isar, vision

The President and Fellows of Harvard College

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

The Vision and Its "Exceedingly Blessed Beholder": Of Desire and Participation in the IconAuthor(s): Nicoletta IsarSource: RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 38 (Autumn, 2000), pp. 56-72Published by: The President and Fellows of Harvard CollegeThe President and Fellows of Harvard CollegeThePresident and Fellows of Harvard College acting through the Peabody Museum of Archaeology andEthnologyPeabody Museum of Archaeology and EthnologyPeabody Museum of Archaeology and EthnologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20167507Accessed: 13/12/2010 09:21

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56 RES 38 AUTUMN 2000

?^^J^^^i^

Figure 5. Christ, Chora ton z?nt?n, mosaic decoration from theTemplon mosaics, set into the marble revetments on the western face of the

northeastern corner of the nave, Chora Monastery, mid-fourteenth century.

Height of mosaic panel within frame: 2.52 m; width within frame: 1.01

m; height from floor to bottom of frame: 1.77 m; height of figure from top of head to level of right toes: 2.15 m. From Raul A. Underwood, The

Kariye D'jami. Vol. 2, The Mosaics (New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1966). Reproduced by permission of Princeton University Press.

The vision and its "exceedingly blessed beholder"1

Of desire and participation in the icon

NICOLETTA ISAR

To any vision must be brought an eye adapted to what is to

be seen, and having some likeness to it. Never did eye see

the sun unless it had first become sunlike, and never can

the Soul have vision of the First Beauty unless itself be

beautiful.

Plotinus, The Enneads 1.7.9

After a long period of disregard, the icon?image and

likeness, eik?n in Greek?is now resurfacing in the

discourse on vision and visuality in painting.2 The lines

from Plotinus's First Ennead are the ?pigraphe and a

point of departure for an essay on vision and its

beholder in Byzantium. The type of vision I am

concerned with differs greatly from the models and

technologies of vision in modernity. It demands neither

pure optical reading nor any of the visual metaphors involved in the variety of ocular experiences discussed

in connection with the "ocularcentric" cultures.3

Instead, it insists on likeness. To attain nous, a similarity is required: the likeness between the seer and the seen.

It will be my goal to define or, at least, to formulate, some general lines of a theory of participation in the

image, one that derives from the very nature of the

iconic sign. By digging more deeply into the Plotinian

text, tribute must be paid to Andr? Grabar's first

exploration of Plotinus and his contribution to medieval

aesthetics, which may open up a hitherto unexplored

possibility for a reading of an intertwined way of seeing, which is constitutive of the ?conic vision.4

The purpose of this essay is not exhaustive research

concerning vision in Byzantium. It is not my aim here to

reconstitute systematically the transformation of the

image concept and of the vision from the sensible to the

intellectual realm?a long process that can be traced in

Hellenistic and Early Christian thought from Plato to

Philo and St. Raul, and from Plotinus and Proclus to

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and St. John of

Damascus. Rather, the aim is to reshuffle the texts?from

theological statements in defense of the ?mage to

liturgical, living ritual?to build up a critical

reassessment of a tradition and a cognitive theory that

have proved incapable of explaining the ubiquity and

endurance of the Byzantine scheme except through an

appeal to primitivism.5 The argument will be in

opposition to a concept much used in contemporary discourse on painting and visuality: le regard, "the gaze," and its field of vision, the representational space. I will

attempt to put forward an alternative model of vision in

which vision itself is transfigured through participation.

Participation in the icon is a function of desire, desire for God, whose "site" is the icon. The problematic of

desire presented here differs from other scholars' view of

the frame and structure of the subject. Gregory of Nyssa's

theological anthropology helps to demonstrate that, rather than a site of desire and absence, the icon is a site

of desire and of identification, a place of finding and

search, a "presence" and a "reward" for a seeking that

resists completion and stasis. My strategy is to contrapose the concept of "agape" to that of "desire," as shown in

patristic texts up to Marion's contemporary theology.

