T H E PERFORMATIVE ICON 635
10 Seal of Peter, bishop of Thebes, with the Virgin Episkepsis,
11th century, diameter 1 in. (2.5 cm). Dumbarton Oaks,
Washington, D.C. (object in the public domain; photograph
provided by Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection,
Washington, D.C.)
11 Coin with the impressed images of Christ and Emperor
Constantine VII (r. 945-59), gold, diameter 34 in. (1.8 cm).
Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. (object in the public
domain; photograph provided by Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine
Collection, Washington, D.C.)
The typos/spiiragis concept is not new. It has been explored
most prominently by Herbert Kessler in connection with the
aclieiropoietos of Christ (miraculous image not made by human
hands, a-, without, ha'r, hand, poietos, made): the imprint
(typos) of the Holy Face on a material surface.25This thauma-
turgic object is allegedly the product of a single imprint of
the divine form and essence. It is created like a coin or seal.
Christ's body functions like an intaglio impressed on the
material surface (Figs. 10, 11). As an extension of the divine
form, which bears the divine touch, the acheiropoietos partici-
pates in the essence.
Yet the typos/spiiragis concept has never been applied to the
regular icon. In contrast to the acheiropoietoi, the icon is
created through a double imprint and participates only in the
appearance of the prototype. Again, the making of a seal or
a coin exemplifies this process. The die and its imprint
( k ~ h w p c x.rinros,
, a$payis) furnish not just a metaphor for
the relation between Christ and the icon but also a process
that entirely maps the concept of the icon as absence, lacking
essence. The sacred body leaves a physical imprint. By dis-
placing matter, it produces a negative space, a shell in which
a body once resided but no longer remains. This shell is
equivalent to the negative intaglio on the heads of the pliers
(Fig. 9). It is this form of absence that is then imprinted on
the warm metal surface, reifylng in relief the shape of ab-
sence (Figs. 10, 11). Here, absence turns into a projection,
penetrating the physical space. The relief paradoxically is
transformed into the materialization of the form of absence.
The icon then becomes a reified, sensual, sensory manifesta-
636 ART BULLETIN VOLUME LXXXVIII NUMBER 4
tion of absence. It self-consciously draws attention to absence,
making it tangible, apprehensible through the sensesz6 As
present absence, the imprint neutralizes the icon and makes
it immune to charges of idolatry. It provides access to appear-
ance, which is materially realized and sensually experienced.
The understanding of the icon through the seal-making
model also places an emphasis on tangible versus intangible
absence, rather than on the visible versus the invisible. In its
imprinted relief, the icon materializes the absent sacred fig-
ure. It gives it shape. Therefore, medieval objects in general
and Byzantine icons in particular attempt to express the
paradox of the tangible versus the intangible rather than the
visible versus the invisible (in which my analysis differs from
that of the existing scholarship on medieval image theory) .27
The tangible appeals to and mobilizes all five senses, while
the visible addresses itself just to the eye. It is our modern
culture’s obsession with making things visible, fueled by op-
tical visuality, that makes us project a similar framework onto
medieval art.” By contrast, the Byzantine icon presents an
eloquent example of tactile visuality sensually experienced.
According to the preferred theory of vision in Byzantium,
extramission, the eye casting its rays seeks a tangible form
that can be “touched with the eyes, hands, and lips.”2g
Moreover, the same desire for materiality is present in the
passage quoted from Theodore of Stoudios: “[the artist]
takes matter, looks at the prototype, receives the imprint of
that which he contemplates, and presses it like a seal into his
matter.”3oIn the making of an icon, the active eye of the artist
casts optical rays over the saint. They touch the sacred form
and return, impressing the gathered shape into the memory
of the craftsman. This first image (the imprinted vestige of
touch) is thus internal. Like a negative intaglio, it is subse-
quently impressed by the hands of the artist into a material
surface.
The Byzantine sacred portrait can be seen to function in
Neoplatonic terms. It presents a material manifestation of
what is immaterial and ineffable (divine essence). The image
is a priori internal. Its external manifestation is the icon. The
eye “touching” its surface reaffirms the reality of the internal
prototype. Touch authenticates this internal imprint. The
validity or truth of the image is its matter; its surface, having
received the imprint (typos) of absence, offers it in turn to the
touch of the “eyes and lips” of the faithful.
Paradoxically, the icon as reified absence is imbued with
the most profound materiality. Its lack of essence is compen-
sated by the materially manifested likeness: palpable, tangi-
ble, and sensual. It is this materiality of the icon that is
overlooked in the recent studies of Byzantine image theory.31
The Relief Icon
For the period from the ninth to the eleventh centuries,
relief icons in metal, enamel, ivory, and steatite survive in
greater numbers than panel paintings. So far, this imbalance
has been attributed to wood’s vulnerability to deterioration.
Perhaps a different interpretation, which takes into account
tradition, theory, and the function of icons in the ninth and
tenth centuries, is in order. In this interpretation, the seal-
and-coin-based model at the core of Byzantine image theory
furnishes an insight into the art produced after Iconoclasm.
Already in his discussion of the sixth-century decoration of
the chancel barrier in Hagia Sophia, Paul the Silentiary men-
tioned metal-repoussC disks with the figures of Christ, the
angels, prophets, Apostles, and the Virgin.32 Similarly, after
Iconoclasm, icons in metal repouss6 adorned the epistyle of
the imperial foundation called Nea Ekklesia (the New
Church) of Emperor Basil I (r. 867-86).33 Enamel medallion
icons of Christ appeared in the Chapel of the Savior in the
palace.34These instances demonstrate a continuing tradition
of luxury relief icons in both Hagia Sophia and the churches
and chapels of the Great Palace.
The most important icon in this period was the Chalkites
Christ set atop the Brazen Gates of the imperial palace. Its
story summarizes the entire Iconoclastic period (730-843). It
was allegedly taken down on the orders of Emperor Leo I11 in
730, and this act of public aggression against images signaled
the outbreak of Iconoclasm in the capital.35Since this story is
not mentioned by any contemporary eighth-century source
and appears in the written record only after 800, it casts some
doubt on the existence of a Chalke Christ in about 730.
Marie-France AuzCpy has correctly argued that the legend
was developed in order to justify Empress Eirene’s placement
of such an icon for the first time during the iconophile
interim period, 787-814.36 Through the invention of a leg-
endary past for the Chalkites, it acquired legitimacy. Then
again in 814 Emperor Leo V removed this image from the
gates in an attempt to emulate the legendary actions of his
iconoclast predecessor, Leo 111. Finally, a new Chalkites was
set up in 843. The Chalke Christ marked the final triumph of
orthodoxy and celebrated the renewed alignment of imperial
power with image veneration. As the gate to the Great Palace,
the Chalke visually and tangibly defined and propagated
imperial policy. It was probably this same image that reap-
peared on imperial coinage in 843.37
What did this icon look like? Could it have been a metal
relief icon-a typos? Its name, Chullzites, refers to copper and
bronze,38 but is this a reference to the Brazen Gates over
which it hung or to the fact that the image itself was made of
metal? Scholars, notably, Cyril Mango in 1959, have argued
that the Chalkites was a painted panel because the iconoclasts
sent it to the fire.3gHowever, panel painting is not suited for
the exterior of a building; ultraviolet light, humidity, and
temperature shifts would all wreak havoc with egg tempera
on wood.
By contrast, if we identify the Chalkites as a metal relief
icon, all of these issues are resolved. A bronze or copper icon
(a typos) would have easily been burned in accordance with
the incident of 730 or 814. In fact, fire would have been the
only and perhaps best way to destroy it. Moreover, its burning
would have had a strong symbolic value by alluding to the
biblical Golden Calf (Exod. 32:20). Burning, indeed, would
have justified the icon’s destruction in the eyes of iconoclasts
as an orthodox act of pulling down the idols.
Further confirmation of this hypothesis can be found in
the written record. In one of the two earliest Byzantine
sources describing the Chalke incident of 730, the Life ofSuint
Stephen the Younger (written about 809), the icon appears as a
copper relief image. The passage mentions the icon and its
location at the gates:40

In these days [the patriarch Anastasios,] having become
the leader of heresies, immediately attempted to take
down and throw into the fire the authoritative icon of
Christ our Lord, hanging above the imperial gates, at the
place, where due to its reliefcharacter, it [the icon] is called
the Chalke (the Copper One).41
The syntax of the dependent clause is rather diffiiult to
interpret. It is introduced by a relative pronoun (ku o b m p ) ,
which refers to the gates, yet the rest of the sentence has a
subject in the feminine singular, and the only other word in
the feminine singular in the main clause is “icon” ( E ~ K O V ) . Byzantine metal relief icon. As a typos, the Chalke Christ also
While the Greek for gate (fib, &Aq) is in the feminine
gender, a switch from the plural to singular and the subsequent
description of this object as holy suggest that the subject of
the relative clause is not the Brazen Gates but the Chalkites
icon. The relative pronoun can then be translated as refer-
ring to the locale, where the icon is set.4‘
The word used to describe the metal object in the quoted
passage is churakter ( x ( Y ~ ( Y K T ~ PIt) . means an imprint, relief, tation on the gold solidus (Fig. 11). Both are linked by one
and engraved surface. In fact, its first definition is connected
to the stamping of an intaglio on a metal surface in order to
produce a coin. The same word also appears in the descrip
tion of the Chalkites in Theophanes’ Chronographiu (early
ninth century). The passage narrates the events of 602 CE,
when Emperor Maurice (r. 582-602) dreamed of his judg-
ment by Christ, which resulted in his deposition. Theophanes
embellished the story by ahistorically inserting the Chalkites
icon-the very object that was most likely first placed at the
gates almost two centuries later, in the period 787-814. The
icon became the medium through which Christ appeared
and judged the emperor: “One night as [Emperor Maurice]
was sleeping, he saw a vision; he was standing before the icon
of the Savior at the Chalke gates and a crowd was standing
around him. A voice from the relief icon of our Lord and
SaviorJesus Christ came and spoke.”43
Later sources also indicate a copper relief icon for the
Chalkites. In the Pat& (a compilation of various sources on
the topography of Constantinople, edited about 995), we
read the following: “In the so-called Chalke Gates a copper
steb of our Lord Jesus Christ was erected by Constantine the
Great. The emperor Leo [111], father of Kavallinos, took it
down. Now decorated with mosaics, this icon is restored by
the [empress] Eirene the Athenian.”44
The icon is called a copper relief slab (steb chalke, u~+iq
~ A K ? ) . These words have hitherto been interpreted as a
bronze statue and discredited as corrupt information because
Byzantium did not produce three-dimensional statues of
Christ or the saints.45Yet the Byzantine choice of words is
quite clear. Just as the Greek word steb presents figures in low
relief, so, too, the Byzantine Chalkites icon displays a bas-
relief of Christ on a metal surface. The rest of the passage
states how this icon was decorated with mosaics by Empress
Eirene, which could be interpreted as a metal icon adorned
with glass tesserae or even enamel.
Similarly, the epigram written by Patriarch Methodios
sometime between 843 and 847 identifies the orthodox im-
ages as typoi: “I am representing [Christ] with imprints [ty-
pod .”46 This poetic inscription most likely surrounded the
Chalkites icon, thereby linking image and text visually. The
T H E PERFORMATIVE ICON 637
holy face was rendered as a relief, while the epigram as letters
incised on matter. Both draw attention to the textured and
imprinted surface. Finally, Michael Glykas in the twelfth cen-
tury reinforces the idea of the Chalkites as a metal relief icon
by calling it an imprint ( k ~ R j 7 ~ 0 p.47
a)
What is the importance of identifymg the Chalkites with a
metal relief icon? This was the most prominent icon in Con-
stantinople during and after Iconoclasm. It symbolized pro-
image policy. Therefore, its form would have been under-
stood as the ideal icon. If my interpretation of the written
sources is correct, the Chalkites served as the model for the
fulfilled Byzantine image theory. According to its nonessen-
tialist definition, the ideal icon is a representation in relief:
an imprint (typos) left by an intaglio (Figs. 10, 11).
It is quite possible that the Chalkites was medallion-shaped.
In Byzantine iconophile writings the legitimacy of the icon is
frequently argued on the basis of the imperial coin. A reci-
procity is established between the emperor and his represen-
identity yet separated by natures.48 The same reciprocity
reigns between the icon and Christ. Both represent the same
identity but differ in nature: a material substance versus a
divinely human hypostasis. The roundel icon evokes in its
shape the very arguments used to defend its legitimacy. The
medallion panel thus becomes an ideal devotional object
protected by form and theory from charges of id~latry.~’
Similarly, the majority of icons depicted in the mid-ninth-
century Khludov Psalter (State Historical Museum, Moscow,
cod. gr. 129) have a round shape that evokes coins and seals
(Fig. 12).50These images d o not resemble what we consider
to be the canonical look for an icon: a rectangular wood
panel painting. In employing the shape of coins and seals, the
representations in the Khludov Psalter activate the nonessen-
tialist definition of the icon as imprint of absence on matter.
Hence, the circular form validates the veneration of images.
The manuscript begins with a depiction of a youthful
Christ set within an arch (Fig. 12). Underneath the tympa-
num, King David dressed in imperial attire sits on a throne
and strums the strings of his lyre. Divine and imperial are
joined through the seal of the icon. King David emerges as a
protector of images and vice versa: as a recipient of the icon’s
protection. This idea captures the climate of ninth-century
Constantinople, where imperial policy had just firmly em-
braced icon veneration. The Chalkites Christ established the
seal of affirmation in 843.
