Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The fall of Byzantium

Learning, literature, science, and art

Page 20

In 1917 D. Ainalov criticized Diehls' solution from the point of view of method. Diehl did not base his conclusions upon direct analysis of the works of art, but drew it indirectly from data on the development of literature, science, and so on. Ainalov believed that the problem of the origin of the new forms of Byzantine painting in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries could be solved only by the comparative method. Examination of the geographical and architectural peculiarities of the mosaics of Qahriye-jami at Constantinople and of the Church of St. Mark at Venice caused Ainalov to emphasize a remarkable relationship between these forms and those of the landscape painting of the primitive Italian Renaissance. He came to the conclusion that Byzantine painting of the fourteenth century cannot be considered a genuine phenomenon of Byzantine art; it is only the reflection of a new development in Italian painting, which in its turn was based on earlier Byzantine art. Venice is one of the intermediary centers of this retro-action of the art of the earlier Renaissance upon the later Byzantine art.

Th. Schmidt maintained that amid the general economic and political decay of the Empire under the Palaeologi a real renaissance of art in the fourteenth century was impossible. In this connection Diehl justly remarked; This hypothesis may seem ingenious; but it is a matter of affirmation rather than of proof. In 1925 Dalton, independently of Ainalov, wrote of the fourteenth century: The new things out of Italy which appear in Serbia, at Mistra, or in Constantinople are very largely old Greek things returning home, superficially enhanced by a Sienese attractiveness. This being so, we cannot properly regard the painting either of the Slavs or of the Byzantine Greeks in the fourteenth century as dominated by Western influence. Italy had touched with animation and grace an art essentially unchanged. Finally, taking into consideration the recent works of Millet, Brehier, and Ainalov, Diehl in the second edition of his Manual of Byzantine Art summed up the matter by calling the fourteenth century a true renaissance. It developed with magnificent fullness and complete continuity the trends of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, so that between the past and the fourteenth century there is no break. At this point Diehl repeated the passage of his first edition already quoted.

In 1930 L. Brehier wrote; The Byzantine art of the epoch of the Palaeologi appears as a synthesis between the two spiritual forces which dominate the history of Byzantium: classicism and mysticism. In 1938 A. Grabar stated that the progress (lessor) of Byzantine art under the Palaeologi was particularly remarkable; under them the last renaissance of arts, specifically of painting, manifested itself both within the Empire which was finally reduced to Constantinople and its suburbs, and in the autonomous Greek principalities (Sparta, Trebizond) and the Slavonic kingdoms which followed the example of Byzantium. After all that has been said, the following statement seems incomprehensible: The story of Byzantine art really ends with the sack of Constantinople by the Franks in 1204. On the contrary, the Byzantine Renaissance is a rich, fruitful field, worthy of more investigation.

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