«Θηβαΐς» : Αυτή η πλευρά του παραδείσου
Part of : Δελτίον της Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας ; Vol.38, 1999, pages 317-334
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317-334
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“Thebaid” : This Side of Paradise
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he second part of Gustav Mahler's eighth symphony is the last scene of Goethe's Faust II set to music. All evidence shows that Mahler wanted the listeners of this part of his symphony to bear in mind not only the sung words of the drama, but also Goethe's instructions for the setting. Both the instructions and Goethe's poetry for this scene reflect a subject of the 14th and 15th c. Tuscan painting, known as "Thebaid" (Fig. 1), and particularly a Thebaid fresco belonging to a group of three frescoes in the Camposanto of Pisa, which Goethe knew from a book by Lasinio, a copy of which was in the poet's possession; these frescoes, namely the "Triumph of Death" (Figs 2-3), the "Last Judgment" (Figs 4-5) and the "Thebaid", are attributed to Buffalmacco and dated around 1340. Buffalmacco's Thebaid depicts anchorites busy with practical or spiritual tasks, scattered in caves, ravines or small cells in a rocky landscape fairly rich with trees, while a river, certainly the Nile, flows along the lowest part of the composition. This painting, the oldest with this subject, drew its iconography from a book, the Vite de'santi padri by Cavalca. Munoz and Martin have observed, that some incidents depicted in this Thebaid have their origin in a Byzantine subject, the Dormition of Saint Ephraim the Syrian. This is even more evident in a later Thebaid panel, today in the Uffizzi, attributed to Stamina or Fra Angelico, dated in the beginning of the 15th c. (Fig. 6). Among Greek scholars, D.I. Pallas and M. Garidis have been the only to perceive how important this is for studying the relations between Byzantine and Italian art in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. The iconography of the Dormition of Saint Ephraim the Syrian can be studied through a Byzantine Ekphrasis, from the first half of the 15th c, attributed to Marcos Eugenicos or to his brother Ioannes, describing a painting depicting this subject, and through surviving icons. Martin has observed that isolated episodes depicted in those icons are encountered in Byzantine illuminated manuscripts of the Heavenly Ladder since the 11th c. (Figs 7-10), but it is only in the 13th c. that they appear as parts of a composition centered on the death of an anchorite. There are only two surviving 13th-century examples: the one, in Mount Sinai, is Byzantine but too damaged to allow general conclusions; the other is Italian, depicts the Dormition of St. Ephraim and is based on an unknown Byzantine model. With the exception of a provincial fresco in a church at Koudoumas, Crete, dated in 1360, all the other surviving Byzantine icons or frescoes are dated after the middle of the 15th c. Eugenicos' Ekphrasis, emphasising the naturalistic elements of the painting it describes, is very important not only for allowing conjectures on the iconography of the lost Byzantine models, but also for allowing us to grasp what "good" painting should be like, according to the taste of a Byzantine cultural elite in the first half of the 15th c. The comparison of the Ekphrasis with the surviving corresponding paintings shows that, although from the iconographie point of view they practically conform with Eugenicos' Ekphrasis, they have very little of the naturalistic style which the Ekphrasis presupposes (Fig. 11); nonetheless, individual naturalistic or narrative elements intrude in the iconography, in a manner indicating Italian influence which becomes more evident in later icons. The Dormition of St. Sawas in Leucas is a particularly interesting example because, although it seems to be one of the earliest surviving icons (15th a), it has several iconographie elements that definitely derive directly from Italian Thebaids (Fig. 12). Dimitrios Pallas suggested, in 1966, that Eugenicos' Ekphrasis describes a western (Italian) painting and is indicative of the changing taste of a Byzantine intellectual elite towards a naturalistic painting in the Italian style. Although Pallas' suggestion was later unfavourably received, recent discoveries corroborate his ideas and allow a reassessment of the relations between Byzantine and Italian art in the last centuries of the Middle Ages, as follows: the "new style" introduced in Byzantine painting in the 11th and 12th c, aiming to create icons full of life and movement, impressed the Crusaders who imported many of them in Italy where they had an immense impact on both the general public and painters. The iconography of the Dormition of Saint Ephraim the Syrian, a composite creation of the 13th c. refering to the earthly paradise that a holy community of anchorites is supposed to be, must have especially appealed to the Italian society which at that time was giving birth to the Franciscan and Dominican orders that were to play a fundamental role in the Renaissance. Research during the last two decades has proved that in Crete, Constantinople, Thessaloniki and other urban centres of the Byzantine world, works of western or westernising art were available or accessible to the inhabitants, whether Greeks or Latins (eg. the wooden lectern of Andronikos Palaeologos and the Archangels in the apse of the St. Anargyroi chapel in the Vatopedi Monastery, the frescoes in the church of the Hodegetria Monastery in Leucas and the fresco of tomb G in the Kariye Djami). Such works could be imported from the west or made by local artists, who usually were competent in both styles, Byzantine and Latin. Under these circumstances, the influences between the Byzantine and Italian versions of the Dormition/Thebaid subject must have been mutual and continuous. These and other facts leave no doubt that Eugenicos' Ekphrasis refers to a western or westernising painting, more specifically a painting in the style of the Quattrocento. The formalized depiction of the Dormition of Saint Ephraim the Syrian, which is encountered in the surviving Byzantine or post-Byzantine examples, reflects the conservative nature of monasticism in the East and the declining late Byzantine society which did not possess the vigour and the social structures which would allow it to play an active rôle in the making of the modern world. In Italy the Thebaid was identified with the petit-bourgeois ideal of the vita contemplativa and the young and vigorous Orders of the Franciscans and the Dominicans which dominated spiritual and artistic life since the 13th c. and throughout the Renaissance. This explains the survival of the Thebaid down to the 19th c. in Goethe's Faust II and, through the latter, down to the 20th c. in Mahler's eighth symphony, suggesting the salvation of the cultivated bourgeois of the big modern cities in an earthly paradise achieved through meditation and spiritual exaltation.
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