ArtByzantium! A name that glitters. A synonym for formality, unbending etiquette, luxury, exoticism. A word that stands for unyielding resistance to change, for codified, inflexible forms, for intrigue and bloodthirsty scheming. Say “Byzantium” and you stand before processions of saints and martyrs trapped in shimmering fields of gold and glass tesserae. You conjure up rigid figures who glare fiercely from the confines of icons and manuscripts, their gorgeously colored robes heavy with embroidery and punctuated by overscaled jewels, their gestures ritualized, exaggerated, theatrical. You see Yeats’s “sages standing in God’s holy fire/ as in the gold mosaic of a wall,” their solemn progress and otherworldly setting alike echoed by the thudding reiterations of “gold” and “golden” in the stunning last stanza of “Sailing to Byzantium.” The reality of what that mag ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 15 May 1997, on page 46 Copyright © 2010 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/byzantium-wilkin-3335
rate this article for your user profile
E-mail to friend
|
by Karen Wilkin On "Renoir in the 20th Century” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. by Karen Wilkin On “Matisse: Radical Invention 1913–1917” at the Art Institute of Chicago. Medieval art at the Met & the Morgan by Karen Wilkin On “The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry” & “The Mourners: Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art & “Demons and Devotion: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves” at the Morgan Library Musuem, New York. On "Rude Britannia: British Comic Art” at the Tate Britain, London. by James Panero On “Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield” at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York & “Charles Burchfield: Fifty Years as a Painter” at DC Moore Gallery, New York. by Marco Grassi On “Palladio and his Legacy, a Transatlantic Journey” at the Morgan Library & Musuem.  The New Criterion is now optimized for Mobile Devices 
EventsOctober 26 2010 GALA EVENT: The New Criterion Benefit Art Auction Webcasts
The future of artists' lofts
Roger Scruton on "I Drink Therefore I Am: A Philosopher's Guide to Wine."
Elucidations & Corrections: Arts Criticism Weblog 
|
add a comment
you must have an account to post a comment. {register now}