This is an expanded version of a paper given at the Fifth Nordic

Workshop on Medieval Liturgy, Aland, Finland, oct. 1997. I should

like to thank the late Father Leonard E. Boyle, Prefect of the Vatican

Library, for His encouragement to pursue my research. I would like

also to thank all those who helped me in various ways to

accomplish this text, Maria Autexier, Maria Alexandru and Sabin

Preda, Jacob Weiner, Robin Wildt Hansen and Ruth Edelstein, the

unknown readers of RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics for their

substantial response, and Francesco Pellizzi and his assistant Kirsten

Swenson, who accompanied me in the last and most difficult

sequence of its completion. 1. hypereudaimones theata (Plotinus, EnneadsV.8.4).

2. N. Bryson, Vision and Painting. The Logic of the Gaze, ed. S.

Heath and C. MacCabe (London: Macmillan, 1983); D. Freedberg, The

Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). 3. M. Jay, "Introduction," in Downcast Eyes. The Denigration of

Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought, (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1993), p. 1.

4. A. Grabar, "Plotin et les origines de l'esth?tique m?di?vale," in

L'art de la fin de l'antiquit? et du Moyen Age (Paris: College de France, 1968), vol. 1, pp. 15-29 and Cahiers Ach?ologiques 1

(1961 ):14-34. I am also sympathetic with John Eisner's article "The

Viewer and the Vision: The Case of the Sinai Apse," Art History 17

(1994):81-102.

5. Bryson (see note 2), p. 50.


The backdrop is, of course, Byzantine culture and

tradition, but I will deliberately resist the concept of linear

historical narrative in favor of establishing a typology of

post-iconoclastic Byzantine representational ism and

perception. Semiotics' potential for the formalization of

models whose structure remains largely isomorphic may therefore be retained.6 Rather than focusing on

historical transformations, I will attempt to set up a

post-iconoclastic model of vision and representation of

the divine in Byzantium, in opposition to a model of

representation in post-cartesian perceptual ism. The

tension between "icon" and "idol," which stands

behind the process that gives significance to the iconic

sign, as well as the opposition between "icon" and

"representation" will give structure to my argument.

Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. . . . And

God created man ?n His own image: in the ?mage of God created He him . . .

Genesis 1:26-27

In these verses from the book of Genesis on image and

likeness, the concept of imitation, mimesis, is exalted.7

Its power reverberates throughout the making of the

icon. There should be something divine in this act, which derives from the fact that man himself was made

according to the image and likeness of God.8 The

parallel between the image-likeness of man with God

and the making of the image-icon by man is a topos in

Greek patristic and Byzantine doctrines of the ?mage. Moreover, through the Incarnation, logos became flesh,

revealing His image, painting His picture for us, and

thereby showing that man can imitate Him,9 becoming a

likeness ("mim?tes Christou"), and make an icon of

God. The role played by the dogma of the Incarnation in

the Byzantine theory of the image was paramount: it

required the making and worshipping of images-icons.11 The imitation of God in the making of an icon is a

reflection upon the relationship of the image and its

prototype and, on the other hand, its beholder. In so far as the icon carries with it "something divine," it

necessarily becomes venerable. In the Byzantine discourse against Iconoclasts, the honor rendered to the

image has been a key point of the debate. The honor

rendered to the image passes to the prototype, to the

model or original. This idea from the fourth-century

Cappadocian Father St. Basil can be seen in the

Resolutions of the Second Council of Nicaea (787):

... we decree with full precision and care that, like the figure of the honoured and life-giving cross, the revered and holy images, whether painted or made of mosaic or of other suitable

material are to be exposed in the holy churches of God... .

Further, people are drawn to honor these ?mages with the

offering of incense and lights.... Indeed, the honor paid to the

image traverses it, reaching the model; and he who venerates the ?mage, venerates the person represented in the image.12

For the Fathers of the Church and the Byzantines, the

identification of the image and the original could not be an identity of material (wood, pigment) or of the essence

(ousia), which is divine; the identity was a relational one

(according to schesis or pros ti.)u But for Theodore of

6. I think of the elements of "continuity" and "consistency," which

remained rather stable until today and give a spiritual, cultural, and

aesthetic shape to the whole of the Byzantine Orthodox world. J.

Meyendorff, "Continuities and Discontinuities in Byzantine Religious

Thought," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 47 (1993):69. See also L. Brubaker,

"Byzantine Art in the Ninth-Century: Theory, Practice, and Culture,"

Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 13 (1989):42-55 (the section on

the role of tradition).

