BMCR 2009.02.09, Ann Terry, Dynamic Splendor. The Wall Mosaics

Ann Terry, Henry Maguire, Dynamic Splendor. The Wall Mosaics in the
Cathedral of Eufrasius at Porec.  University Park:  Penn State
University Press, 2007.  Pp. 416; ills. 301.  ISBN 978-0-271-02873-6.
$95.00.

Reviewed by Benjamin Anderson, Bryn Mawr College ([email protected])
Word count:  2193 words
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In the middle of the sixth century, one Eufrasius, bishop of Istrian
Parentium, undertook the renovation of the local episcopal complex,
which included a basilica, a baptistery, and a residence. His most
prominent contribution was a magnificent ensemble of wall mosaics
decorating the basilica's three apses. The complex remains today,
remarkably well preserved, in the town now known as Porec. It has
always been known to specialists in late antique art, in particular on
account of the mosaics, even if its fame is exceeded by the
contemporary monuments of Ravenna.

The two-volume set under review, handsomely produced and furnished with
a slipcase, is devoted to the Eufrasian mosaics, which the authors, Ann
Terry and Henry Maguire, have examined thoroughly from scaffolding.
Their primary aim is to present a more complete documentation of the
mosaics' physical state than has previously been available, and to
determine the extent and impact of two nineteenth-century campaigns of
restoration. They furthermore advance a new interpretation of the
mosaics' significance in their sixth-century context.

Many readers will be tempted to turn to the volume of illustrations
first. The color plates include 196 interior views of the mosaics
(photographs together with a few nineteenth-century watercolors). These
are followed by exterior views, maps and plans, archival drawings and
photographs, and comparanda. While enough general views of the interior
have been included to convey a sense of the mosaics as a unity, there
are a number of extreme close-ups that present themselves either as
fragments (e.g. 118, "left foot of angel") or completely non-figural
compositions (114, "lower portion of tunic of Zacharias"). These
images, which support the authors' painstaking material analyses, mark
a major distinction from older monographs devoted to mosaic ensembles,
such as Paul Underwood's 1966 study of the Kariye Camii.[[1]] Whereas
Underwood's volumes were filled with  close-ups of faces that aimed to
elicit an emotional response, the details of Dynamic Splendor are
documents that emphasize materials over effects.

The text is divided into six chapters. The first presents the evidence
for the state of the mosaics before the restorations of the late
nineteenth century, and the second addresses the physical evidence for
the restorations, distinguishing between four major phases of mosaic
work: one of the sixth century, one of the eighteenth century, and two
of the nineteenth century. (An appendix separates the authentic from
the restored throughout the entire ensemble.) The third chapter
analyzes stylistic similarities between the Porec mosaics and several
monuments in Ravenna in order to date the former, opting convincingly
and uncontroversially for the mid-sixth century. The fourth chapter
attempts to reconstruct the workshop structure and working techniques
of the mosaicists. The fifth and sixth chapters, in a nod to Panofsky,
address the mosaics' "iconography" and "iconology," respectively. A
conclusion develops the concept of "dynamism" referenced in the title.
The structure of the whole is a complete reversal of Underwood's study,
which began with detailed accounts of iconography, and then turned,
ever so briefly, to the technical aspects of the mosaics' execution.
Like the volume of plates, Terry and Maguire's text places the primary
emphasis on the materiality of its subject.

The reasoning behind this approach is lucid and simple. It is first
necessary to establish which portions of the mosaic ensemble are
authentic. Only then is it possible to interpret the sixth-century
program. There is an asceticism involved in such a method that
rigorously excludes all extraneous subjects from consideration:
additional elements of decoration (the sculpture and the opus sectile
have been documented in earlier studies by Terry, while the exterior
mosaics remain difficult to access), architecture (the subject of
Terry's dissertation), and the history of reception are all
consistently bracketed and set to the side. The authors themselves
describe their procedure as "analogous to that of editors of an
important original text" (2).

Despite their reserve, Terry and Maguire advance a number of
significant conclusions. The second and fourth chapters form the heart
of the study, containing the authors' account of the distinctions
between the four major phases of mosaic work and their reconstruction
of the working methods of the sixth-century mosaicists. Their
observations are set out in detail and supported by excellent
photographs. Their reasoning is therefore both transparent and
verifiable, and their conclusions and methodology will prove useful to
similar investigations of other monuments.