The medallion icon and its setting in the Khludov Psalter
within the tympanum of an imaginary arch recall the shape of
a gate. Given the manuscript’s polemical depiction of current
political events and its avid defense of images, it is likely that
the preface miniature of the Khludov Psalter is not just a
visualization of an author portrait (King David as the poet of
the Psalms) but is possibly meant to configure in two-dimen-
sional form a memory image of the Chalke gate and Chalke
Christ. Such a commemorative image would be quite appro-
priate for the particular patron of the manuscript: most likely
Patriarch M e t h ~ d i o s His
. ~ ~epigram adorned the Chalkites,
and, by extension, his Psalter begins with a miniature emu-
lating his most prominent public act of image veneration. If
this reading of the preface miniature as a vision of the
638 A K T BUI.I.ETIN VOI.UME L S X X V I I I NUhlllEK 4
Chalkites at the Bronze Gates is correct, then all medallion
icon depictions in this manuscript acquire greater signifi-
cance as copies sharing in the Chalkites’s tradition, form, and
legitimacy. The ideal Byzantine icon emerges as a Chalke
icon: a medallion metal relief.
Finally, a dominance of relief icons over panel paintings in
the ninth and tenth centuries is also evident in the contem-
porary function of images. In this period icons were not
carried in public processions (litaniai), so they were not the
focal point of public ceremonies. The small size and luxury
materials of these relief icons conformed to a more intimate
system of use.
The situation changed in the late tenth century when icons
appeared in imperial and liturgical processions and led to a
new demand for the larger size and accessibility of the image
in large public gathering^.^^ Wood panel paintings allowed
for unlimited expansion of size. The sacred figure painted in
tempera lacked relief and functioned primarily optically (Fig.
4). Only the revetment preserved the aesthetic of the luxury
metal relief icon. In the best examples, this metal cover
consisted of an enameled silver-gilt surface decorated with
filigree designs, pearls, and gemstones.
The history of Constantinople’s most famous icon, the
Hodegetria (the One Who Leads the Way), exemplifies this
development (Fig. 4). Until the late tenth century, the icon-
ographic type without the toponymic name occurred mostly
on small luxury relief icons. Once the Hodegetria became the
focus of a cult and acquired its own weekly liturgical proces-
sion, it established the first example of a monastery in Con-
stantinople investing its identity in an icon rather than a relic
of the Mother of Consequently, Marian devotion in
the Byzantine capital was shaped through icons and icon
processions. These processional icons (later referred to as
signa) had the effect of shifting the perception of the ideal
image in Byzantium from a medallion relief (typos) to a
painted panel (signon).
12 Khludov Psalter, preface miniature,
medallion icon of Christ and King
David, mid-9th century. State Historical
Museum, Moscow, cod. gr. 129, fols.
lv, 2r (artwork in the public domain;
photograph 0 by the State Historical
Museum, Moscow)
Painting as Imprint
In modern Western culture we are predisposed to conceive of
painting as the markings of the brush on a material surface.
Traced to its source, this perception derives from the Natural
Histoly of Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE). In one of his anecdotes
the painter Zeuxis creates a virtuoso mimetic picture of
grapes, which deceives the birds. His competitor, Parrhasios,
in turn paints a curtain so skillfully that Zeuxis himself is
deceived as he attempts to draw the curtain in order to see
the supposed painting behind it.54 The same definition of
graph as the marks of the brush on a surface creating a
mimetic image of the world also obtains in the Renaissance
theory of Leon Battista Alberti written in 1436.55In recent
times, Ernst Gombrich has offered the best-known discussion
of painting as a naturalistic, mimetic pictorial copy of the
world.5GAlthough Norman Bryson and other scholars have
challenged his perceptualist theory, they have not questioned
the understanding of painting as a pictorial form of art:
brushstrokes on a material s ~ r f a c e . ~ ’
By contrast, in what emerges in the Byzantine theory and
practice, painting (graph) is best understood as imprint (ty-
pos and sphragis). The image is not the imitation of form but
rather the imprint of form. This Eastern perception of paint-
ing-and, by extension, the icon-as imprint gives an insight
into Byzantine culture. As mentioned earlier, Byzantine mi-
mesis is understood as the simulation of presence through the
interaction of the imprinted form (typos) with the changing
ambience.
Typos in Byzantium encompasses a range of definitions
spreading from individual mark, standard pattern, and state
decree to ritual.5s The dictionary entries are as follows: im-
pression, imprint and mark, mold, representation, image,
exact replica, shape, form, type, pattern, model, example,
decree, and, finally, rite. One gradually proceeds from the
individual mark to the state, from the private to the public,
from the particular to the cultural. All meanings are inter-

linked through the model of the imprint of an intaglio on
metal. Just as the icon is an imprint of visible characteristics
on matter, so, too, the rite becomes the imprint of a set of
gestures and speech acts in time and space. Both icon and
ritual present endless faithful reproduction rather than imi-
tation of f01-m.~’The imprint as a cultural practice ensures
uniformity and secures traditions. Byzantium emerges as the
culture of the typos: the image understood as the impression,
mold, form, and decree, all authentic and limitlessly repro-
ducible, linking image production to ritual practices and
cultural identity.
The coin or seal model (typos/spiirugis) of the icon explains
why after Iconoclasm enamel became the medium par excel-
lence. It, too, gives theory a palpable shape by displaying the
imprint of divine appearance in a material form. The enam-
el’s underlying metal foundation of cells functions like a
negative intaglio. The glass powder poured into this grid
becomes the imprint (typos). Once the powder is fired into
glass, it acquires mass, giving shape to divine absence. The
congealed glass forms the materiality of the enamel image. As
with the relief icon, matter fills an empty shell and gives
materiality or substance to what is no longer there, to what is
beyond the tangible: a present absence. Both enamel and re-
lief icons display divine appearance through textured matter.
While enameled relief icons best embody the concept of
the icon as imprint, panel painting continued to be produced
in the period right after Iconoclasm, as attested by the pre-
served collection of icons at St. Catherine’s Monastery on
Mount Sinai.” However, the gruphe of tempera could not
compete with the perfect reciprocity of theory and produc-
tion practices signaled by the metal icon, because the latter
displayed in its making the actual materialization of the typos.
Nor could tempera compare to encaustic, a form of relief
that imparts a vivid sensation of imprint. The surface of the
warm wax is pushed, impressed, and incised by the palette
knife, “imprinting” a figure in relief.
This understanding of gruphe as imprint simultaneously
engages touch, sight, and sound. Touch, because gruphe is the
actual physical impression made on a material surface: it
leaves a relief, a texture that has tactile presence. Sight and
sound, because both are modes of perception of paphe: as
both painting and writing, grupheunites image and letter. Just
as the image is an imprint of visible characteristics on matter,
so script is the impression/trace of letters incised, inscribed,
imprinted onto a surface (Fig. 21). Only through matter can
abstract ideas be realized and perceptually accessed. They
need to be embodied, incarnated. Gruphe as imprint prede-
termines the importance of the material surface in the Byz-
antine perception of the icon.
The Icon’s Materiality and the Sense of Touch
The textured surfaces of the Byzantine icon engage the five
senses, as demonstrated by the sensual appeal of the late-
tenth-century enamel relief of the Archangel Michael (Figs.
1, 13).61By nature, the angel is fire and spirit; no materiality
rests in him. Human beings can grasp him only through the
imprint he leaves on matter. For instance, Saint Michael’s
shrines at Chonai and Monte S. Gargano are perceived as
imprints left by him on the landscape. A chasm (Chonai) and
a shrine carved in the rock (S. Gargano), they form giant
T I l E I’ERFOKMAI‘IVE ICON 639
fossils: contact relics giving tangibility to the angel’s present
absence.G2For this reason, the relief icon as a typos becomes
the only truthful form of representation for the Archangel.
By its definition, it is the imprint of absence. His enamel icon
in S. Marco is even closer to the truth, for it is an imprint of
fire on glass. Its materially saturated surfaces inundate the
senses and simulate the angel’s presence.
The icon belongs to a group of luxury objects looted from
the palace in Constantinople when the city fell to the Cru-
saders in 1204. Andrt Grabar and Michelangelo Muraro have
commented on the “unusual” medium and technique of this
icon. Their reaction betrays once again our modern precon-
ception that icons should be primarily identified with paint-
ingsG3As discussed earlier, the relief icon of the Archangel
might have been more characteristic of the Middle Byzantine
period than wood panels painted with tempera. The S. Marco
enamel is one of the few extant examples of this exquisite
production. It displays a mastery of metal techniques (enamel
filigree, repousst) and lavish use of materials (Figs. 13-15).
The Archangel stands frontally, dressed in an imperial
purple tunic covered with a gem-studded sash called a loros
(Fig. 13). With one hand he holds a scepter and lifts the
other in a gesture of intercession. His enormous wings press
to the sides (Fig. 15). A subtle tension emerges between the
figure projecting in relief and the sunken central plaque. The
face extends outward the most, yet this projection is imme-
diately checked by the palm turned to the viewer. It stops
movement and arrests the projection.
The body is outlined, but its materiality is rendered as a
multiplicity of surfaces. Imitation-pearl strings delimit all
shapes and frame the enamel plaques and gemstones (Figs.
13, 14). The gold repoussC surface is enlivened by thin,
undulating filigree with a pearly dot profile. This is one of the
most exquisite Byzantine filigree examples in existence.
The excess of matter functions as dissemblance, set to
oppose a desire to depict in a naturalistic style.G4Rather than
a mimetic figuration of the angel’s appearance, the enamel
icon of the one who is fire and spirit offers a dissemblant
re-presentation of the angel’s nature. It is made of glass
powder, placed in a metal mold, and fired to a high temper-
ature. As an imprint, the enamel icon responds to the Byz-
antine definition of an angel’s representation: a symbolic
impression that allows for the contemplation of higher heav-
enly reality beyond matter.G5The enamel icon itself is thus a
dissemblant material imprint of the unfigurable created by
fire-a dissemblant semblance of the symbolic imprint.
The Archangel’s nature of fire and spirit is nonmimetically
reproduced and hapticly enfigured on the diverse surfaces of
this icon. The ample textures are sensually and sensorially
available to the gaze, touch, and taste. Tactility combats the
optical experience. Alois Riegl referred to the tactile qualities
as the true aspect of an object as opposed to the illusion
generated through the optical framesGG It is this haptic aspect
(relief and textured surfaces) that engages both the Byzan-
tine theory of vision (extramission) and the practical vener-
ation of the icon. The viewer’s gaze seeks the tactility of the
icon’s textures. The active eye sends off rays that touch the
surfaces of objects. At the same time, the glitter of light
emanating from the gold surface visualizes the rays that the
“animated” image itself sends off to touch and in a sense
640 ART B U L L E T I N V O L U M E I.XXXVII1 NUXlBEK 4
capture the viewer. The space between icon and beholder
becomes activated through the exchange of gaze and touch.
The desire to touch is also expressed in the manner in
which a Byzantine icon is expected to be venerated: aspasmos
(kiss) and proskpesis (lighting of candles, making the sign of
the cross, and prostration), both defining a body-centered
ritual.67 The proskynesis sets off the optical dazzle of the icon
as the approach of the faithful disrupts the air with their
breathing and movement, making the wicks tremble. The
agitated lights dance off the metal revetments. This shimmer-
ing, glittering effect gives rise to a sense that the image is
animated. The body of the worshiper is thus fully engaged in
the spectacle of the icon’s performance/mimesis.
Color and Light and the Sense of Sight
In Byzantium, color, as visible traits impressed on matter, is
the most material aspect of light, or, as Suida, the tenth-
century encyclopedia, announces, “color in appearance is
what is visible and vision receives this.”“ Looked at in this
light, color is an equivalent of form-the corporeal, material
aspect of the image.ti9The enamel best exemplifies this ma-
13 Icon of the Archangel Michael, late
10th century, central panel (artwork in
the public domain; photograph by
Cameraphoto, provided by Art
Resource, NY)
teriality of color. It is glass packed in a metal mold. After
firing, it becomes a congealed, gemlike mass. Not surpris-
ingly, enamel became the signature Byzantine medium in the
tenth century.
As we learn from an Arabic source, the eleventhcentury
Book Of GiftS and Rarities, enamel and purple silk were the two
most highly valued Byzantine e ~ p o r t s . ~A’ description of one
such gift, a set of enamel bracelets given by Emperor Michael
VII to the Fatimid caliph’s mother in the 1070s, reads: “five
bracelets inlaid with glass in five colors: deep red, snow white,
jet black, sky blue, and deep azure. They were fashioned with
the best goldsmith’s work. Their inlaid design was of the
finest ~raftsmanship.”~~ While this text gives us the perspec-
tive of the Arab importers rather than the Byzantine export-
ers, it still attests to the high quality and craftsmanship of the
Constantinopolitan production.
Similarly, in the Byzantine sources, such as the twelfth-
century epic Digenis Akritis, enamels decorate the borders of
luxury clothing, saddles, and armor.72Being on the fringe of
the garment, these sparkling objects were subject to the most
intense movement, where they gave a dynamic coruscating
 TlIE PERFOKXIATI\’E I C O N 641

14 Icon of the Archangel Michael, late 10th century, head (artwork in the public domain; photograph by Cameraphoto, provided
by Art Resource, NY)
effect. The colored glass mimics the look of gems and is Words for color in Byzantium describe the brilliance and
always set into a glittering metal plaque. As such, the medium light-emitting qualities of a substance rather than its hue. A
combines the two most important elements of the perception characteristic passage in Digenis Akn’tis relates: “the glittering
of color in Byzantium: form and radiance. violets were the color of the sea with its calm ruffled by a light
642 A R T B U L L E T I N \’OL.UME L X X X V I I I N U X I B E K 4
bree~e.”’~ These words do not define the hue, instead con-
juring a picture of the shimmer of ruffled water. The chang-
ing vibrancy denotes the visible characteristics of this surface.
