The aesthetics of Orthodox faith.

The word influence, which appeared on labels throughout the galleries, was another significant theme of the show. Scholars have rightly questioned the use of the term to describe the process by which artistic forms are altered by external cultural forces. (19) For the material under consideration in this exhibition, reception was as important as influence. In the late medieval world, influence and reception can be attributed to a variety of factors, among them the coexistence of different peoples in a single land, trade, diplomatic exchanges, intermarriage, missionary activity, and artistic copying. Each of these instances, in which two or more cultures collided, engendered different degrees of influence, ranging, on the part of the receiving culture, from knowing assimilation to subconscious emulation. Further complicating the issue of influence is Byzantium's thousand-year history, in which long-integrated artistic styles were considered indigenous art forms. The differences between primary, secondary, or even tertiary influence needed to be more thoughtfully demonstrated. A case in point is the previously mentioned church chandelier suspended in the second gallery. The metal framework is decorated with openwork sphinxes, double-headed eagles, and quadrupeds, all of which, according to the label, "resemble thirteenth-century Islamic motifs." With the exception of the double-headed eagle, however, these motifs had long been incorporated into the Byzantine artistic repertoire, making the notion of direct influence misleading.

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Together with ideas of influence, the exhibition provided the opportunity to examine the intentional rejection of influence through cultural introspection and the appropriation of styles and subjects from the past--artistic choices that gave rise to the notion of a Palaiologan "renaissance." In all periods of Byzantium, artists and patrons looked back to their historical monuments, copying venerable works and styles associated with powerful dynasties and golden ages. These so-called renaissances appear in Byzantium after cycles of disruption, such as Iconoclasm or the Latin occupation, when society was drawn to the security and prestige enjoyed by previous generations. A leaf from a thirteenth-century Psalter representing King David standing between personifications of Wisdom and Prophecy (cat. no. 159; see similarly fig. 9.10, MS Vat. Palat. Gr. 381[B]) conspicuously copies the Paris Psalter (Bibliotheque Nationale de France, MS gr. 139), one of the most lavish manuscripts of the tenth century. Associated with early rulers of the Macedonian dynasty, the Paris Psalter proclaimed imperial virtues through the representation of the story of David. Thus, in addition to their aesthetic appreciation of earlier works, artists and patrons of the thirteenth century appropriated earlier art forms with an eye toward their social and political implications.

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