Materijalnost i opeka: ornament na fasadama carigradskih crkava bizantske obitelji Paleolog

Abstract

Materiality and Brickwork: Façades of Churches in Constantinople under the Palaiologoi In Constantinopolitan architecture during the period of Palaiologoi brick was used as one of the main building materials. The paper proposes that the materiality of the wall originally included the exterior brick elements, and that brick made of soil was a substantial part of the ritual experience of the church. Regarding brickwork preserved within main examples of the last phase of Constantinopolitan architecture, art historians followed the convention and used the term “aniconic” to designate the nature of the wall exterior articulation: a system of semiotic signifiers disguised as non-representational, non-figural representations of crosses or vegetal patterns but imbued with symbolic values. It is, however, precisely this so-called absence of narrative voice that allows the aniconic decoration to play a substantial role in sacred architecture: the entire surface of the façade as sacred skin and substance of the church turns into a kind of tapestry. Having in mind the variety of previous approaches to the topic, it is interesting to demonstrate the previously unexplored aesthetic connection between the concept of brickwork made by Earth and certain core aspects of transcendental teachings, such as the idea of infiltrating transcendental vision. It is possible to understand these ornaments as the substance of Constantinopolitan architectural content and its intellectual tradition during the Palaiologan dynasty.