Radiance is most highly valued. In the same passage the
garden is described as gleaming and shining: “a meadow
bloomed brilliantly beneath the trees with its many colors
gleaming with flowers, sweet-scented narcissus, roses and
myrtles. The roses were a purple-tinted ornament on the
earth, the narcissus reflected in turn the color of milk.”74The
15 Icon of the Arch-
angel Michael, late I(0th
century, porphyreos wii“g
(artwork in the publiC
domain; photograph bY
Cameraphoto, providied
by Art Resource, NY)
flowers emerge in their shimmering radiance, their colors
constantly fluttering and changing. Color becomes the re-
flected light from surfaces: a polymorphous sight paired with
the sweet sense of smell and sound.
The glitter of surfaces betrays the “jeweled inflation” that
surfaced in Early Christian art and ceremony and remained
dominant in Byzantine aesthetics.” Gold and purple contin-
ued to be the two most significant elements in it. Both appear
prominently in the celestial and terrestrial courts, as both
 T H E PEKFOKMATIVE ICON 643

embody radiance. Gold and purple are employed in imperial

silks, such as an eleventh-century fragment kept at Auxerre
(shroud of Saint Germanus, St-Eusebe, Auxerre) and the
contemporary depiction of such cloth in the miniature from
the Homilies of John Chrysostomos (Bibliothtque Nationale
de France, Paris, Coislin cod. gr. 79, fol. 2r) showing Emperor
Nikephoros 111 Botaneiates (originally Michael VII Doukas)
(Figs. 16, 17)?6 The contrasting textures of the fabric in-
crease the visibility of the eagle design in the Auxerre frag-
ment. At the same time, the alternation of gold and purple
enhance the radiance of the silk. With each step and gesture,
the body dressed in the purple silk will animate the fabric,
revealing its vibrancy of hues and shimmer. The coruscating
effect of purple complements the glitter of gold.
This fascination with gold can easily be explained by its
radiance and glitter, but purple has a more culture-specific
meaning in B y ~ a n t i u mLike . ~ ~ gold, it has a changing, muta-
ble character that imitates both fire and turbulent waters.
The highestquality dye was derived from the murex, a ma-
rine mollusk, and each batch could differ in hue and satura-
t i ~ n . ~The
’ Greek word for purple (porphyreos or Pyrauges,
.rrop+i~p~os or m p c y q i j s ) captures this changing quality. Por-
phyreos derives from the colors of the heaving, surging waters
of a stormy sea or gushing blood, while pyrauges expresses the
luminous spectacle of fire. Therefore, unlike the limited
English term, the Byzantine word encompasses a spectrum of
hues ranging from rosy red, green, and purple to blue and
The fiery, iridescent, and polymorphous nature of
porphrreos exemplifies the Byzantine love for glitter and
change and makes it a fitting actor in Byzantine mimesis.
The affinity between purple and gold is made prominent
16 Imperial silk with eagle designs, 11th century, gold and
in the way they are paired on luxury objects. Besides silks and purple silk. Church of St-Euscbe, Auxerre (object in the public
imperial accoutrements, enamel icons and liturgical chalices domain; photograph by Giraudon, provided by Art Resource,
from the same period employ the fiery splendor of gold and NY)
purple. A late antique sardonyx bowl known as the chalice of
the Patriarchs (in the treasury of S. Marco) is set in a tenth-
century Byzantine gold enamel mount (Figs. 18, 19).*” De-
pending on the intensity and position of light, the body of the likened to fossilized tongues of fire contained in a golden
chalice can glow like burning ambers (Fig. 18) or coagulate armature. The icon is paradoxically an iridescent imprint of
into a deep blood color (Fig. 19). Through its changing fire on matter. The asomutos (bodiless) angel, who is fire and
appearance, it performs divine presence. For instance, when spirit, is reified in enamel and gold. This icon constantly
empty, its translucent fiery body of sardonyx gives the impres- transforms before the viewer as light into matter, matter into
sion of live flesh: the body of Christ. When filled with wine, light, the whole dematerialized by the scintillating glitter of
the deepened purple color is overwhelmed by the dazzle of gold.
gold, suggesting the presence of divinity. Finally, as one lifts The word enameled in Greek, chimevtos ( p p ~ m i ) derives
~),
the cup to drink the wine, the diminishing liquid gradually from chimio ( p p i ~“to ) ,alloy,” yet it could also be phonet-
reveals an enamel icon of Christ at the bottom of the bowl ically linked to chimeo ( x E L ~ ~“to w )freeze.”**
, According to
(Fig. 20).*’ As it is consumed, the wine becomes visually the latter, the medium imitates the effect of the shimmering
equated to the human body of Christ. The worshiper is and reflective surface of ice. This appearance is paradoxically
whirled through the many changes of the sardonyx under the achieved through its opposite: fire. Enamel thus presents
spectacle of light and gold, experiencing it as flesh, blood, matter purified through fire. The S. Marco icon uses a dis-
body, and divinity. semblant substance frozen through fire and dappled in cor-
The late-tenth-century enamel icon of the Archangel ex- uscating purple and gold in order to perform the angel’s
ploits the same shifting fiery vibrancy of the Byzantine por- kinetic essence: a dynamic, energetic, ever-moving being
phyreos (Figs. 13-15). The tunic and feathers of the wings play (CGvos, k v ~ p y o ~ ~ IYELKLV~ITOS)
os, .“
with the mutability of Byzantine purple: the deep green of The polymorphy of this glittering metal and enamel is also
the dulmatica is picked up in the outer rim of the feathers, captured in the Greek word metallaxo ( ~ E T ~ L A A & & O describ-
),
which are followed in turn by feathers dappled in ruby red ing metal’s reaction to temperature change^.'^ Metallon
and emerald green (Fig. 15). The spectrum of hues is ar- (/.~.i~cyAXov)is another term used to designate gems and
ranged to perform, to act like fire. The enamel could be mosaic cubes, again with the idea of change introduced by
644 A R T B U I . I . E T I N \’OLUXIE l . X X X \ ‘ I l l N U M B E R 4
17 Homilies of John Chrysostomos, Emperor Nikephoros 111
Botaneiates, 3rd quarter of the 11th century. BibliothPque
Nationale de France, Paris, Coislin cod. gr. 79, fol. 2r (artwork
in the public domain; photograph provided by the Biblio-
theque Nationale de France, Paris)
the scintillating quality of light and the transformative nature
of metal. The icon of the Archangel exemplifies this poly-
morphous substance that melts into fire and freezes into glass
before the gaze.
Pikiliu ( I I o L K L A ~ ~as) Synesthetic Vision
Although only a symbolic imprint, dissemblant in both form
and essence, the icon of the Archangel enacts presence. Its
light-emitting, glimmering, and shimmering surfaces imbue
this icon with life. Through its performance (mimesis) of
changing appearances, it conveys the angel’s kinetic essence
of fire and spirit. The diversity of textures that appeals to
touch also gives rise to a dynamic polychromacity of matter,
surfaces, and shimmering light.85 This changing effect of
sight and touch is captured in the Greek word pikiliu
( T O L K L ~ ~ C Ymeaning
), “diversity,”an arresting sight of varied
and shifting sensual impressions, all gained through chang-
ing colors, textures, and smells.
Pikilia is at the core of both the spectacle (mimesis) of the
enamel icon of the Archangel and the description of the
dazzling and fragrant meadow in Digenis Akritis. On the S.
Marco icon, this diversity is optically and hapticly configured
through the use of gold, enamel, glass (with hues ranging
from green to dark purple), gemstones, and a variety of metal
surfaces (filigree, cloisonnC, and repousse) (Figs. 13-15).
The icon changes before the gaze and touch, subtly trans-
muting under the effect of ambient light. In fact, in one of
the catalog descriptions of this object, Grabar remarked that
the Archangel’s image was photographed under enormous
difficulties because of the shimmering multiple reflections of
light that constantly changed the expression of the face.”
This kinetic effect of the Byzantine relief icon defies modern
photography and display and gives rise to the icon’s mimesis.
A similar synesthetic vision (pikilia) emerges i n the ekphm-
seis of palatial churches, in whose architectural surroundings
this enamel icon resided.” In the description provided by
Photios (ca. 810-after 893) of the Pharos church in the Great
Palace, the imaginary visitor is transfixed by the incessant
whirl of aesthetic sensations. The spectator is first enchanted
by the diversity of veins in the exterior marble revetment:
“Arresting and turning towards themselves the spectator’s
gaze, they make him unwilling to move further in; but taking
his fill of the fair spectacle in the very atrium, and fixing his
eyes on the sight before him, the visitor stays as if rooted [to
the ground] with wonder.””
The approach of the interior only escalates the sensory
overload. The spectator is stirred by the diversity of shimmer-
ing materials and textures:
It is as if one had entered heaven itself with no one barring
the way from any side, and was illuminated by the beauty
in all forms shining all around like so many stars, so is one
utterly amazed.. . . It seems that everything is in ecstatic
motion, and the church itself is circling around. For the
spectator, through his whirling about in all directions and
being constantly astir, which he is forced to experience by
the variegated spectacle on all sides, imagines that his
personal condition is transferred to the object.”
The rich aesthetic of scintillating gold, mosaic, silver, marble
revetments, silks, and gemstones is orchestrated in order to
perform before the spectator a reeling vision of change. The
effect of this vision on the subject causes a reciprocal projec-
tion of his or her experience back onto the object, making it
appear animate. The visitor is continuously astir, spinning
round in a whirl, sensations that arise from the polymor-
phous and polychromatic vision (pikiZiu).
Pikilia seduces the moving eye. In trying to grasp the ob-
ject, the eye, according to the extramission model of vision,
moves energetically across the surface, scanning, spinning in
an attempt to take in more of the spe~tacle.~’ In a similar way,
the agitated spectator of the Archangel icon is dazzled by the
diversity of sensations triggered by this object. The whirling
spectacle of this mimesis makes the worshiper reproduce in
his/her own excited state the very essence of the subject
depicted in enamel: a living, energized, ceaselessly moving
angel. The spectacle of the icon equates the essence of the
being depicted to the psychological state of the subject expe-
riencing the image.
These sensations are materially generated. The perfor-
mance of shimmer and radiance is fulfilled on the surface of
the relief icon. The gems and gold enamel mutually reinforce
each other in creating a vision of splendor: pliotismos, a spec-
tacle of light (Figs. 13, 14). It is in this splendor that a vision

18 Chalice of the Patriarchs, 10th
century, sardonyx glowing in amber
sh,ades, gold enamel, 8% X 6% in.
(2’2 X 17 cm). Treasury of the basilica
of S. Marco, Venice (object in the
P Uiblic domain; photograph provided
bY the Procuratoria di San Marco,
Ve,nice)
of paradise emerges. It is encoded in the gold repoussC and
raised filigree of the enamel revetments of icons.‘” On the
Archangel icon they display vegetal and flower motifs. The
pearly dot profile of this delicate gold file coruscates, enliv-
ening the background and halo of the angel with vibrant
glitter (Fig. 14).
The sparkling blossoms evoke the evergreen gardens of
paradise, for the icon is a material incarnation of the ineffa-
ble paradise. This connection between Edenic gardens and
the icon’s decoration is fully explained in the metric prayers
(epigrams) written on the surfaces of some Byzantine icons
(Fig. 21). They draw attention to the material gifts, silver,
gold, pearls, and gemstones, and ask in exchange for these
tangible riches to be granted a place of rest in the imagined
evergreen gardens of Eden: “give me enjoyment in the ver-
dant radiant green of divine delights [ t k Z s ~ p u @ j sSbs
;UTPU+ZU p~ TQ xhbq].’’9z The shining gold on the material
surface of the icon appears as a dissemblant material vision of
the verdant paradise and the means through which to imag-
ine this ineffable place of rest and delight. The same idea is
voiced in the fourteenth-century poem of Manuel Philes,
TllE PEKFORlIATI\’F. ICON 645
again written as an epigram for an icon: “I contemplate the
Golden Eden of the icon, which the plants fashioned by art
seem to surround the creator of Eden.’’93
In the icon, the verdant paradise is materially reconfigured
as gold, for both are connected through brilliance. Gold
(clilysos, x p w b s ) and green (chloros, xhGpos, but especially
cliloe, xhbq, which means “the radiant first green of spring”)
radiate light. They shimmer and sparkle. Since the Byzan-
tines categorized color according to brilliance rather than
hue, fresh green (chloe) and gold were for them equivalents.
Like the first green of spring that appears in its brightness
as gold, or the leaves of the ginkgo tree in autumn, half
golden yellow, half vibrant green, the surface of Byzantine
icons stirred the faithful to imagine in the radiance of gold
the verdant paradise of divine delights.“” Another enamel
icon of the Archangel (also in the treasury of S. Marco)
displays a more literal enameled image of Eden: a peristyle
garden with green, blue, and red blossoms set in a golden
armature (Figs. 2, 22). In its pikilia,. the icon emerges as a
vision of paradise.
The image of gemstones shimmering on a glittering gold
646 ART BULLETIN VOLUME LXXXVIII NUhlBEK 4
surface appears in many of the tenth-century visions of par-
adise such as the Life of Basil the Younger ( Vita Basilii lunioris).