7. The opposite of the platonic concept of image, which

devalues the world of senses by separating it from that of ideas: the

real things are only ?mages of true ideas (Phaedrus 250B). Mimesis

or imitation by art is thrice distanced from truth, since the artist

copies not only things of nature but also things made by man

(Republic 597E, 603B). 8. "The fact that man was made according to the ?mage and

likeness of God shows that in the making of an ?mage its form or idea

(tes eikonourgias eidos) is something divine" (Theodore of Studion

Antirrheticus III, 2, 5, [PG 99:420A]).

9. G. B. Ladner, "The Concept of the Image," in Images and Ideas

in the Middle Ages. Selected Studies in History and Art, (Rome:

Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1983), p. 85 on St. Irenaeus of Lyons (Adversus HaeresesV. 16.1) and St. Methodius of Olympus

{Symposium 1.4.24).

10. "Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ" (St. Paul 1

Corinthians 11.1; Ephesians 5.1).

11. "Let this be denied, says Theodore, and Christ's oikonomia, the

economy of salvation, is virtually destroyed" (from Theodore's letter to

the Abbot Plato of Sarkudion, De cultu sacrarum imaginum [PG

99:505A], apud. G. B. Ladner, "The Byzantine Iconoclastic

Controversy," in Images and Ideas in the Middle Ages [Roma: Edizioni

di Storia e Letteratura, 1983], p. 65)

12. N. P. Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols.,

(London: Sheed & Ward; Washington, D. C: Georgetown University

Press, 1990), vol. 1, pp. 133-137.

13. Both terms can be translated as "relative," and they define the

relationship established between the ?con and ?ts archetype. "Pros ti"

originates in Aristotle's Categories, but "schesis" expands the categorial definition of the relation, and regards the modality of the relationship. It shows how the invisible is made visible, and therefore it touches

upon the beholder's vision.

Isar: The vision and its "exceedingly blessed beholder" 59

Studion,14 one of the most influential architects of the

doctrine of the image, Christ's image /s15 identical with

Him, "kata t?n tes hypostase?s homoiot?ta,"u that is,

according to the likeness of the hypostasis (the Second

Hypostasis or Person of Christ). Such identity between

Christ and His image signified therefore that Christ's

image was supposed to participate in and imitate Christ, not only as man, but as God.17 "Thus one may say

without necessarily sinning that the divinity is in the

icon," "Hout? kai en eik?ni einai t?n theot?ta eip?n tis

ouk an hamart? tou deontos."^8

Theodore's doctrine of hypostatic or personal identity insists on the degree of divinity achieved in the image.19 In Epist. ad Platonem, Theodore explains how the ?mage

of Christ differs from Christ in nature, but not in person. The ?mage is related to the hypostasized prototype, that

is, the individual features or "charakt?r."20 The Face,

"pros?pon" in Greek, designates the totality of an

individual's exterior aspects, giving existence to

individual nature.21 Therefore, "granted that the person of

Christ is one and the same with the image of Christ, the reverence is here, too, the same, because of the identity

of person, without regard to the difference of nature

between Christ and the image."22 To disregard this

identity of person in the image would be "severing from

the image the might and glory of the model."23 The

conception of personal identity was a keystone in

Theodore's theology, with great consequences for the

image and its beholder. I will return to this issue later on.

In relation to the Incarnation, Greek patristic texts

consistently make reference to a key term?ch?ra?a common denominator of the Virgin and Christ.24 Ch?ra

is an important attribute in the representation of the

divine likeness and the Incarnation. It will be at the

heart of the definition of the iconic space. The concept of ch?ra, space traces its origins to

Platonic thought. In Timaeus,25 Plato speaks of three

ontological genres: Being, Image, and that in which the

image is impressed. He calls this "ch?ra," a particular kind of space. Space is, to Plato, the "room" (ch?ra) or

the container of something, which has associations with

"ch?rein," meaning to "hold" or "have room for." This is

a space "which exists always and cannot be destroyed. It

provides a location for all things that come to be. It is

itself apprehended by a kind of bastard reasoning that

does not involve sense perception, and it is hardly even

an object of conviction."26

14. In the Byzantine doctrine of the image, Theodore of Studion

(died 826) is the representative of the second phase of the debate

against iconoclasm and, in his defence of the images, he surpassed in

some aspects St. John Damascene (died 754), the representative of the

first phase. 15. Ladner (see note 9), p. 97.

