EAST MEETS WEST. (Please view larger).

Last week we visited the Byzantium Exhibition at the Royal Academy and this is a photo I took of the statue of Sir J. Reynolds who was the first president of the Academy and is outside the building. The background is a huge banner advertising the exhibition and is hanging above the main entrance.

 

Highlighting the splendours of the Byzantine Empire, Byzantium 330–1453 comprises around 300 objects including icons, detached wall paintings, micro-mosaics, ivories, enamels plus gold and silver metalwork. Some of the works have never been displayed in public before. The exhibition includes great works from the San Marco Treasury in Venice and rare items from collections across Europe, the USA, Russia, Ukraine and Egypt.

This epic exhibition has been made possible through collaboration between the Royal Academy of Arts and the Benaki Museum Athens.

Byzantium 330–1453 follows a chronological progression covering the range, power and longevity of the artistic production of the Byzantine Empire through a number of themed sections. In this way the exhibition explores the origins of Byzantium; the rise of Constantinople; the threat of iconoclasm when emperors banned Christian figurative art; the post-iconoclast revival; the remarkable crescendo in the Middle Ages and the close connections between Byzantine and early Renaissance art in Italy in the 13th and early 14th centuries.

Between 1204 and 1261, Constantinople was in the hands of the Latin Crusaders, but the return of the Byzantine Emperors to the city initiated a final period of great diversity in art. Art from Constantinople, the Balkans and Russia show the final phase of refinement of distinctively Orthodox forms and functions, while Crete artists like Angelos Akotantos signed their icons and merged Byzantine and Italian styles. Up to the end of the Byzantine Empire, with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, manuscripts, micromosaics and metalwork demonstrates the virtuosity of its artists.

The exhibition shows the long history of Byzantine art and documents the patrons and artists and the world in which they lived. Seeing themselves as the members of a Christian Roman Empire they believed that they represented the culmination of civilization on earth. The art emits an intellectual, emotional and spiritual energy, yet is distinctive for the expression of passionate belief and high emotion within an art of moderation and restraint

 

WOW...Dimi...you are incredible, my friend. The insight is one thing, but the work is just fantastic. Thank you. Regards, Lawrence.

Excellent composition, Dimitris. The scene, point of view and colors are great. Very good photograph. Best regards!

Very powerful light and composition, all of the best my friend.

Very impressive and beautiful creation. Bravo.

Thanks.

Really very ipressive a view.. Perfect shot and very nice idea. A very nice aesthetic, but I can not comment on the history!.. ::-))... This was a joke...

We want peace in all parts of the world... Best regards, my dear friend... 7/7

 

Great idea to photograph this for us all to see...excellent work...congrats.

An interesting document you show us!...Ciaomau!

Thank you for the background! Very nice picture. Beautiful colours and contrast. Regards.