Yet, while the synesthetic vision (pikiliu) is materially gener-
ated on the icon, the same spectacle is beyond the tangible in
the celestial realm. There, color exists without form, as radi-
ant, self-generated light. The tents of the saints radiate with
immaterial light:
And arising from there we journeyed to the abodes of the
saints; these were very, very many, not subject to enumer-
ation, flashing the brightest gleam as if from the sun’s rays,
and immaterially, and spiritually flashing inexplicably by
the hand of God with many colors as if of linen-white and
divine purple light.95
19 Chalice of the Patriarchs, sardonyx
glowing in purple shades (object in
the public domain; photograph
provided by the Procuratoria di San
Marco, Venice)
The floors are of immaterial gleaming gold tiles outlined by
ineffable plants. The blossoms of these flowers fill the space
with an extraordinary perfume:
We came to a courtyard, which was wondrous and incom-
parable. And its floor was flashing like lightning, adorned
with golden tiles, and there was no dirt at all on it, and the
air which was like lightning illuminated it, and in the joints
of those golden tiles there were flowering plants of every
sort, fragrant and abounding in fruits, beautifully culti-
vated, and they were sending forth inexpressible and in-
describable pleasure and joy and filling those who saw
them with divine happiness?6

20 Chalice of the Patriarchs, medallion with Christ at the
bottom of the bowl (artwork in the public domain)
The table decked out for the feast, quarried of scintillating
emerald, is laid with ruby dishes framed in gold:
[The table was] 30 pecheis large, it was beautifully quarried
and constructed from emerald, emitting flashing rays, . . .
and on this table there were also visible red gemstones
lying like dishes set with gold like lightning, which were
similar to all the precious stones and gold that come from
paradi~e.~’
The angels appear in scarlet tunics with loroi radiating the
colors of paradise. On their heads they carry luminous gold
crowns:
[The servants/angels were] clad immaterially in cloaks
dyed scarlet and filled with all beauty, their feet snowy, girt
in belts like loroi with color from heaven’s rainbow and
flashing like lightning, and on their heads they were wear-
ing diadems of gold which were exceedingly glorious and
variegated with gems and precious pearls like sunbeam^.'^
The images that emerge in this vision are polymorphous,
changing their shape under flashing iridescence and radi-
ance. About thirty words for light come up in this ekphraris.
They derive from light (+Gig: m p ~ + w r i u p ~ v o s+ ,W T O E L ~ ~ ~ S ,
+ W T E L V ~ S , +wroPbhos, +wravybs) ; fire (n5p: T V ~ ~ K L U ~ C Y ,
~trrirpws) ; ray (abyjl: +oravybs, xpmavyi(w, m p ~ a v y & ( w ,
8~avy~Tia, &KTLS, & K T L V O E L ~ ~ ~alyhq,
S, &urjlp, + L O + ~ ~ ~ O ;S )
sun ( ~ A L O S :<h~o+kyyos, ~ A L ~ K ~ sgold ) ; (xpuubs:
xpuuo+&qs, xpuuauyi(w) ; lightning ( & u r p a r j l , &urparrB
pop+os, &urp&mw, k&xurp&.rrrw); and radiance (haprpirvw,
haprrq86vos, AUXVLT~TO~). Light conveys the ineffable es-
sence of souls, buildings, and surfaces in paradise.” The
polymorphous and polychromatic vision (pikilia) reifies out
of light immaterially created.
T H E PERFORMATIVE ICON 647
21 Enkokion (pectoral pendant) of the Virgin with an epigram
inscribed on the frame. Basiliek van Onze Lieve Vrouwe,
Maastricht (artwork in the public domain; photograph
provided by Basiliek van Onze Lieve Vrouwe, Maastricht)
In contrast to this immaterial celestial light, the tenth-
century icon of Michael exploits a material splendor of light
that is reflected from the metal and glass surfaces-a photis-
mos that bounces off bodies. Paradise is materially “en-fig-
ured” in the Archangel’s icon. An imperfect embodiment
that evokes the immaterial perfection of heaven (Figs. 1, 13),
the icon falls short of the celestial exactly in its materiality.
Although the realm of paradise is ineffable, within the Vita
Basilii Zunioris, which seeks to make it tangible, an extraordi-
nary effort is placed on sensual experience. All five senses are
engaged in the pikilia. This whirling vision is addressed to the
eyes, fingers, ears, mouth, and nose, but the effect is titillat-
ingly invisible to sight, inaudible to hearing, intangible to
touch, and beyond taste and smell. A list of words and phrases
reveals how this immaterial pikilia affects the body: “[visions]
inexperienced; noetic; unspoken, inexpressible; unseen; im-
possible to render in human words; beyond description; be-
yond human reason and words; immaterial beings that can-
not be held by human hands; beauty and pleasure
inexpressible by human voice and inaudible for hearing;
richly nuanced taste beyond expression and recount; fra-
grance of violets and roses beyond human knowledge and
experience; perfume beyond recount; indescribable sweet
fragrance; inexpressible sweetness.”’” This synesthesis lacks
648 ART B U I . I . E T I N V O L U M E I . S S X V I I I N U h l U E R 4
22 Detail of Fig. 2: the garden of paradise (artwork in the
public domain; photograph by Cameraphoto, provided by Art
Resource, NY)
material stimuli. Ineffable, immaterial, inaudible, testing and
teasing, this overload of sensations gains reality in the way it
is so profoundly bodily experienced, yet so beyond expres-
sion and articulation.
The Sound of Prayer: The Circuit
While all five senses are engaged in the pikilin of paradise, this
sensorial agitation is created by ineffable stimuli. By contrast,
the icon replicates this experience through material, tangible
means. Its lush decoration and epigrams demonstrate a de-
sire to imagine the ineffable. Both being a gaphe, letter and
image form a prayer. While the image visualizes the perfor-
mance of prayer, the epigram reinforces this action by sono-
rously replicating it. The poetic inscription contributes a
visceral, material presence of sound, transforming the icon
into a sonorous body.”’
The faithful’s needs and wishes for help materialize in the
shape of the depicted sacred figure-in this case, the Arch-
angel (Fig. 13). He is shown raising his hand in a gesture of
intercession. The Archangel not only receives the prayer of
the faithful, but with his own stance and hand movement he
replicates the position and action of the supplicant. Simulta-
neously, the image ensures the continuation of the prayer
because the angel transfers the received request to a higher
level and supports it through his own power of intercession.
The icon thus sets up a circle: a mirror reflecting the faithful
in their process of prayer and imagined response.
In Byzantine culture, the Psalms of David represent the
quintessential example of prayer. These poems, like the icon,
are corporeally experienced. Illustrated Psalter books fwnish
a record of this perception. In the preface miniature of the
Khludov Psalter, sight and sound are linked (Fig. 12). Music
and writing coexist as King David strums the chords on his
lyre. The sound of his tune grows in the accornpanirnent of
the musicians flanking him. Two more figures appear above
the arch. One brings the audience into the space of the open
book and directs its gaze above and across the page to the
beginning of Psalm 1 on the facing folio. The other figure is
about to sound his trumpet to initiate the reading of the
Psalms. Music visually emanates from this miniature, associ-
ating the act of praying with the sonorous sound of the lyre
and the imagined melodious human voice.
The image triggers the memory of a performance: a prayer
pronounced. The sound of this performance, its music, is
then linked to the script. The letters on the page then be-
come transformed from a silent string of characters to a
record of a corporeal experience of sound and sight that can
be activated the moment the lips begin to pronounce the
poem. The multisensory experience triggered by the perfor-
mance of the Psalms resembles the sensual experience of
other genres of writing. For instance, in Byzantium, letters
were often sent with gifts, so that the sound of reading the
letter was linked to the smell and taste of the gifts.“’ The
resulting experience was simultaneously aural, visual, tactile,
and olfactory.
The link between music and prayer, established through
the Davidic Psalms, also materializes in the epigrams of icons
(Fig. 2l).Io3Most of these poems are written in the frame of
icons, encircling and customizing the central image to re-
spond to a particular request. Even when the panel does not
contain an epigram, it does not lose its music, for it continues
to avail itself of the sound of the faithful praying before it.
Poetic inscriptions are performative; they are prayers meant
to be pronounced, similar to high literature in Byzantium,
which was meant to be read aloud (Fig. 23).’04 All epigrams
on icons are composed of twelve syllables, which means that
everyone will uniformly put the stresses at the same point,
and all prayers will create the same sonorous framework. This
repetitive, standardized form generates the prayer’s perfor-
mative magic, ensuring its efficacy.
Similarly, sound reverberates in the vaulted interiors of
Byzantine churches, bouncing off the curves of arches,
domes, and semidomes (Fig. 24). The same perception is
found in Photios’s ekphrasis of the Pharos church: “It seems
that everything is in ecstatic motion, and the church itself is
circling around.”’05 Robert Nelson has recently defined the
icon’s system of signification as circular and tautological.’o6
Byzantine architecture exploits the same circular paradigm
insofar as it captures meaning in the confines of the sphere:
the arch, the vault, and the dome. These spatial forms con-
tinue to express Byzantium’s essence as the culture of the
imprint, shaping matter by impressing its circular seal of
signification.

23 Homilies of John Chrysostomos,
monk reading the homilies to the
emperor. Bibliotheque Nationale de
France, Pans, Coislin cod. gr. 79, fol. 1
(2 bis)r (artwork in the public domaiin;
photograph provided by the
Bibliotheque Nationale de France,
Paris)
Smell and Taste: The Transformation
The sonorous icon brings the two aspects of graphe, painting
and writing, together: gruphe as the imprint of form on mat-
ter. Figure and letter, one translates into scintillating light,
the other into a sound carried in space. And through the
voice bearing the melody in space, the sense of taste emerges.
As Theodore Hyrtakenos wrote in a letter to his friend in the
fourteenth century: “gazing at the letter, I feel I see you in
front of me and fill up with your sweet traits like honey, I hear
the echo of the musical tones of this ~ o n d e r . ” ’ ~This
’ con-
nection between the pleasure of reading/hearing the voice of
the writer, drinking, and music is a topos in letter writing.’”
The oral performance of letters and prayers (epigrams) de-
pends on a multisensory e ~ p e r i e n c e . ”In
~ both cases, it tries
to reconstitute presence of an absent entity through sensual
stimuli. In the case of letters, this absent referent is the writer.
In the case of prayers, it is the invisible and intangible God.
For the Byzantines, apsychos gruphe becomes the performa-
tive image/writing that stirs the five senses and triggers syn-
esthesis.
A similar synesthetic experience of hearing and taste
TIIE P E R F O R M A T I V E ICON 649
emerges in the vision of the Vita Basilii Zunioris. The souls of
the saints are gathered at an Edenic symposium. They pass
around a glowing chalice with a nectar of ambrosia. Drinking
this divine substance, the face of each participant transforms
into the gleam of budding roses:
The mixed wine in those immaterial and sun-bright cups
was gleaming intensely like burning hot coals, and when
someone received in his hands that wondrous and flashing
cup, filled with nectar of ambrosia and brought it near his
own mouth to drink, he was filled with the sweetness of the
Holy Spirit. . . . His face gleamed and he was more illumi-
nated, like a rose emerging from the calyx.”’
The synesthetic experience described in Vita Basilii Zunioris
could also be demonstrated by the Eucharist cup at S. Marco.
It can show how sight, touch, and sound could be linked to
smell and taste (Figs. 18, 19). An inscription is enameled on
the golden rim. The letters imprinted on the metal surface
announce: “Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the New
Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins”
650 ART BULLETIN VOLUME LXXXVIII NUMBER 4
24 Domed interior of the monastery church of Hosios Loukas,
Greece, late 10th century (photograph by Erich Lessing,
provided by Art Resource, NY)
(Matt. 26:27-28).'" As these words are pronounced and the
lips touch the surface of the chalice, the wine fills up the
mouth. Then words become body. Sounds become taste and
smell. The recipient of the wine, agitated in the synesthetic
vision (pikilia) of these corporeal sensations, becomes trans-
formed in this climactic moment of the liturgy. The partici-
pation in the Eucharist replicates the metamorphosis de-
scribed in the vision of Vita Basilii Zunioris where the saints'
faces alight as they feel the sweetness of the Holy Spirit after
imbibing the nectar of ambrosia.
In a similar way, the hands touching the icon and the lips
kissing its surface link words with taste. The textures of the
icon trigger a synesthesis: sight, touch, hearing, smell, and
taste are engaged simultaneously. This experiential knowl-
edge of God, this intuition of presence is achieved through
an almost Eucharistic experience of the icon.
An account of such a spectacle of senses is found in the Lqe
of Saint Theodore of Sykeon (d. 613) (Vita Theodori Syceotae).'"
The saint, frustrated in his attempt to learn all the Psalms,
resorts to an icon of Christ. After praying for help, he expe-
riences the taste of honey in his mouth, followed by his
miraculous new ability to learn all the Psalms by heart in a
matter of days:
For as the boy got up from the ground and turned to the
icon of our Savior in prayer, he felt a sweetness more
pleasant than honey poured into his mouth. He recog-
nized the grace of God, partook of the sweetness and gave
thanks to Christ, and From that hour on he memorized the
psalter easily and quickly and had learnt the whole of it by
heart in a few days."3
According to Paul Speck, the excerpt about the icon that
caused the sensation of honey after the saint had prayed to it
was interpolated in this passage during Iconoclasm: the asso-
ciation of the icon with psalms and prayer was established
during that p e r i ~ d . ' ' ~
The panel becomes the channel of direct divine response.
The role of the icon is equated to the effect of prayer. Sacred
presence translates into the sensation of honey in the mouth
of the faithful. Like the Davidic poems, the sonorous icon
triggers the sense of taste: the sweetness of honey. At the
same time, the reference to honey in the Psalms (Pss. lS:ll,
118:103) indicates the moment when God's voice directly
reaches the supplicant and grants him or her forgiveness.
Similarly, in the climactic moment of the liturgy, the Com-
munion, the supplicant is exhorted with Psalms 33:s: "taste
and see that God is Taste leads to participatory
knowledge of God.
Saint Theodore of Sykeon participates in the sweetness of
God. The verb used, "partake" (metalamvano, ~ E T C ~ A ( Y & ~ L V W
is) ,
usually associated with the Eucharist."' It refers to this trans-
formative moment when the worshiper loses his or her iden-
tity, dissolving into the sacred presence and sharing in the
sacred essence. The performance of the icon is equated to
that of the bread and wine transformed into body and blood
during the liturgy. This metamorphosis of the icon, or better,
this metamorphosis of the worshiper takes place in the pro-
cess of prayer. He or she then projects this experience (path-
emu, r&OrJpL(y)back onto the icon.