16. Theodore of Studion, Antirrheticus III, 3, 1 (PG 99:420D) .

17. Ladner (see note 9), pp. 97-98.

18. Antirrh. I, 12, pp. 99, 344.

19. Ladner (see note 9), pp. 63-64. "Any portrait is the portrait of a

hypostasis and not of nature;" "The iconic representation is only

possible according to its hypostasis not to its nature" (Pantos

eikonizomenou, ouch h? physis, all'h? hypostasis eikonizetai) "How

could a nature that is not contemplated in hypostasis be represented

iconically?" (p?s gar an kai exeikonisthei? physis m? en hypostasei tethe?r?men??) {Antirrh. Ill, col. 405a).

20. These features play a similar role in recognition as the "scars"

(houle) in the verbal e?konismos (the description of the essential

features of the figures) (see G. Dagron's excellent study "Holy Images and Likeness," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 45 [1991 ]:26).

21. Hypostasis is a key theological term in Patristic discourse.

Hypostasis, from the verb "hyphistamai" (to subsist), designates that

which subsists, by contrast to that which exists in itself, that is, the

substance or the divine essence (ousia). The difference between ousia

and hypostasis is like the difference between common and particular: ousia refers to what is common, whereas hypostasis refers to the

particular, the concrete, hypostasis or person. Patristic thought is

founded on the ontological principle of the hypostasis or the person of

the Father, and the monarchy of the Father. His Being is identified with

His person. His substance is constituted or "hypostasized" by His

personal existence. Substance, in the Eastern Church, is never devoid

(gymne) o? hypostasis. In defining the mystery of the Trinity, the Fathers

of the Church take as a point of departure the concrete, the three

hypostases (of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit) in one

nature, divine. By virtue of the Incarnation, Christ's hypostasis is

defined both, by divine and human nature. This is highly important in

the definition of the icon, as "the truth of an icon lies in the person it

represents." (Panayiotis Nellas, Deification in Christ: Orthodox

Perspectives on the Nature of the Human Person [Crestwood, New

York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1987], p. 33). Ultimately, it

concerns the human being, as man himself is understood ontologically

by the Fathers only as a theological being: his ontology is iconic (ibid.,

p. 34). On the notion of hypostasis, see also V. Lossky, Essai sur la

th?ologie mystique de l'Eglise d'Orient, (Paris: Les editions du Cerf,

1990), pp. 49-64.

22. Theodore the Studite, Epist. ad Platonem de cultu sacrarum

imaginum (PG 99:500ff), in Cyril Mango, The Art of Byzantine

Empire 312-1453, (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., Enlewood Cliffs,

1972), p. 173.

23. Mango (see note 22), p. 174.

24. G. W. H. Lampe, D. D., A Patristic Greek Lexicon, (Oxford at

the Clarendon Press, 1961), p. 1537. In his Homily XI, St. Cyril of

Alexandria (V c.) hails Mary as to ch?rion tou ach?r?tou (PG 77, col.

1032 D), apud. Paul A. Underwood, The Kariye Djami, Bollingen Series 70 (New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1966), vol. 1, p. 41.

25. 48a-53c.

26. Timaeus, 52b. Since 1968, Jacques Derrida has dedicated

several incisive analyses of deconstructionist flavor to this paradoxical


The philosophical concept has been reshaped in the

patristic texts, among which the 101st Letter to

Cledonius written by Gregory of Nazianze stands out:

et qui (Fils de Dieu) finalement est aussi homme, assum?

pour notre salut, passible selon la chaire, impassible selon

l'esprit, ? la fois terrestre et celeste, visible et accessible seulement ? l'esprit, saisissable et insaisissable . . .

and who (Son of God) is ultimately also man, who took

upon himself (prosl?phthenta) our salvation, limited

according to the body (perigrapton s?mati), unlimited

according to the spirit (aperigrapton pneumati), visible and accessible only in spirit (hor?menon kai nooumenon), contained and uncontained (ch?r?ton kai ach?r?ton).27

But it was in the Patriarch Nicephoros's discourse

against the iconoclasts (circa 750-828), the speculative text of the Antirrheticus,28 that ch?ra was polemically

engaged in the definition of the iconic space.