In these sections the authors reach two major conclusions. First, the
nineteenth-century restorations involved far fewer alterations of the
pictorial content of the mosaics than has previously been thought.
Second, the sixth century mosaics were set by a team of as few as two
musivarii, who were highly skilled in the manipulation of their medium
to achieve specific visual effects, and who worked with a clearly
defined hierarchy of materials. This summary cannot do justice to the
wealth of observed detail contained within these chapters. To give one
example: the face of Eufrasius himself is composed of unusually small
tesserae, many of them made from materials found nowhere else within
the ensemble, and is marked by an unusually high ratio of glass to
stone.

When the authors turn to the "iconological" interpretation of the
mosaics, their focus remains on the details. An extended discussion is
devoted to a censer and a casket carried by a figure of Zacharias on
the north pier of the main apse. These objects are figured with the
three children in the furnace and Susanna and the Elders, respectively.
The three children are read together with three bands on an orb held by
an angel on the central pier as "trinitarian symbols," while Susanna is
seen as a "model for people falsely accused... of heresy." The authors
connect these symbols to the Three Chapters controversy, in which
Bishop Eufrasius was likely involved as one of the schismatic bishops
of Venetia and Istria. The authors carefully avoid describing such
details as propaganda, speaking instead of the "special resonance" that
they might have had for Eufrasius himself.

The authors also advance a new interpretation of the mosaic that fills
the semidome of the main apse. This composition is anchored by a
central figure of the Virgin, enthroned, and holding the Christ child
on her lap. To the right are seen an angel and three anonymous saints;
to the left, moving outwards, an angel, Saint Maurus (an early bishop
of Parentium), Bishop Eufrasius, and an Archdeacon Claudius. Between
Claudius and Eufrasius stands the diminutive figure of a child: he is
likewise named Eufrasius, and is identified by an inscription as the
son of Claudius. Here too the authors discover "private" significance.
Thus the image of young Eufrasius is a "prayer on behalf of a child"
and has a "private character."  Likewise the apse mosaic as a whole is
"both public and private." Its public message is seen as the
legitimation of Eufrasius through association with his saintly
predecessor, Maurus, while its private significance is seen as that of
a votive.

Dynamic Splendor may superficially resemble a traditional
art-historical monograph, but as the comparison with Underwood makes
clear, Terry and Maguire have in fact produced something quite novel.
The difference consists primarily in their emphasis on the materiality
of the mosaics. Just as textual criticism, with its devotion to the
significance of the detail, shares a certain common ground with
deconstruction, so too does this "materialist" approach reintroduce a
sense of the oddity and irreducibility of its subject.

The priority accorded to production, moreover, forces the reader to
conceive of the mosaic ensemble as a process, a series of gestures
leaving a material record that generates a gradually proliferating set
of interpretations and responses. This is something fundamentally
different from older monographs, which had more the feel of
iconographic lexica. The authors' stated assumption that "the anonymous
artisans were responsible for transforming the ideas and concepts
devised by the ecclesiastical authorities in Parentium into mosaics"
(71) is partially contradicted by the more complex situation that they,
in fact, describe: not the translation of ideas from a verbal into an
artistic medium, but rather the production of meaning from a material
basis.

Monuments are strange anchors. Built, thus the topos, to hold fast
against the shifting currents of time, their apparent solidity is
belied by their inherently collaborative nature.  Their construction
involves complicated negotiations between patrons, themselves often
corporate, producers, and a multiplicity of audiences. Monuments are
thus inevitably products of numerous shifting and often contradictory
intentions. Even the simplest honorific monument will usually embody an
ambiguous message already for the commissioner, who, as in the economy
of Roman euergetism, might be a corporate body composed of the
honoree's social rivals. More ambiguous still are the intentions behind
complex and multifaceted types of monuments such as episcopal
cathedrals, more pronounced the tensions that must be accommodated.

Terry and Maguire, with their focus on the Three Chapters, emphasize
the historical tensions between north Adriatic bishops, the Roman
episcopate, and the emperor. There are certainly parallel examples of
this dynamic manifesting itself in the decoration of sixth-century
basilicas. Thus, according to one interpretation, the imperial panel in
the sanctuary of San Vitale expresses the priority of bishop over
emperor in ecclesiastical matters.[[2]] A more obvious case is the
seventh-century panel in Sant'Apollinare in Classe which depicts the
imperial grant of autocephaly to the see of Ravenna.[[3]] However,
these are both far more blatant interventions than the subtle and
allusive symbolism discerned by the authors in Eufrasius's church. It
must furthermore be said that Parentium, however impressive its
cathedral, was still quite provincial, hardly a nexus of empire-wide
power structures and struggles like Ravenna.