Sight and touch, triggered by floskynesis (prostration, ven-
eration, prayer) and aspasmos (kiss) give rise to sound in the
enunciation of prayer. Sound in turn precipitates the sensa-
tion of taste and smell. The olfactory experience of the icon
is more difficult to gauge, yet it is linked to taste and the
Eucharistic ritual and stems from the integration of the icon
in the liturgical rite. Incense burning accompanies prayer. As
Susan Harvey has argued, the smoke of incense provides a
visual and olfactory bridge between the human and divine
spheres. Like taste, incense affords a participatory, experien-
tial approach to God. Divine knowledge becomes sensorially
apprehended through the body.
This sensual aspect of the Byzantine rite is fully integrated
in the way the icon operates. Like taste, smell engages es-
sence, not appearance, and this ensures divine knowledge.
Smell is affective yet intangible. While burning, incense be-
comes transformed from material substance into smoke: an
ineffable yet sensorially present essence. As such, smell be-
comes a perfect means through which to experience divine
presence: intangible yet palpably present through the olfac-
tory sense."'
Perfumes, incense, and spices traditionally accompanied
imperial and liturgical ceremonies."' It is in such aromatic
settings that luxury icons like the enameled panel of Arch-
angel Michael performed. The sweet smells are part of the
synesthetic vision (pikilia), which is addressed to the partici-
pant. The Book of Ceremonies reveals many instances where a
variety of smells and spices are distributed to the court, or are
carried by the crowd, o r simply waft in the ceremonial

space.11gThe most elaborate account appears in the section
on imperial military campaigns. The extensive list of aromat-
ics includes “ointments, various perfumes, mastic, frankin-
cense, sachar, saffron, musk, amber, bitter aloes moist and
dry, pure ground cinnamon of first and second quality, cin-
namon wood, and other perfumes.”120This rich assortment
served a variety of functions: medicinal, political, even diplo-
matic, because some of these rare scents and spices were
offered as gifts. This fascination with aromatics betrays the
sensually rich environment in which both the imperial and
liturgical ceremonies were set.
Unlike our contemporary olfactory neutrality in regard to
power, authority in Byzantium was linked to aromatic
scents.“’ The enamel icon at S. Marco with its imperial attire
of the Archangel and the court chapel in which it resided
likely shared the same aromatized air of scents, perfumes,
incense, and spices (Fig. 13). Power in the Middle Ages
manifests itself in a complex synesthetic vision (pikilia).lZ2
These fragrances also enhanced the sensual effect of the
panel. Moreover, the elaborate golden filigree and enameled
lozenges with flowers conjure an image of the fragrant gar-
dens of the palace and of paradise (Fig. 21). Similarly, the
Greek word usually employed to designate “colors” is jlozuers
(&vOcu). The polychromatic surface of the enameled icon is,
in Greek, “enflowered: virtually filled with the complex per-
fume of fragrant blossoms. The visual and haptic aspects of
the icon subtly tease out through form and color the memory
of aroma wafting into space. This perfume, imagined or real,
brings to the faithful the scent of ~ a l v a t i o n . ’ ~ ~
A Circle Completed
As the worshiper approaches the icon and begins praying, the
five senses alight. These corporeal pleasures trigger an intu-
ition of sacred presence. While sight, touch, and sound stem
from matter and perform the appearance of the divine, smell
and taste engage the essence and make possible a participa-
tory, sensorial experience of the holy. Both taste and smell
are embedded in the liturgy. The icon operates like other
liturgical objects, such as the Eucharist chalice of the Patri-
archs at S. Marco. As wine pours from the cup, sight, touch,
and sound transform into smell and taste. Taste itself be-
comes the seal or affirmation of participatory knowledge of
~ 0 d . l ~ ~
As a result of the performance/mimesis of the icon, this
materially triggered synesthetic pleasure experienced by the
faithful leads to something like Eucharistic transformation.
Sight, touch, and sound, the three aspects of the experience
of graphe, display a vision of paradise and present a prayer.
Taste and smell form the answer to this request and provide
a proleptic access to divine delight. The circle of human
request and divine response is completed, preserving the
Byzantine tautological, closed system of signification. The
icon’s magic thus resides in the circular dynamic it e l i ~ i t s . “ ~
This dynamic begins with the icon’s surface, with its con-
centration of rich materiality-an excess of materiality that
paradoxically reveals a vision of the immaterial. The concept
of the icon as surface resembles Martin Heidegger’s defini-
tion of truth. Starting with the Greek word alithia or alathia
(a-, without, lathia, covering, &h<OeLcY, &AhOeLa), he argues
that truth is the unconcealedness of being.lZ6 In a similar
T H E P E R F O R M A T I V E ICON 651
way, the icon uncovers a divine vision by giving it a material
being-textures that can be grasped and sensorially experi-
enced. Its rich surfaces function as the material veil affirming
the presence of the intangible underneath. The icon as sur-
face becomes the sensual “givenness” of absence. It rises as
the saturated phenomenon synesthetically performing the
invisible and intangible to the faithful.’”
In its original context, the icon’s instability, polymorphy of
shimmering light, reverberating sound, and redolent fra-
grance imbue it with life, making it an empsychos, an “inspir-
ited” image. The Byzantine icon is dependent on a living
body in space in order to perform. The object reconstitutes
itself before the human gaze, touch, hearing, smell, and taste.
This mimesis of surfaces changing by the shifts in ambient
light, air, smells, and sounds creates a synesthetic vision
(pikilia) that affects the faithful. This performance inundates
and saturates the human corporeal apprehension. The effect
of sight and touch is coupled with hearing and smell. The last
sense to be activated is taste. Through it emerges the climax:
the metamorphosis. It is in this crucial moment that the
individual, the corporeal, and the tangible dissolve into a
spiritual vision of partaking in the sacred. This sensual, phys-
ical agitation (7rhOqpcY) experienced by the faithful is simul-
taneously transferred onto the object. The icon becomes an
empsychos graphe. From being a mere imprint of visual char-
acteristics, a materially reified absence, the performative icon
thus stages the most sensually rich experience of divine pres-
ence.
Bissera V. Pentcheva is assistant profsssor at Stanford University.
Her work focuses on medieval image theoiy and Byzantine icons. Her
book Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium
(Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006) explores the interaction
between impa’al power and the cult of Ma? [Department of Art and
Art History, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif: 94305,bisserat3
stunford.edu].
Notes
This article presents an excerpt from my forthcoming hook, Sensual Splendor:
The Icon in Byzantium (University Park Pennsylvania State University Press).
Unless otherwise indicated, translations from the Greek are mine.
1. For the definition of icon as a portable devotional object, see Ernst
Kitzinger, “The Cult of Icons in the Age before Iconoclasm,” Dumbar-
ton Oaks Papers 8 (1954): 82-150; and most recently Thomas Mathews,
“Isis and Mary in Early Icons,” in Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions
of the Theotokos in Byzantium, ed. Maria Vassilaki (Aldershot, U K : Ash-
gate, 2005), 3-9. Another, broader definition, which includes repre-
sentations in all media, from frescoes and mosaics to coins, is also
current in Byzantine studies. Yet it is problematic, for many of the
images included in this definition, especially monumental painting
and mosaic, preclude the intimate engagement of proskynesis (reveren-
tial bowing) and aspasmos (kiss) that is tied up with the identity of a
Byzantine icon. This broader use of the term arose from Otto De-
mus’s concept of “spatial icons”; Demus, Byzantine Mosaic Decorafion:
Aspects of Monumental Arl in Byzantium (London: IL P. T. Trubner,
1948; reprint, New York A. Caratzas, 1993).
2. Bissera V. Pentcheva, “Epigrams on Icons,” in Art and Text in Byzantine
Culture, ed. Liz James (New York Cambridge University Press, forth-
coming).
3. Earlier studies on sensual apprehension in medieval art focused on
the depiction of the five senses, such as Carl Nordenfalk, “The Five
Senses in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art,” Journal ofthe Warburg
and Courtauld Insfilules 48 (1985): 1-22. By contrast, recent work has
drawn attention to the sensual effect of art and architecture: Liz
652 ART BULLETIN VOLUME LXXXVIII NUMBER 4
James, “Sense and Sensibility in Byzantium,” Art Hisloty 27, no. 4
(2004): 523-37; and Rico Franses, “‘When All That Is Gold Does Not
Glitter,” in Icon and Word: The Power oJImages in Byzanfium; Sfudies Pre-
senfed f o Robin Cormack, ed. Anthony Eastmond and Liz James (Alder-
shot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2003), 13-24. See also the collection of essays I
cinque sensi, ed. Natalie Blanchardi, Micrologus, vol. 10 (Florence: Sis-
mel, 2002).
4. Dominique D. Poirel, ed., L’abbt Suger, le mani/esfegofhique de Sainf-
Denis ef la p a s t e uicfa’ne (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001); Conrad Rudolph,
Artisfic Change af SL-Denis: A660f Suger’s Program and fireEarly Twelffh-
Cenfuty Controversy over Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1990); and Jean-Claude Bonne, “Penske de I’art et pensie,thic-
logique dans les h i t s de Suger,” in Artistes ef philosophex Educafeurs?
ed. Christian Descamps (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1994), 13-
50.
5. No systematic study of vision in Byzantium exists. This is a subject that
needs to be addressed in the future. Robert Nelson’s pioneering essay
suggests that while both infromissionand exframissionwere known in By-
zantium, exframission appears to be the dominant prism through
which vision was perceived to operate. Nelson, “To Say and to See:
Ekphrasis and Vision in Byzantium,” in Visualify beJDre and bqond fhe
Renaissance (New York Cambridge University Press, ZOOO), 143-68;
and Gervase Mathew, Byranfine Aesfhefics(London: John Murray,
1963). 29-31. For ancient Greek thought on vision, see David Lind-
berg, Theories oJ VisionJrom Al-Kindi lo K@ler (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1976), 1-17.
6. Sight as touch resonates with Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s ideas ex-
pressed in “The Intertwining-the Chiasm,” in Merleau-Ponty, The
Visi6le and lire Inuisi6le (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press,
1968), 130-55.
7. The revetted icon is explored at length in Bissera V. Pentcheva, Sen-
sual Splendor: The Icon in Byzanfium, forthcoming. For preliminary find-
ings, see Pentcheva, “Epigrams on Icons”; and Glenn Peers, Sacred
Shock: Framing Visual Experience in Bjzanfium (University Park Pennsyl-
vania State University Press, 2004), 101-31.
8. Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Townrdc a Phenomenology of Giuenness,
trans. .Jeffrey Kosky (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002). I
thankRobert Harrison for introducing me to this work.
9. Only isolated voices have expressed concern about the draining of
the icon’s meaning when subjected to the standard museum display.
See Sharon Gerstel, “The Aesthetics of Orthodox Faith,” Art Bullefin
87 (2004): 331-41, esp. 332.
10. For the Byzantine definition of mimpsis as performance, see the article
by Eustratios Papaioannou on the self-fashioning of Michael Psellos in
PerJorming Byzanfium, ed. Margaret Mullett (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate,
forthcoming).
11. Concepts that are again surprisingly close to the notion of the embod-
iment of ideas and the interaction of viewer and viewed are in Mer-
leau-Ponty, “The Intertwining,” 130-55.
12. Pave1 Florensky, “The Church Ritual as a Synthesis of the Arts”
(1918). in Bqond Vision: Essays on fhe Pnc@tion ofArf / Pave1 Florensky,
trans. Wendy Salmond, ed. Nicoletta Misler (London: Reaktion,
2002), 95-1 11.
13. For an understanding of empAychos graphe as images inhabited by the
Holy Spirit or as pictorial equivalents to figures of speech, see Bissera
V. Pentcheva, “The Icon of the ‘Usual Miracle’ at the Blachernai,”
Res: Journal oJAnfhr~101ogy and Aesfhefics38 (2000): 34-55; and idem,
“Visual Textuality: The Logos as Pregnant Body and Building,” Res 45
(2004): 225-38.
14. Charles Barber, Figure and Likeness: On fhe Limifs oJR@resenfafion in
Byzanfine Iconoclasm (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).
15. lbid., 70-81.
16. Oskar Wulff, Die Koimesiskirche in Niciia und ihre Mosaiken (Strassburg:
Heitz und Mtindel, 1903); and Theodor Schmit, Die Koimesis-Kirche uon
iVikaia: Das Bauwerk uiid die Mosaiken (Berlin: MI. de Gruyter, 1927).
17. Wulff, Die Koimesiskirche in Niciia, 246, 271; and Schmit, Die Koimesis-
Kirche uon Nikaia, 39, described the ray as gray (grau and hellgrau).
Most likely the tesserae were silver, still covered in soot and dirt, hav-
ing lost their luster and shimmer. Only metal could have created the
glimmer and flicker in the early morning light that would have actual-
ized the prophecy of the mosaic inscription into a visual reality: “I
have begotten thee in the womb before the morning star” (Ps. 109:3).
For a discussion of the Incarnation symbolism at Nikaia, see Cyril
Mango, “The Chalkoprateia Annunciation and the Pre-eternal Logos,”
Dplfion fes Christianikes Arrhaiologikes Hefaireius 17, no. 4 (1993-94):
165-70.
18. Barber, Figure and Likeness, 72-81.
19. Ibid., 107-23.
20. Patriarch Nikephoros, Anfirrhetim II, in Pafrologia cursw complefus: Se-
ries graeca (hereafter, PG),ed. J.-P. Migne, 161 vols. (Paris: Migne, 1857-
66), vol. 100, col. 357D: ’*ETL$ ypa&i rb awparucbv eBo$ roc
ypol$OVkVOV 7K@orr)UL, Urnpa! TE KCYL pOp4?V (YilTOif
&JTWTOV/.LkVq Kff‘L T$V &4kPELOLV.