Ch?ra space: inscription against circumscription

To the doctrine of sign (s?meion, typos) of the

iconoclasts, for whom the inscription (graphe) circumscribes and limits the divine infinity, Nicephoros opposes one of the most richly conceptual theories of

the pictorial inscription, as trace/print/empre/nfe and

word, contained in the uncontainable choraic space. In

Antirrheticus II,29 two concepts are defined and

clarified: inscription (graphe) and circumscription

(perigraph?).30

According to Nicephoros, everything contained

within the limits of the space, as topos, is circumscribed.

Everything that initiates its existence in time is

circumscribed. Everything encompassed by thought and

knowledge is circumscribed. Nicephoros defines

circumscription in connection with the Aristotelian

topos, as a limitation of the body that it contains.

Circumscription operates with borders or boundaries; it

is a device of framing in space. By contrast, everything that does not respond to these categories is

uncircumscribable. The iconic inscription is defined by a

space, called ch?ra by Nicephoros. It follows that Christ, taking on a body, is

circumscribed in space (topos); having no beginning but

subjecting Himself to a temporal beginning, He is

circumscribed in time; incomprehensible, He accepts enclosure within the boundaries of comprehension. But

by virtue of His divine nature, He is outlined ?n an

uncircumscribable space, abstract and infinite, in ch?ra.

This is a paradoxical space, ch?r?ton kai ach?r?ton, that

is, "contained and uncontained," in the space and

outside the space, and the iconic inscription, the

graphe, is a trace that defines a space that ?s and is not

there, ach?r?ton.3^ In ch?ra, the line, graphe, the iconic inscription?

trace and Word?reveals the endless openness of the

Word. If, for the iconoclasts, the line is the limit

where Being begins and ends (perigraph?), for the

iconophiles the line generates a continuous space, the

ch?ra?an idea or thought of space (he no?sis), a

Platonic concept of being and not-being in a place. The paradoxal?ty of the Platonic term is perplexing indeed and resists all description. Derrida has referred to the platonic text in a negative discourse: "On

ne peut m?me pas dire d'elle qu'elle n'est ni ceci n'\ cela ou qu'elle est ? la fois ceci et cela . . . tant?t la ch?ra para?t n'?tre ni ceci ni cela,

tant?t ? la fois ceci et cela. . . ." (Ch?ra, Poikilia Etudes offertes ?j. P.

Vernant [Paris: Editions de l'Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences

sociales, 1987], p. 265).

Ch?ra permanently floats between logics, between "la logique de l'exclusion et celle de la participation"; it simply belongs to a "logique

autre que la logique du logos." Not being a subject ("n'est pas

quelque chose," "n'est comme rien"), neither furnishing a stable

substance, \X/ch?ra has form insofar as, being "amorphe" (amorphon), it rests "vierge, d'une virginit? radicalement rebelle ?

l'anthropomorphisme." Be it noun (in translations, as "place," "lieu,"

"emplacement," "region") or metaphor ("m?re," "nourrice,"

"receptacle" or, most notably "porte-empreinte"), ch?ra proves difficult

to deal with. Receptacle (dechomenon) or place (ch?ra) "ne d?signent

pas une essence, l'?tre stable d'un eidos, puisque ch?ra n'est ni de

l'ordre de Y eidos, ni de l'ordre des mimeses, des images de Y eidos qui viennent s'imprimer en elle?qui ainsi n'est pas, n'appartient pas aux

deux genres d'?tres connus ou reconnus." ". . . c'est ? dire aussi bien

ne pas se laisser prendre ou concevoir, ? travers les schemes

antropomorphiques du recevoir ou du donner" (Ibid., p. 270).

27. Gr?goire de Nazianze, "Du m?me, au pr?tre Cl?donios,

premi?re lettre," Lettres T?ologiques, Introduction, texte critique, traduction et notes par Paul Gallay (Paris:Les Editions du Cerf, 1974),

pp. 42-43; Marie-Jos? Mondzain, "Espace ?conique et territoire ?

gouverner," Image, ic?ne, ?conomie: Les sources byzantine de

l'imaginaire contemporain, (Paris:Seuil, 1996), p. 199.

