Delight

Architectural Review, The, Oct, 2002 by Peter Davey

AS THE EMPIRE COLLAPSED, BYZANTINE ARTISTS ACHIEVED NEW HEIGHTS OF INSPIRATION WHICH ARE MIRACULOUSLY PRESERVED IN A TINY CHURCH, JUST INSIDE THE GREAT DEFENSIVE WALL OF CONSTANTIONPLE.

Nowhere is the essence of late Byzantine civilization more powerfully distilled than in the Kariye Camii, just inside Constantinople's mighty Theodosian walls near the melancholy ruins of the Blachernae Palace, the official residence of the later emperors,. Somehow, the mosaics and frescoes of the little church were largely preserved when the city became Istanbul and the church a mosque after the Conquest in 1453 (indeed it seems that the icons were not even plastered over until an iconoclastic change of heart in the eighteenth century). Their decay is largely due to the attrition of time.

The church was largely decorated by Theodore Metochites (1270-1332), the Great Logothete - Prime Minster - who was made 'founder' of the Chora monastery of which the church was the center. He determined 'to relate, in mosaics and panting, how the Lord Himself became a mortal man on our behalf. His artists crammed the New Testament story into the tiny spaces, with brilliance and sometimes frenzy: traditionlly static compositions and portraits often became dynamic and individualistic, infected maybe by despair as the empire fell apart. Perhaps the most touching image is of Metochites himself (left), wearing the bizarre sunshade hat of his rank, yearningly presenting his church to Christ.

The church/mosque (now a museum is concisely explained by Robert Ousterhout in The Art of Kariye Camii, Scala Publishers, London, 2002, [pounds sterling]14.92. It shows most of the icons, and is almost as successful a guide to a visit in imagination as it is to the real thing.