21. Theodore of Stoudios, Anfirrheficus11, sec. 11, in PG, vol. 99, col.
357D: rI&vrw$ 6k $ EIKGJV$ Gqp~ovpyovpkvq,p ~ r a + ~ p o p k v&V?J
q roC
rrpwrorhov, *v b p o i w a ~ vE k +v GAqv &‘Aq+e KLG~ E T ~ U X ~rot? K E
XffpCYKTTpOS 6KEiVOV 6i& 75s TOG TEXYiTOV 6Ll.YVOicYS K& X€LpbS
6varr6paypa. o6rwr 6 [wyp&+os* d r w s 6 ALOO~A*OS, drwr 6 rbv
x p k e o v KCX‘L rbv X&AKEOV &v6prhvra Sqp~ovpytiW,ZAaPev Ghqv,
&rrcT6ev e k r b rrpor6nmov, &vOAaPe roGreOewpqpkvov rbv r h o v
ivarrea+payiaaro TOGTOY 6v TQ GAD.
22. For instance, the famous icon of the “usual miracle” at the Blachernai
Church of the Virgin in Constantinople was always covered with a silk
veil. When on some Fridays the Holy Spirit allegedly descended on
the image, this veil lifted itself to reveal the animated (empsychos) im-
age of the Virgin beneath. Bissera V. Pentcheva, Icons and Power: The
Mother o j God in Byzanfium (university Park Pennsylvania State Univer-
sity Press, 2006), 154-60. See also idem, “The Performance of Relics,”
in Mullett, PerJorming Byzanfium.
23. For the wide use of seals in Byzantine society, see Gary Vikan and
John Nesbitt, Securify in Byzanfium: Locking, Sealing and Weighing,
Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, 2 (Washington, D.C.: Dum-
barton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, Trustees for Harvard Uni-
versity, 1980).
24. A. Karakatsanes, ed., Treasures of Mounf Afhos (Thessalonikk Organiza-
tion for the Cultural Capital of Europe, 1997), 508, cat. no. 13.1.
25. Herbert Kessler, “Configuring the Invisible by Copying the Holy
Face,” in The Holy Face and fhe Paradox oJRepresentafion, ed. Kessler and
Gerhard Wolf, Villa Spelman Colloquia, 6 (Bologna: Nuovo Alfa,
1998), 129-51, reprinted in Kessler, Spirifual Seeing: Picfuring God’s
Invisibility in Medieval Art (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, ZOOO), 64-87.
26. The way the icon self-consciously draws attention to matter, thus can-
celing any claims for the presence of sacred energy (essence), resem-
bles the way images were fashioned and displayed in the Latin West
before 1140. See Herbert Kessler, “Real Absence: Early Medieval Art
and the Metamorphosis of Vision,” in Mor/ologie sociali e culfurali in
Europa Jra farda antichild e a h medioevo, 2 vols., Settimane di Studio
del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 45 (Spoleto: Centro
Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1998). vol. 2, 1157-213, re-
printed in Kessler, Spiritual Seeing, 104-48.
27. Kessler, Spiritual Seeing. See also idem, Seeing Medieval Art (Toronto:
Broadview Press, 2004).
28. For a discussion of Western culture’s privileging of sight, see Martin
Jay, Downcasf Eyes: The Denigrafion of Vision in Twenfiefh-CenfutyThought
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 1-148. I thank Lela
Graybill for introducing this study to me.
29. The expression “to touch with the eyes and lips” is recorded in the
liturgical treatise of the Mandylion, mid-tenth century. See Ernst von
Dobschiitz, Chrislusbilder: Unfersuchungen zur chrisflichenLegende, 3 vols.
(Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1899), 112**.
30. See n. 21 above.
31. Barber, figure and Likeness, 107-37.
32. Paul the Silentiary, “Descriptio Sanctae Sophiae,” in Prokop. Werke, ed.
Otto Veh, 5 vols. (Munich: Heimeran, 1977), vol. 5, 306-58, esp.
340-42, lines 691-720; trans. Cyril Mango, The Art offhe Byzanfine Em-
pire 312-1453 (1986 reprint, Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1993), 87-88. See also S. Xydis, ”The Chancel Barrier, Solea, and
Ambo of Hagia Sophia,” Art Bulkfin 29 (1947): 1-24.
33. Vita Basilii Imperafm’s,bk. 5, sec. 83, in Theophanes confinuafus,ed. Im-
manuel Bekker, Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae (hereafter
CSHB), 33 (Bonn: Impensis ed. Weberi, 1838), 326; trans. Mango, The
Art o f f h e Byzantine Empire, 194. The sanctuary, synthronon, altar tables,
templon barrier, and epistyle were all covered in gilded-silver re-
poussi work and adorned with pearls and gems.
34. Vita Basilii Imperaforis, bk. 5, sec. 87, in Bekker, Theophanes confinuafus,
330; trans. Mango, The Art oJfhe Byranfine Empire, 196.
35. Marie-France Auzipy, “La destruction de I’ic6ne du Christ de la
Chalci de Lion 111: Propagande ou rialiti,” Byzantion 60 (1990): 445-
92; Robin Cormack, “Women and Icons, and Women in Icons,” in
Women, Men and Eunuchs: Gender in Byzanfium (London: Routledge,
1997), 24-51; Leslie Brubaker, “The Chalke Gate, the Construction of
the Past, and the Trier Ivory,” Byranfine and Modern Greek Sfudies 23
(1999): 258-85; and Cyril Mango, The Brazen House: A Sfudy of the Ves-
fi6ule offhe ImpOial Palace of Conslanlinople (Copenhagen: B. L. Bog-
trykkeri, 1959), 108-42.

36. Auzipy, “La destruction de I’icbne du Christ de la ChalcC,” 445-92.
37. Philip Grierson, Cafalogue of Byzanfine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Col-
lecfion and in fhe WhifkmoreCollecfion, 5 vols. (1966; reprint, Washing-
ton, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1992). vol. 3, pt. 1, 160-61, 454-55.
38. The Greek word chalkeos does
( X ~ ~ K E O C ) not distinguish between c o p
per and bronze. Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, eds., Greek-
English Lexikon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); and Liddell, Scott,
and H . Stuart Jones, Greek-English Lexicon: A Supplaenf (Oxford Clar-
endon Press, 1968). See also Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spaw-
forth, eds., The Oxford Classical Dicfionaly (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1996), S.V. “bronze.”
39. Mango, T h e B r m House, 108-42, esp. 116.
40. The second source, the Chronographia of Theophanes, simply states:
“They also killed a few of the emperor’s men who had taken down
the Lord’s icon which was [set] above the great Bronze Gates,”
...
TheoDhanes. Chronomabhia, ed. Immanuel Bekker, 2 vols., CSHB, 41-
42, vol. 1, 623; trans. and ed. Cyril Mango and Robert Scott, The
Chronicle of Theophanes Conjssor: Byzanfine and Near Eastern H i s b y , AD
284-813 (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1997), 559.
41. Vila Sfephani Iunimis, bk. 10, in La vie daienne le Jeune par Efienne le
Diacre, trans. and ed. Marie-France AuzCpy, Birmingham Byzantine
and Ottoman Monographs, 3 (Aldershot, U.K.: Variorum, 1997), 100:
‘ev roiro~soGv ~ ~ O W L C Y T L K G FSpa&p~vos-rijs aipiucws, TELPBTLYL
~ ) V Xp~urog705 OEOVi p ~ ev v
napevfi rilv S ~ U ~ O T L KeiK6va
iSpupivqv GnepOcv TGVP~ULALKGV mAGv, 6v o i o n ~ p6 ~ &rbv
1
p p a ~ @ p ~ t&yia XCXAKTA ~ ~ E T C XK LL Y, T E V ~ Y K K(YZ~ L ~p~
napaborna L.
42. AuzCpy has offered a similar translation in La vie d’hienne le Jeune,
193.
43. Theophanes, Chronographia, ed. Bekker, vol. 1, 439-40: kv p@
K O L ~ W ~ ~ V abrotielS~v
O V 6mauiav, e k *v x a h ~ 7 f v&Aqv TOG
~ a h a r i o u6v E ~ K ~ roVuo*pos
V L k a 1 6 v napeurGra, ~ aAabv
i mation of the Classical Heritage, 32 (Berkeley: University of Califor-
7TCtPEUTGTCY LYb@K ( Y i 406 yiyOV€ 6 K T O ~ X L Y P ( Y K @ P O F 703
p ~ y & h o vOeoV K C X ~uo@pos 4pGv ’IqaoVXp~uroVh i y o w a . T h e
sense of a n icon in metal relief is lost in Mango’s a n d Scott’s
translation, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, 410.
44. Sm$fores Originum Consfanfinopolilarum,2 vols., ed. Theodor Preger
(Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1901). vol. 2, 219: hv 7fi Aeyopivp X a h ~ v
@hq X L Y ~ K ?3v ~ roV ~ v p i o v 1pGv ’ I ~ U ~ ~ X P L Cnap&
J T O VTOG
pey&Aov K U V U T ~ V T ~ VKTLUOKUW
OV 6 62 hiov 6 na*p 703
KaPahhivov r a k q v ~aTi)yayev.‘H62 lriiv SL& $q&Swv 6 p o p i v q
&K&VroVxp~uroV&v~uroptOqnap&ELptvqs @s ’AOqvaias.
45. Mango, The Brazen House, 108-9. Albrecht Berger has also translated
the passage using ”bronze statue.” Yet, relying on the evidence of the
Lije of Sainf Stephen fhe Younger, he has suggested that the original
Chalke image was a bronze relief, which was replaced after 843 by a
mosaic. Berger, Unfersuchungen zu den Pafria Konsfanfinupoleos, Poikila
Byzantina, 8 (Bonn: Dr. Rudolf Habelt, 1988), 252-55.
46. Patriarch Methodios, epigram for the Chalkites icon, in Mango, The
Brazen House, 126-27 6Oev rrepryp&+wv U E ~ a yph+wv i rhro~s.
47. Michaelis Glycae Annales, ed. Immanuel Bekker (Bonn: Impensis ed.
Weberi, 1836), 623.
48. Basil of Caesarea, De Sancfo Spirifo 18.45, 45, in PG, vol. 32, col. 69D;
and John of Damaskos, De imaginibus, I, in PG, vol. 94, col. 1264A,
both are discussed in Barber, Figure and Likeness, 74-76, 122.
49. In fact, the medallion image came to be understood as the canonical
icon of Christ already in the late seventh century. See Kathleen Corri-
gan, “The Witness of John the Baptist on an Early Byzantine Icon in
Kiev,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 42 (1988): 1-11, esp. 10.
50. Marfa V. Stepkina, Miniafjuly Khludovskoi Psalfyri (Moscow: Isskustvo,
1977); and Kathleen Corrigan, Visual Polemics in fhe Ninfh-Cenluly Byz-
antine Psalfers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). There
are roughly seventeen depictions of icons, fourteen of which display
the image in a medallion shape. Only three show a rectangular icon;
two of these depict Saint Peter, the other the Virgin and Child.
51. Corrigan, Visual Polemics, 131-34.
52. For the evolution of processions with icons, see Pentcheva, Irons and
Power, 37-59.
53. Ibid., 109-43.
54. Pliny, Natural Hisfmy bk. 35, lines 64-66.
55. On Painfing/Leon BaffisfaAherfi, 1436, trans. Cecil Grayson (London:
Penguin, 1991).
56. Ernst Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study of fhe Psychology ofPiclmial
Represenfalion (New York Pantheon Books, 1960).
57. Norman Blyson, Vision and Painting: The Logic ofthe Gaze (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1983), 163;Jonathan Crary, Techniques of fhe O&
smer: On Vision and M o d a i t y in the Ninefeenfh Century (Cambridge,
T H E PERFORMATIVE ICON 653
Mass.: MIT Press, 1990); and Georges Didi-Hubecman, Devant l’image:
Question post%a u x j n s d’une hisfoire de l’art (Paris: Editions de Minuit,
1990).
58. Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexikon, S.V.“typos.”
59. In the eyes of outsiders Byzantium has been identified correctly as the
culture of the imprint. See the recent discussion of Alexander Nagel
and Christopher Wood, “Interventions: Toward a New Model of Re-
naissance Gachronism,” Art Bulletin 87 (2005): 403-15, esp. 407 and
note 28 (referring to the writings of Theodore of Stoudios).
60. Konstantinos Manaphes, ed., Sinai: Treasures of the Monasfety of Sainf
Cafhm’ne(Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1990). 140-46, nos. 6-7, 10-15;
and Kurt Weitzmann, The Monasfety of Sainf Cafhm’ne on Mount Sinai:
The Icons (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), nos. 50ff.; with
a recent revision of the dating of some of these icons in Leslie
Brubaker and John Haldon, Byzanfium in the Iconoclasf Era (ca. 680-
850): The Sources; An Annofaled Survq, Birmingham Byzantine and Ot-
toman Monographs, 7 (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2001).
61 See Antonio Pasini, I1 tesoro di Sun Marco in Venezia, 2 vols. (Venice:
F. Ongania, 1886), vol. 1, 73-74, cat. no. 4; Michelangelo Muraro and
AndrC Grabar, Treasures of Venice (Milan: Skira, 1963), 65-69; Klaus
Wessel, Byzantine Enamels fmm the Fiffh to fhe Thirteenlh Centuly (Green-
wich, Conn.: NewYork Graphic Society, 1968), 89-91, cat. no. 28;
Grabar, catalog entry in I1 fesoro di San Marco, ed. H. R. Hahnloser
(Florence: Sansoni, 1971), 25-26, cat. no. 17; and The Treasuly of Sun
Marc0 (Milan: Olivetti, 1984), 141-47, cat. no. 12. The central plaque
is dated to the late tenth century. The transverse bands are Byzantine,
as are the enamels, but they no longer form their original sequence.