For this reason, I would tend to place a greater emphasis on the local
social tensions involved in the construction of the church. In the
fourth and fifth centuries many north Adriatic basilicas, including the
earlier Parentian structures on top of which Eufrasius's new cathedral
was built, recorded the names of numerous lay families on their
pavements together with the number of feet of mosaic that each had
funded. Over twenty such inscriptions are preserved from the
"pre-Eufrasian" basilica of Parentium. By contrast only three donor
inscriptions, aside from those of Eufrasius himself, are recorded for
the sixth-century basilica. This decline may admittedly be exaggerated
by the poor preservation of the sixth-century pavement, but it does
correspond to regional trends in patronage.[[4]]

There is, however, one family that is still prominently represented in
the Eufrasian Basilica: that of Eufrasius himself. Many commentators
have concluded, on the basis of their facial similarities, that Bishop
Eufrasius and Archdeacon Claudius were brothers. This hypothesis is
bolstered by the homonymy of the bishop and the archdeacon's son.[[5]]
It is given further support by Terry and Maguire's observation that
precisely the same facial type has been used for all three figures
(94), although they do not express an opinion regarding the kinship of
bishop and archdeacon. If they are indeed brothers, then the apse
mosaic, whatever its private significance, had a blunt public message
to communicate: one family is in control in the see of Parentium. This
would have been reinforced by the contrast with the earlier, more
explicitly collaborative, pre-Eufrasian basilica. That structure is
indeed invoked in the inscription of the apse, where Eufrasius
describes it as ugly and unadorned ("small, filthy, and lacking in
glitter"). Such a claim might seem rather insulting to the local
worthies of the previous generations. In short, if a fourth- or
fifth-century church had been represented explicitly as a product of
the entire congregation, the sixth-century church has become a monument
to a single family, whose claim to power was validated through their
prominence in the ecclesiastical hierarchy.[[6]]

Indeed, the omnipresence of Eufrasius within the basilica that
conventionally bears his name (its earliest attested dedication is in
fact to the Virgin and St. Maurus) is extraordinary. His monogram
appears on the capitals, the lengthy inscription of the apse celebrates
his activity as a builder, an altar celebrates his deposit of relics,
and his portrait, as has been noted, was lent a material splendor
unique within the ensemble. The sudden appearance of the living bishop
in the semidome of the apse, a space previously reserved for those who
already occupy heaven, is a characteristic phenomenon of the sixth
century, and finds a parallel in Santi Cosma e Damiano in Rome. It is
an intrusion far more remarkable, if far less frequently discussed,
than the appearance of Justinian and Theodora at the lower levels of
the sanctuary of San Vitale. In this context, Parentium becomes an
unusually well-documented case study for changing trends in civic
patronage and power structures in late antiquity. Its interest is
increased by its status as a relatively undistinguished provincial
town.

With the publication of Dynamic Splendor, Ann Terry and Henry Maguire
have erected a monument of their own in honor of the Basilica
Eufrasiana. It is marked by a powerful tension between material
singularity and hermeneutic multiplicity, between the effort to fix the
original form of a monument, and the recognition that its images "are
rich and multivalent. They can be, and have been, read and interpreted
in numerous ways" (127). It will serve many uses: as an object of
aesthetic appreciation, a record of valuable research, and a thoughtful
model for future monographs.


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Notes:


1.   P.A. Underwood, The Kariye Djami (New York, 1966).

2.   J. Engemann, "Die religioese Herrscherfunktion im
Fuenfsaeulenmonument Diocletians in Rom und in den Herrschermosaiken
Justinians in Ravenna," Fruehmittelalterliche Studien 18 (1984),
336-56.

3.   T.S. Brown, "The church of Ravenna and the imperial administration
in the seventh century," EHR 94 (1979), 1-28.

4.   J.-P. Caillet, L'e/verge/tisme monumental chre/tien en Italie et
a\ ses marges: d'apre\s l'e/pigraphie des pavements de mosai+que
(IVe-VIIe s.) (Rome, 1993).

5.   Thus A. Degrassi in Inscriptiones Italiae X,2, p. 37; followed by
the Prosopogaphie Chre/tienne du Bas-Empire 2, s.v. CLAVDIVS 5.

6.   A related progression, from "social structures based on extended
kinship networks" to "structures forged from within the official
hierarchies of the church and state" has been perceived in the
representation of civic patronage in the central Balkans: L. Brubaker,
"Elites and patronage in early Byzantium: the evidence from Hagios
Demetrios at Thessalonike," in J. Haldon and L.I. Conrad, eds., Elites
old and new in the Byzantine and early Islamic near east (Princeton,
2004), 63-90.