28. Nicephoros is the third theologian of the doctrine of the ?mage

(758-828). Nic?phore, Discours contre les iconoclastes, traduction,

pr?sentation et notes par Marie-Jos? Mondzain-Baudinet (Paris:

Klincksieck, 1989).

29. 357D-360A.

30. Nic?phore, Discours A II 357B-360D, pp. 168-172.

31. Gregory of Nazians, Epist. 101 (PG 37:117B): patheton sarki,

apathe theoteti, perigrapton somati, aperigrapton pneumati, ton auton

epigeion kai ouranou, horomenon kai nooumenon, ch?r?ton kai

ach?r?to; also in The Akatistos Hymnos, ?cos 8: Chaire Theou

ach?r?ton ch?ra.


place that has its own extension and configuration. It

ignores both the void and the fullness, because it

places itself in an economic relationship with

aoriston, the infinity of the divine Verbe.32 Without

being encircled or fixed, the Word traces its presence and absence in an iconic paradox.

It was theologically imperative for the Church that the

image triumph, and it did triumph.33 In the history of

Byzantium that followed the triumph of images, the

imperial monastery of Chora shows, no doubt, the most

complete and refined program to have survived after the

fall of Constantinople. Here, theological concept and

image come together in a powerful statement.

Ch?ra of the living

The name Chora, by which the Constantinopolitan

monastery has always been known, seems to have

been used from the beginning not as a topographical reference to a land estate, country, or region (choros and chorion), but in a mystical sense.34 Chora was

actually a place of refuge and burial for ecclesiasts

and opponents of the iconoclastic emperors. Such was

the Patriarch Germanos, who opposed the imperial decrees condemning the veneration of icons in the

period of the iconoclastic controversies (740). The

patricians Bactagius and Artavasdos were imprisoned there by Constantine V, and later, in 836, iconoclasts

branded Theophanes and his brother Theodore with

hot irons.35

A place of mystical resonance, as it certainly was at

the time of its restoration by Theodore Metochites ?n the fourteenth century, Chora was clearly thought then to be an epithet that defined the mystical qualities of Christ and of the Theotokos.36 Some lines from Theodore

Metochites's poetry dedicated to his monastery shows

the poet-founder's unmistakable familiarity with the

theology of the term ch?ra:

To thee (the Theotokos) I have dedicated this noble

monastery which is called by the precious name of Chora.37

And I had this hope especially in His mother, the virginal and all-holy Hold (Chora) most broad of Him who ?s unholdable through and beyond all things. In her name did I built this monastery.38

But thou, Oh Lady, hast become the instrument of this great miracle (the Incarnation) which gave life to mortals; and it

?s to bring a shrine (as a gift) to thee that I erected this

monastery, calling it Chora after thee, the one who contained the uncontainable, to thee the shrine of the immortal God.39

The disposition of the images within the structural frame of

the narthexes follows a clearly orchestrated sc?nographie

strategy. Displayed in gold and glass tesserae, the images lead the eyes across the outer narthex at the entrance bay

and into the inner narthex, where the beholder is

confronted by two "dedicatory" images, "Christ Chora o?

the living" (fig. 1) and "the Virgin Chora of the uncontainable" (fig. 2), placed above the doors. Through these doors one passes into the next space, where the

founder himself is represented kneeling before the

enthroned "Christ Chora o? the living" (fig. 3). Two

inscriptions "l(esou)s Ch(risto)s h? ch?ra ton z?nt?n'" (Jesus

Christ, the dwelling-place of the living) and "M(?t)?r

Th(eo)u h? ch?ra tou ach?r?tou'" (The Mother of God, the

dwelling-place of the uncontainable),40 inscribed on these

large mosaics depicting Christ and the Virgin, are repeated with a frequency that cannot be explained as simply an

evocation of the church's name.41 Reaching the eastern

point of the architecture, in front of the altar and flanking the iconostasis, two other pendant images of Christ and the

Virgin, conclude the program (fig. 4). To one of these

32. It is only the iconic space which can contain such a

relationship between the body and the divine Verbe: Nic?phore,

Discours, p. 178, note 58.