The outside frame is Venetian, thirteenth century. The reverse side is
possibly Byzantine; the cross is part of the original back of the icon.
The medallions are out of sequence. The daisy-pattern frame around
the plaque with the cross is modern.
62. Glenn Peers, Sublle Bodies: Represenling Angels in Byzanfium, Transfor-
nia Press, 2001), 167-71, 177, 191.
63. Muraro and Grabar, Treasures of Venice, 65.
64. Georges Didi-Huberman, Fra Angelico: Dissemblance and Figurafion,
trans. J. M. Todd (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 3, 5,
45-60.
65. Patriarch Nikephoros, Apologeticus pro satris imaginibus, in PG, vol. 100,
col. 777C T&S rGv hepovpaviwv Svv&pewv ~ V T W T O T atppbho~s LKGS
~K+&VEUOCKL. See Peers, Subfle Bodies, 89-125, esp. 113.
66. Alois Riegl, “Late Roman or Oriental,” in Alois RiegL German Essays on
Art Hisfmy, ed. Gert Schiff, the German Library, 79 (New York: Con-
tinuum, 1988), 173-90, esp. 181: “Whereas the optical qualities disap
pear in the dark, the tactile qualities remain. Extent and delimitation
are thus the more objective qualities, color and light the more subjec-
tive ones, for the latter depend to a great degree on those chance
circumstances in which the perceiving subject finds itself.”
67. Robin Cormack, Painling fhe Soul: Icons, Dealh Masks, and Shrouds
(London: Reaktion, 1997), 26-27.
68. Suidae lexicon, ed. A. Adler, Lexicographi Graeci, 1, 4 vols. (1928-38;
reprint, Leipzig: Teubner, 1971), vol. 4, 828-29: roiho 82 ~ U T Lr b
XpGpW ‘Tb y&p 6 V 7fi 67TL&V€i@ XpspffT O i h O 6 U T L T b bPaT6V, K a i
roirov ai 61@s & V T L ~ C X ~ ~ ~ V OThe V T ~passage
L . is discussed in Liz
James, Light and Color in Byzantine Art (Oxford Clarendon Press,
1996), 74-75.
69. Liz James, “Color and Meaning in Byzantium,” Journal of Early Chris-
tian Studies 1 1 , no. 2 (2003): 223-33.
70. Book of CiJh and Rarifies: Kiln6 al-Hadaya wa al-TuhaJ trans. and ed.
Ghada a1 Hijjawi al-Qaddumi, Harvard Middle Eastern Monographs,
29 (Cambridge, Mass.: Hanard University Press, 1996), no. 62 (a belt
with gold enamel), no. 73 (rock crystal vessels caged in gold enamel,
gemstones, and pearls), no. 82 (enamel vessels), no. 86 (enameled
gold vessels), no. 97 (enamel bracelets).
71. Ibid., no. 97.
72. Digenis Akrifis, trans. and ed. Elizabeth Jeffreys, Cambridge Medieval
Classics, 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1.164
(gilded spear with blue enamel), 4.220-22 (golden hems enameled
with pearls), 4.239-40 (saddle and bridle), 6.555 (saddle and reins).
73. Digenis Akrifir 7.28-29: rh La naarp&nrovra x p o e d x o v OaA&uuqs
/ 6v yahijvq h b henr7fs uahevopivqs a6pas.
74. Digenis Akrifis 7.23-27: 6 A ~ L ~ G +a~SpSs
JV E‘Oahhe 7Eiv SivSpwv
h 0 K h T W / TOLKihqV E‘XUV e V XpOhV, T& &Vo€ULV &UTp&WTWV, / T&
pev e&Sq V ~ ~ K L U U Cb6SaX, T E K& pvpaiva~* / T& ,&a yijs 67ir/Xavov
nop+vp6pa+os K ~ U ~ O /S ,~ ~ ~ C X K ET’ OU T SL ~ ~ O V xpohv oi V&PKLUUOL 6v
pkpa.
75. Dominic Janes, God and Gold in Late Anliquify (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998), 126. “Jeweled inflation” refers to the appropri-
654 ART BULLETIN V O L U M E LXXXVIII NUMBER 4

ation of imperial splendor in church ritual in the course of the fourth 90. On the concept of the moving eye in extramission, see Mathew, Byz-
century. antine Aesthetics, 30. On the wandering gaze in ekphraseis, see Wulff,
76. Helen C. Evans and William D. Wixom, eds., The Gloty of Byzantium: “Das Raumerlebnis des Naos,” 534-35.
Art and Culture of the Middk Byzantine Era, A.D. 843-1261 (New York 91. Pentcheva, “Epigrams on Icons”; and Jannic Durand, “Precious-Metal
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997), cat. nos. 143 (Coislin 79). 149 Icon Revetments,” in Byzantium: Faith and Power, 1261-1557, ed.
(Auxerre silk), with bibliography. For Auxerre, see also Danielle Ga- Helen C. Evans (New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), 243-
borit-Chopin, ed., La France Romane au temps des premiers Capktiens 51.
(987-1152) (Paris: Musie du Louvre/Editions Hazan, 2005), no. 128. 92. Spyridon Lambros, “0M C Y P K L ~~Y ~ S3 524,” 6 ~ 5Neos Helhomnemon 8
77. For a similar use of the dazzling effect of gold to emphasize power (1911): nos. 73, 109. For a discussion of the role of these metric
and divinity, see Janes, God and Gold, 3, 23, 26-27, 84-86, 89, 121, prayers, see Pentcheva, “Epigrams on Icons.”
139-52. See also Peers, Sacred Shock, 107-17, 126-31; and Franses, 93. Manuelis Philae Cannina, ed. Emmanuel Miller (Amsterdam: Hakkert,
“When All That Is Gold,” 13-24. 1967), vol. 1, 65-66 X p m 8cop6j +Jv ’ESbp rf& EIK~VOS, / hv $r&
78. On Byzantine purple, see Alexander Kazhdan, ed., Oxford Dictionary of TEXYLKBP i)ppoupiva / SOKOWL K V K A O rFjs
~ ’E68p rbv
Bymnfium, 3 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), vol. 3, hpyhrqv. Discussed in Andri Grabar, Les revitlemats a or el a argent
1759-60, with bibliography. For the association of purple with gold oh, icones byrantines du M o y a Age, Bibliotheque de I’Institut HellCnique
and the link it preserved between imperial power and divinity, see d’Etudes Byzaqtines et Post-Byzantines de Venise, 7 (Venice: Institut
Janes, God and Gold, 20-21, 28, 37, 84, 86, 89, 129-30, 150-51. Hellinique d’Etudes Byzantines et Post-Byzantines, 1975), 6; and Du-
79. James, Light and Color,50, 74, 99. For potphyreos and pyravges, see also rand, “Precious-Metal Icon Revetments,“ 247.
the entries in Liddell and Scott, Creek-EnglishLexicon. 94. For the association of gold and green with paradise in late antiquity,
80. The Treasury of San Marco, 159-65, cat. no. 16; and Wessel, Byzantine see Janes, God and Gold, 100.
Enamels, 72-73, no. 20. 95. Trans. Denis Sullivan, Stamatina McGrath, and Alice-Mary Talbot,
81. In fact, by the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, usually only the from Aleksandr N. Vesselovskji, “Razyskanijav oblasti russkago du-
patriarch and the emperor would continue to receive Communion hovnago stiha,” S b a i k ’ Otdelaija mskago jmyka i shesnosti Imperators-
directly from the chalice. Robert Taft, “Byzantine Communion k q akadaii nauk’46 (1889-go), suppl., 3-89 (henceforth, Vita Basilii
Spoons: A Review of the Evidence,” Dumbarton O h Papers 50 (1996): Iunioris), 39: ‘Arrhpawes 01% ~ K ~ ~ h i
B ErhsV ro^v 6yiwv U K ~ V & F

209-38. Thus, the chalice’s exquisite synesthetic experience was re- &rope6i3qpev. awrar 68 fuav aoAAai u4BSpa u466pa p i
served for the select few. Political power in Byzantium translated into ~ O K E ~ ~ & E pV~ e~ p L@&urrep
, i t ~ ) A L ( Y K&KTTVOS
~~s +ar6por&~v
the fullness of sensual delight. aiyhqv &urp&arow~(rr, ai 88 ;K pvpro/3a4o^v hs h~ Piwuov K ( Y ~
“rOp~6~pCYS &iW (YiyhV9 DLijhOS KCXL VOlJTo^S &UTp&TTOWT(yL.I
82. On a twelfth-centurv icon from Sinai. an imaee of the Virgin 0 u is identi- thank Alice-Mary Talbot for allowing m e to use their draft transla-
fied as xerpevnj, a word that conflates the roots of both “to alloy” tion.
and “to freeze.” For this icon, see George Sotiriou and Maria Sotiriou,
Eikones tes manes Sinu, 2 vols., Collection de 1’Institut Francais 96. Trans. Sullivan et al., ibid., 42: Ei&pU3opcv cis rrva rrcpiavhov &vou
d’Athenes, 100 (Athens: Institut Francais d’Athenes, 1956-58), vol. 1, ~ arravrcABs
i h[qAhaypivav* Kai $v r b S&rrdov ahoV h&~~phvrov,
~ T E P L K E K O U ~ ~ ~xpwm~ Y O Y aha&, ~ a$ROT i hv ah@ob rrpoufp ~b
125-28, vol. 2, figs. 146-49; and Nicolette Trahoulia, “The T ~ , t in h
O%VOhOV, KCXL &i)p &UTpCYTbpOp409TT€pLl&‘ff[€lJe b b , hV 6c T m
Painting: A Refutation of Heresy in a Sinai Icon,” Jahrbuch der Oster-
reichischm Byzantinistik 52 (2002): 271-85. drppoviars r6jv ,ypwo1#~av6jv~ K E ~ V WTVA ~ K G hFjp,yov V 4vrh
ihv8rupCLiva rrawoiix r6jv +bwrvbwv K C I ~ & ~ A C X O K ~ ~hpapaiws WV
83. Patriarch Nikephoros on the nature of cherubim, in PG, vol. 100, rre+vrovpyqp6va.
col. 7761).
97. Trans. Sullivan et al., ibid., 43: Eyyrma Sb rGv &v6Bov ah6jv Luraro
84. Eve Borsook, “Rhetoric and Reality: Mosaics as Expressions of Meta- rphrreca peyian) rrfixcov T P L ~ K O V TKCYL ~ , a6rq 4 v h~ Aieov
physical Idea,” Mitteilunga des kunsthistwiccha Instituts in Flmenz 44, upaphyGov hpaiws heharopqpivq K C Y ~K ~ T E U K E W U ~ &KTT~US ~ ~ ~ ,
no. 1 (2002): 3-18, esp. 4-5; John Gage, Color and Culture: Practice and ~ K T ~ ~ T O W C &noPbhovq,
Z . . . ha& pear T ~ O K ~ ~ ~ EGVL ~OXLP W O L
Meaningfrom Antiquity to Abstraction (Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1993), &mparroe~S~ZG AVXYLT&JL ~ a&rrA6js i h~ ahvrov r6jv cvripov AiOov
39-64; and Franses, “When All That Is Gold,” 13-24. So far, the dis- KIYL X p W 6 j V 76jY h K TOV ~CKpff&iUOVh&PXOpilJWV Kai i)pOL01#1€p~.
cussion has focused only on mosaics. Yet enamel presents the same
polymorphous glitter and privileges dazzle over hue. 98. Trans. Sullivan et al., ibid., 44-45: Oi SL G s n ) p e r o ~ eas h a
V C ~ V ~ U K Ohpmr
L rrhw hrbyxavov,&rGm r a apouhrrors, AEVKO~
85. Pikilia ( T O L K L ~ ~ C Yhas ) a long tradition in Byzantium. Already in late huei xrBv, oi Ppa~eiovcsa h v K(Y‘L oi S&KTUAOL, hs bv rrs &TOL
antiquity, ordinary body remains were transformed into spiritual ob- r & m iGwv, h~ ~ ~ A Q K T O6rrQ S &~paOkvrosK ~ Y T ~ U & U ~ K~ ~LK,K L V O V
jects (relics) by being staged in sensually enhanced environments. See ~ ) ~ I $ L E U ~ ~mVoOAL+ ~ &CAW PePappBvqv K& r r h q s h p a r b q r o s
Patricia Cox Miller, “‘The Little Blue Flower Is Red’: Relics and the rrerrAqpwpLivqv, oi 82 rr68es a h 6 j v X L O V O ~ L G ~P, E ~ L E ( W U@was
~~VOL
Poetizing of the Body,” Journal ofEarljr Christian Studies 8 (2000): 213- & m p Ahpow i~ roVobpaviov rb[ov +Jv cfixpo~civK ~ K ~ ~ ~~ V a Oi W
36. lhlYUTphTTOWCy5, h7Ti 6b T&$ K O P 4 m (Yh6jXp& l
J &#XPOV
86. Grabar, catalog entry in Hahnloser, I1 tesoro di San Marco, 25. GraSi)para hv Aieo~s~ apapyhpors i ~ o h ~ ~ i huei p o ~Pohai
s Aiav
TCYlJ€U”rp€?r~UTcYTcYK ( l i I T O L K i h a ViThpXOVTa.
