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The aesthetics of Orthodox faith.
Art Bulletin, The, June, 2005 by Sharon E.J. Gerstel
In the same gallery was seen a collection of liturgical textiles, probably the least-known works in the show. Many of these are still held by monasteries as treasured objects, and their presentation at the Metropolitan allowed the viewer the extraordinary opportunity to assess their beauty, method of manufacture, and importance.
The two elaborate sakkoi (cat. nos. 177, 178) enclosed the patriarchal or, in special cases, episcopal celebrant in an array of embroidered icons. This costume element is well known from monumental painting, but the analysis of the actual vestments better illustrates the resplendence of the liturgical service and the symbolic role of the celebrant as the living embodiment of Christ. This gallery also contained a large number of epitaphioi, liturgical cloths paraded through the church during the Holy (Good) Friday service. Of singular importance is the Thessalonike epitaphios (cat. no. 187A), which was most likely executed in a textile workshop in that northern Greek city (Fig. 2). The inclusion of this Thessalonian work raises important issues about workshop practices that were unexplored in the exhibition. The detailed representation on the epitaphios of the Communion of the Apostles on either side of the recumbent Christ and the heavy figure style of the Apostles and angels suggest that a noted pair of church painters, Michael Astrapas and Eutychios, were involved in the design of this liturgical cloth (Fig. 3). The same team may also have been responsible for the design of a second textile not in the show; an embroidered silk panel of the Crucifixion, today in Bulgaria. (12) The large Bulgarian panel (48 by 26 3/4 inches, or 122 by 68 centimeters), dated about 1295, is associated through an inscription with the donors of the Peribleptos church in Ohrid, which was painted by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios. In the West, the involvement of painters, such as Jean Bondol, in the design of textiles is well documented. If, indeed, one can identify the hands of specific painters in the design of the Thessalonike epitaphios and the Crucifixion embroidery, these works provide important clues about artistic practices in the Late Byzantine period, an age in which the names of trained artists began to emerge from the anonymous workshop tradition of earlier centuries. Overall, the exhibition overemphasized Western names while neglecting to credit Byzantine artists of the same period.