33. "Ce n'est pas le Christ, mais c'est l'univers tout entier qui

disparait s'il n'y a plus ni circonscription ni ic?ne," in Nic?phore, Discours, A I, 244D, p. 86.

34. Underwood (see note 24), vol. 1, p. 4.

35. During his reign (741-775) the violent persecution of ?mage

worship and worshippers reached its paroxysm. 36. Underwood (see note 24), vol. 1, p. 4.

37. Dichtungen des Gross-Logotheten Theodoros Metochites, ed.

M. Treu, Poem A, lines 1340 ff., p. 37, apud. Underwood (see note

24), vol. 4, p. 27.

38. Poem XIX, lines 383 ff, Theodore Metochites's Poems "to

Himself," trans. J. M. Featherstone, Byzantina Vindobonensia, vol. 23,

(Wien: Verlag Der ?sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,

2000), p. 131.

39. Poem B, lines 14 ff. (Treu [see note 37], p. 38), apud. Underwood (see note 24), vol 4., p. 27.

40. This image is the object of R. Ousterhout's extensive and

inspiring study "The Virgin of the Chora: An Image and Its Contexts," in The Sacred Image East and West, (Urbana and Chicago: University

of Illinois Press, 1994), pp. 91-109.

41. In four of the mosaic images, Christ is identified as the "Chora

of the living," in the other two the Virgin is called the "Chora of the

uncontainable God."


Figure 1. Christ Pantocrator, Ch?ra ton z?nt?n, mosaic decoration above the entrance

to the inner narthex at the church of Chora monastery, mid-fourteenth century. 3.63 m

x 2. 15 m x 0.78 m. From Raul A. Underwood, The Kariye D'jami. Vol. 2, The Mosaics

(New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1966). Reproduced by permission of Princeton

University Press.

?mages I now turn (fig. 5). Its ?pigraphe reads: "l(esou)s

Ch(risto)s h? ch?ra ton z?nt?n," Qesus Christ, the dwelling

place of the living). The image shows Christ standing up and holding the open book in His left hand, while blessing and pointing to Himself with the other hand. Through His

gesture and His gaze, Christ seems to initiate a dialogue with the beholder. The text written on the book, a quotation from Matthew 11:28, addresses the viewer directly: "Come

unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will

give you rest." A simultaneous relation between the text

and the gesture, between the speaking person ("me") and

his audience ("you," "ye all") is instantly established. In

literary terms, "me," like "I," always insists on the voice of

the speaker; in linguistic terms, it is a shifter, with an

existential relation to the person speaking.42

What is significant in this context is not so much the

shift, but its implication in the field of representation: more precisely, that Christ's finger?the instrument of

pointing?in conflating speech act and visual sign, becomes a moment of "pure visibility."43 I call this motion of the finger the gesture of demonstration, "an

appeal sign," which insists that the whole image has an

appeal structure and ?s not a mere ?Ilusi?n.44 Epigraphe and gesture, rhetorical motion and speech, and also the

gaze, direct you to look at a specific point within the

picture, which coincides with the locutor himself: Christ

reveals Himself to the viewer as pure presence (deixis) in the field of sight, rather than a simple mimesis, a

42. E. Benveniste, "The Nature of Pronouns," ?n Problems in

General Linguistics, (Miami: University of Miami Press, 1971), pp.

217-20; R. Jakobson, "Shifters, Verbal Categories, and the Russian

Verb," in Roman Jacobson, Selected Writings (The Hague: Mouton,

1971), vol. 2, pp. 130-133.

43. Christ presents himself to the viewer, as the scene takes place under the gaze of the beholder, at the time of his contemplation. The term

"pure visibility" is borrowed from M. Foucault, Les mots et les choses

(Paris: Gallimard, 1966), pp. 19-31. L. Marin calls it "reality effect."

44. C. Gandelman, "The Gesture of Demonstration," ?n Reading Pictures, Viewing Texts (Bloom?ngton: Indiana University Press, 1991),

pp. 14-35.