87. In Byzantium, ekphrasis presents a description of a building written
and received from the point of view of a subject moving through 99. For the scriptural tradition of associating whiteness and transparency
space. Oskar Wulff, “Das Raumerlebnis des Naos im Spiegel der Ek- with paradise, see Janes, God and Gold, 72-74, 84-86.
phrasis,” Byzantinische Z~hchrifl30(1929-30): 531-39; and Ruth 100. rrans. Sullivan et al., Vita Batilii Iunioris, 36-46 &rre~phuros:
Webb, “The Aesthetics of Sacred Space: Narrative, Metaphor, and Mo- &K(27LYVbqTOS; &V6K$IPCiUTOs; &&(xTOY; &€is
&l#JPhUTWF; 66VLYTlYL
tion in Ekphraseis of Church Buildings,” Dumbatton O a k P a p m 53 Abyoc Pp6rcrs 8rqykuauear; bacrpos; &veKAbLhqros; &veppqvekws;
(1999): 59-74. On the creation of the visual equivalent of this genre voqrbs; ~ aAbyos
i 06 66varar &vOphnrves S L ~ ~ ~ ) U ~ ~ U O L Y L ;
of literature in the twelfth century, see Pentcheva, “Visual Textuality,” &ppqros; &&YL ofiuar hs ai ~ A U X K C& ~K T~ T ~ J E ~K; ~ ~ T ~ U Oaaph
C X L
225-38. U W ~ ~ T L K GXVE L ~ G V&86varov; &~pooDw) ~ aehpkacrav
i
88. Mango, The ATt ofthe Byzantine Empire, 185; Photios, Homily X, sec. 4, &O~~/KPLTOV
Gparbrqrh re K ( Y ~i)Sovi)v yA0u.o &veporriq
in Photiou Homiliai, ed. V. Laourdas, Hetaireias Makedonikon Spou- & v e p p j v m o v K C Y ~&KOQ &vfirto~a70v;y ~ w r s~ V ~ L O ~ ~ K T U S
don, 12 (Thessaloniki: Hetaireias Makedonikon Spoudon, 1959). 101: &veppqveGrws rc K& & V E K ~ L ~ Y ~ ) T Wnawm ; h v ~ abbSwv
i
it o h c p rhs 6+crs ovvkxowar K D L apbs ~ Cawrhs & ~ T L U T ~ ~ ~ O V ( T ( Y L cinjupwv h m & ~ K E L W O ; .bAByw di4pamov; kv ou4pjacr K C X ~
O ~ I Ki e i h e ~ vTOLOSS~L rbv ecar+Jvp c ~ a ~ w p ~ apbs u a r rh (YiUeqUEL &Y~ppWTiV1)F 6LcYlJOiaG dlK(YT(YVb7)TOS K& &V€KSLi)YqTOY
hvBbrcpa, &AA’ i v airrip T ~ O T E ~ E V ~ U ~TO? C L ~KQLAA&
TL ~ E & ~ ( Y T O6S f i V €VOUpkYV; &$pcYUTOC 4 6 i t n ) T O F ; $ O U T S K& 8vpq6iW &T€iPOV
‘7TpOULi)V h p P L T h & p E V O P K a i TOTS 6 p O ~ ~ V O Lip.Pci6OV F Th 6/.L/*ffToL aAqpwpcvor.
&U7T€p TLF k p p L < O ~ k V O FT@ fkY6pCfTL E U V K C V . 101. See Pentcheva, “Epigrams on Icons.” Here, I am concerned with the
89. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 185; Photios, Homily X, sec. 5, epigram’s performative aspect and circular structure.
in Photiou Homiliai, 101: ‘as EX a b b v yhp rbv obpavbv pq6cvbs 102. Margaret Mullett, “Writing in Early Medieval Byzantium,” in Uses of
h ‘ T T L ? T p O U ~ O ~ T O/.LL1)8(YpbeEV
S k / . L P E P q K i ) $ K& Tdi;: ~ 0 A v p b p 4 0 ~ s Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cam-
K ( Y ~aawaxbf3ev ~ O $ J C Y L V O ~ ~ V K&AAEULV OLS hs &urpors bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 156-85, esp. 179-85.
n ~ p ~ A a p ~ b p k~K ~ ? r h 7 ) ~ p 6 V O $YiVETaL. A o K ~ A~O P
T €s LT~V
hvr6Oev rh T E &Aha hv ~ K U T ~ U E etvar L K C Y ~a h T E P L ~ L V & ~ ( Y L r b
103. The connection between the icon and the Davidic Psalms will appear
r k p e v o ~ ‘rct- yhp O ~ K E ~ C Y LKS( Y ~aavro6aac~sn c p r m p o 4 a K D L ~ again in the discussion of the sense of taste.
crvvcx6ur KLV~)UEULIJ, & a&wwsa a e f i rbv eear+Jv ?rawaxb&v 4 104. On the performative nature of epigrams, see Amy Papalexandrou,
P O L K L ~ ~ CPL&<ET(YL
Y r& Ochparos, cis a b b ri, bphpevov r b oiKfiv “Text in Context: Eloquent Monuments and the Byzantine Beholder,”
l$avr&~crffra&fhJpa. Word and Image 17, no. 3 (2001): 259-83. On the orality of Byzantine
 T H E P E R F O R M A T I V E ICON 655

literature, see Guglielmo Cavallo, “Trace per una storia della lettura i 115. This and the following biblical quotations follow the text and num-
Bisanzio,” Byzanfinische Zeitschnift 95, no. 2 (2002): 423-44; idem, “Le bering of the Greek Septuagint, Sepfuaginfa, ed. Alfred Rahlfs (1935;
rossignol et l’hirondelle: Lire et Ccrire i Byzance, en Occident,” An- reprint, Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelstiftung, 1935).
nales: Hisfoiwef Sciences Sociales 4, no. 5 (2001): 849-61; and Mullett, 116. Geoffrey Lampe, ed., Pafrisfic Greek Lexicon (1961; reprint, Oxford
“Writing in Early Medieval Byzantium,” 156-85. Clarendon Press, 2001).
105. See nn. 88-89 above. 117. Susan A. Harvey, “St. Ephrem on the Scent of Salvation,”Journal of
106. Robert Nelson, “ByzantineArt vs Western Medieval Art,” in Byzance el Theological Sfudies48, no. 1 (1998): 109-28; and idem, “Incense Offer-
le monde exfhieur: Confacts, relafions, ichanges; Acfes de frois siances du XXe ings in the Syriac Transifuc Marim Ritual and Knowledge in Ancient
Congrts International des Efudes Byzanfines, Paris, 19-25 aofif 2001, ed. Christianity,” in The Early Church and Its Context: Essays in Honor of Ewer-
Michel Balard et al., Byzantina Sorbonensia, 21 (Paris: Publications de elf Ferguon, ed. Abraham Malherbe, Frederick Norris, and James
la Sorbonne, 2005), 255-70. Thompson, Supplements to Novum Testamentum, 90 (Leiden: Brill,
107. Theodore Hyrtakenos, quoted in FranCoisJean Gabriel de la Portedu 1998), 175-91. Harvey will offer an extensive study on the role of
Theil, “Notice et extraits d’un volume de la Bibliothique Nationale, scent in late antiquity in her forthcoming monograph, Scenfing Salva-
cote MCCIX pamj les mansucrits grecs et contenant les Opuscules et tion: Ancienf Chritfianifyand the OlJacfoly Imuginafion, Transformation of
letters anecdotes de ThiodBre I‘Hyrtakcknien,” Notices ef Exfraits des the Classical Heritage, 42 (Berkeley: University of California Press,
Manusnits de la Bibliofhtque Nafionale ef Aufres BibliofMques 6 (1800): 2006). For an anthropological point of view, see Constance Classen,
1-48, esp. 42, letter no. 75: ‘Eyh 6’, iuavreui[wu TOGyp&ppau~u, David Howes, and Anthony Synnott, Aroma: The Culfural Hisfoly of
abbv us P A i m i jyoipqu,
~ ~ ar5jsi ~ C A L X o3js
~ZS kp$op€ItrOar Smell (London: Routledge, 1994).
crerp’ijvos,~ a m iu &J,EAO?, &KPOBUOCIL @6yywv r5js 8vcrpauias 118. For an excellent analysis revealing how the lavish imperial ceremonial
$,yo%. Translated into Italian and discussed in Cavallo, “Trace per shaped the imagined realm of paradise, see Liz James, “Art and Lies:
una storia della lettura i Bisanzio,”426.
Text, Image and Imagination in the Medieval World,” in Eastmond
108. Mullett, “Writing in Early Medieval Byzantium,” 179, discusses Symeon and James, Icon and Word, 59-71.
Metaphrastes on writing and drinking (letter no. 89) and John Mavro-
pous on writing and music (letter no. 1). See also Cavallo, “Trace per 119. Constantine Porphyrogennetos, De ceremoniis aulae lyzunfinae, ed. Jo-
una storia della lettura 2 Bisanzio,”425-26. hann Jacob Reiske, 2 vols., CSHB, 9-10 (Bonn: Impensis ed. Weberi,
1829), 160 (bk. 1, chap. 28), 438 (bk. 1, chap. 96).
109. On the role of orality in Byzantine literature, see n. 104 above.
120. ConsfanfineVII P*hyrogenifuc: Three Treafiseson Imperial Milifaty Expedi-
110. Trans. Sullivan et al., Vita Basilii Iunimis, 44: Tjv @ b k7iL TOG &AOLS lions, trans. John F. Haldon, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae, 28
CKeiuoLq ~+O+EYY&TL rrorqpio~~ KLPUC?~LEVOC oivos,r ypoip! (Vienna: Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1990),
kpU~pi$7NpaKkTpaTLAiaV &POS &lTffUTp&7rTWV, KlYi O?TqViKa 108-9; Constantine Porphyrogennetos, De ceremoniis, ed. Reiske, 468:
TLS a &v i m X Q ~ S i8&$arorilv 8 a v p a ~ iKeivqv u ~ a i napapqprou i u &A~LTT&, K ~ T U ~ C TG~h+opa,~ ~ T ~ f?vpiapa,paurixqu,
+wroPMou K ~ I A L KU~ ~, K T ~ &pppouias~ O S ~re~rhqpwp~vqv, ~ a T@i Aipavou,u&xap, K P ~ K O U p6uxou,
, a‘prrap,@AaAoi)u byphu K& .$t)phv,
i6iy urbpan r a h p ~pooi)yayeTO^ m a .. . . qCya& 8e rb K L U U & ~ W ~ O&UA ~ O L U ~?~pw^rou
V ~ aS&r~pou,
i ~ a @ iA O K L U U & ~ W ~ O V ,
.rrpbuo.rrouah03 ~ a in i rrA.?ou iAaprrp6uer0, cjurrep $ 8 0 ~ & p n pupiupa~aAOLT&. For the specialized terms, see also Charles Du
7z;iv K ~ ~ K O he&ABhv.
J U
Cange, Glossanum ad scri+fores mediae ef injimae graecifafis(Lyons: Anis-
111. The Treasury ofSan &arco, 159, cat. no. 16: n i e ~ eit aboif.rr&vrcp. son, Posuel, Rigaud, 1688; reprint, Graz: Akademische Druck, 1958).
T&O /.LO6 h U T L T 6 fflplY,76 WS KffLl@ 6LLYOi)KqF 76 &€p bpw^V KCYi
121. On the contemporary perception of power and smell, see Classen et
rroAAt3u ~ K ~ U ~ ~ €15 E V&#JEULU
O U &ppa~~w^u. The translation comes
al., Aroma, 161-79. Similarly, the modern utopia created by Hollywood
from the King James Version.
is “totally inodorate, existing only in the sensory domain of sight and
112. Vie de Thkodore de Sykeen, ed. A.-J. Festugiere, Subsidia Hagiographica, hearing,” 175, in contrast to the complex fragrance of the Byzantine
48 (Brussels: Socikti des Bollandistes, 1970), 11. imperial and liturgical ceremonial and the concomitant image of par-
113. Vila Theodon’ Syceofae,bk. 13, trans. in Elizabeth Dawes and Norman H. adise.
Baynes, Three Byzanfine Sainfs (Oxford: B. Blackwell Press, 1948), 95; 122. See n. 81 above.
A.-J. Festugiere, ed., Vie de Thlodore de Syken, Subsidia Hagiographica,
48 (Brussels: SociCtC des Bollandistes, 1970), 11: ‘AU(YUT&TL ~051, 123. On the association of perfume with salvation and paradise, see Har-
a h @i K TOif&I#JW, K a i m € i K b V L T m z O f l p O 9 TPOUkXOWL K f f i vey, “St. Ephrem,” and idem, “Incense Offerings”;and Suzanne Evans,
4
Seopiu+~, aOcro ~ A V K ~ j6hepou J T ~ ALTOS kypO&rau i u “The Scent of a Martyr,” Numen 49 (2002): 193-211. On the connec-
UT6pffTL fftrov?‘062 yU& @ X&TLU TOif K& p€TffhffP&Uf l S tion between odors and dreams and the imagined world of the be-
Y A W K ~ J T O FK C Y ~& x a p ~ ~ u ar@Xprw@&rrb
c r5js &pas ~ K E I L ~ Q yond, see Classen et al., Aroma, 155-58.
E t ~ b h w pKIG+aOGs &.rrm~$I~& 76 @ahri)p~o~, i u 6hiyaLs jpipa~s 124. Pss. 33:8: “Taste and see that God is good.”
&lYU a h 6 kKpffOhU.
125. Conforming to the conclusion of Nelson, “ByzantineArt vs Western
114. Paul Speck has contested the seventhcentury date of the passages Medieval Art,” 269-70.
about icons in this life and argued instead that these references were
interpolated in the mid-eighth or early ninth century. His theory 126. Martin Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” in Poef7yY,Lan-
brings the date of the text closer to the context and use of the S. guage, Thoughf, trans. and ed. Albert Hofstadter (New York Harper
Marco enamel icon. Speck, “Wunderheilige und Bilder: Zur Frage des and Row, 1971), 36, 62.
Beginns der Bilderverehrung,” in Poikila Byzanfina, vol. 11, Varia I11 127. On the saturated phenomenon, see Marion, Being Given: Towards a
(Bonn: Dr. R. Habelt, 1991), 163-247, esp. 245-46. Phenomenology of Givaness, 199-221.