Christ Pantocrator (Sinai)
The icon of Christ Pantocrator is one of the treasures of St. Catherine's Monastery on Sinai , an Egyptian UNESCO World Heritage Site . It is one of the oldest as well as the most important Byzantine icons .
Provenance
The icon of Christ Pantocrator probably originated in Constantinople in the first half of the 6th century and soon after made it to the Catherine's Monastery, where it has been located ever since. (It could just as well have been created by a Constantinopolitan artist on the spot in Sinai, as part of the furnishing of the newly founded St. Catherine's Monastery.) That was for the Byzantine iconoclasts of the 8th and 9th centuries (see: Byzantine iconoclasts ) Catherine's Monastery out of reach, because it was under the rule of Islam. The desert climate was also beneficial for the preservation of early icons.
Hidden under layers of overpainting for centuries, this icon only became known through its restoration in 1962.
description
The icon is 84.5 cm high. Their width varies between 44.3 cm at the top and 43.8 cm at the bottom. It was originally larger and has been trimmed on the sides and top. The picture carrier is a 1 to 2 cm thick wooden board.
The late antique painting technique, in which the color pigments were bound in hot beeswax ( encaustic ), is best known from Egyptian mummy portraits . It went out of use in the 6th century. As a result of the iconoclasm, very few encaustic icons have survived.
Christ is depicted as a half-length portrait with a gold nimbus . The three cross beams stand out from the nimbus with a slightly darker tone. A decorative motif of small stamped rosettes runs along the edge of the nimbus.
Christ faces the viewer head-on. The right hand is raised in a gesture of blessing , the left hand holds a golden, preciously decorated, closed book of the Gospels. He is dressed in a purple robe ( himation ) in such a way that the arms are covered up to the wrist. Only a small piece of the undergarment, a tunic , also purple, can therefore be seen. A vertical stripe (clavus) stands out on this item of clothing by a slightly lighter shade and was originally heightened with gold, of which only traces have been preserved.
The background is only hinted at. It appears to be a distant architecture with windows with an exedra in between . The relationship between the figure of Christ and this background remains undetermined. The horizon is indicated by a blue-green band, above it the sky arches blue-gray. In the upper two corners of the icon you can see two stylized eight-pointed golden stars. (During the restoration, the fragmentary vermilion Greek inscription ΙC ΧC Ο ΦΙΛ (άνθρω) Π (ος), “Jesus Christ, the philanthropist” was left on the background architecture - although it was not clear whether this inscription was added during a Byzantine revision of the icon was, or was originally.)
Light and shadow are distributed in a largely natural way. A single source of light in the upper right appears to illuminate the face of Christ. Deep shadows on the half of the face turned away from the light make it appear three-dimensional. Compared to the naturalistic way of painting the face and beard, the dark hair that frames this face is shown quite schematically.
Portrait of Christ on coins
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The way in which Christ is depicted here corresponds to the Christ on coins of the emperor Justinian II. In troubled times, instead of a political ruler, Christ is encountered for the first time as the universal ruler ( Pantocrator ) on Byzantine coins. The representation of Christ corresponds to the requirements of a ruler: Christ is grown up (not as a youth) and powerfully (not as the suffering) in the picture. The court of Constantinople apparently favored this particular image of Christ.
Two faces
Christ has two faces on this icon. You can see this very well if you split the picture vertically and then mirror it on the central axis: On the one hand a young man who appears vulnerable, introverted or sad, on the other hand a mighty “Titan”. Kurt Weitzmann , who also made this icon of Christ known with his publication of the Sinai icons, pointed out that the icon repeatedly oscillates between naturalistic and abstract representation. Weitzmann suspected that the artist wanted to put the two natures doctrine of the Council of Chalcedon (451) into the picture: Jesus Christ, true man and true God.
Web links
- Princeton University, Department of Archeology: The Icons of Sinai - Christ Pantokrator
literature
- Manolis Chatzidakis, Gerry Walters: An Encaustic Icon of Christ at Sinai. In: The Art Bulletin 49, 3 (1967), pp. 197-208.
- Kurt Weitzmann: The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai, the Icons. Volume 1: From the Sixth to the Tenth Century. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1976.
- Maximos Constas: The Face of Christ in a Sixth-Century Icon from Sinai . In: The Art of Seeing: Paradox and Perception in Orthodox Iconography . Sebastian Press, 2014, ISBN 978-1-936773-19-0 , pp. 37-86, ( PDF ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Maximos Constas: The Face of Christ in a Sixth-Century Icon from Sinai . S. 47 .
- ↑ a b Manolis Chatzidakis: An Encaustic Icon of Christ at Sinai . S. 167 .
- ↑ Maximos Constas: The Face of Christ in a Sixth-Century Icon from Sinai . S. 44 .
- ↑ a b Maximos Constas: The Face of Christ in a Sixth-Century Icon from Sinai . S. 43 .
- ↑ a b Manolis Chatzidakis: An Encaustic Icon of Christ at Sinai . S. 197-198 .
- ↑ Maximos Constas: The Face of Christ in a Sixth-Century Icon from Sinai . S. 46 .
- ^ Hans Belting: Image and cult: a history of the image before the age of art . 6th edition. CH Beck, Munich 2004, p. 81 .
- ↑ Maximos Constas: The Face of Christ in a Sixth-Century Icon from Sinai . S. 51 .
- ^ Kurt Weitzmann: The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai, the Icons. tape 1 , p. 15 .