Figure 2. The Virgin Blachemitissa, Ch?ra tou ach?r?tou, mosaic decoration opposite the mosaic of the Rantocrator, ?n the lunette above the entrence door of the church, Chora

monastery, mid-fourteenth century. 3.60 m x 0.69 m. From Raul A. Underwood, The Kariye

D'jami. Vol. 2, The Mosaics (New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1966). Reproduced by permission of Princeton University Press.

representation. Christ's utterance, present-oriented, makes the locutor entirely "coextensive and

contemporary simultaneously the one who speaks, and

the listener, the faithful ('all ye')."45 Christ's iconography ?s of Antiphonetes type, "the one who responds," who

answers back. But who ?s speaking? The identity given

by the ?pigraphe "Ch?ra ton z?nt?n" (Chora of the

living) is essential for the theology of the image. The relationship between image and beholder,

between Christ and the faithful, takes a theological form

if the problem is addressed in terms of participation. A

key passage from one of Pseudo-Dionysius the

Areopagite's letters with reference to the partaking of

divine goods may be illuminating here:46

We must think of the leading to the table as the rest from numerous labors, as a life without toil, as a commerce with

God in light and in the land of the living,47 as a fullness of sacred joy, as the unstinted supply of everything blessed and good by means of which one ?s replete with happiness. It is Jesus himself who gladdens them and leads them to the

table, who serves them, who grants them everlasting rest,

who bestows and pours out on them the fullness in beauty.48

Image and beholder are coextensive, they join together in a space ?n which the beholder is "enwrapped ?n a

mild golden glow radiating from the mosaics," where no

contour could be discernible.49 And one should imagine

45. Benveniste (see note 42), p. 219. Also, R. S. Nelson, "The

Discourse of Icons, Then and Now," Art History 12, no. 2, (1989):148.

46. R. F. Hathaway, Hierarchy and the Definition of the Order in

the Letters of Pseudo-Dionysius: A Study in the Form and Meaning of

the Pseudo-Dionysian Writings (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1969), p. 158.

47. Cf. Ps. 116: 9 ("I will walk before the Lord in the land of the

living"). 48. "Letter Nine To Titus the hierarch. Asking by letter, what is the

house of wisdom, what is the mixing bowl, and what are its foods and

drinks," Pseudo-Dionysius The Complete Works, trans. Colm Luibheid,

foreword, notes, and translation collaboration by Paul Rorem, (London:

SPCK, 1987), pp. 287-288

49.1. Sevcenko, "Theodore Metochites, the Chora, and the Intellectual

Trends of His Time," in Underwood (see note 24), vol . 4, p. 54.


Figure 3. The Enthroned Christ, Chora ton z?nt?n and the donor (Theodore Metochites), mosaic decoration on

entering the inner narthex on the axis of the church, Chora Monastery, mid-fourteenth

century. 2.30 m x 1.62 m x 1.40 m. From Paul A. Underwood, The Kariye Djami. Vol. 2, The Mosaics

(New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1966). Reproduced by permission of Princeton University Press.

Metochites himself?the beholder par excellence o?

Chora. His poetry alludes to this dissolution of vision, a

field of sight in which beholder and ?mage become one.

In one of his poems, he presents himself as Metochites

"the egocentric,"50 and his interlocutor, Christ, Chora

Antiphonetes. He writes:

The travails of my heart dissolved into nothing as soon as I looked at the joyful grace of the (Chora) Church; as soon as I rested my eyes on the image of Christ resembling human

beings, an ?mage from which such grace descended, and which inspired such an ineffable admiration in the onlooker.51

The iconic trace insists on presence, that in which

image and person are one, where homonymy of

?pigraphe is intensified by the utterance inscribed on the

scroll held by Christ. The ?pigraphe?"Christ Chora of

the living"?is the name that defines Him hy post?t ?cal ly

and distinguishes Him from other people and therefore

circumscribes Him.52 The naming, just like the

Incarnation, allows "the visible image to communicate

with the archetype" in the icon.53 Therefore, it will be

impossible, writes Theodore of Studion, to inscribe in

the icon other impersonal and abstract names, such as

"Divinity," "Lordship," or "Monarchy."54 In so far as He

is "some-body" ("tis"), He is circumscribed55 and,

therefore, is iconically representable.56

50. As shown by Theodore Metochites's Poems "to Himself."

51. Poem I, w, 165-69, apud. Sevcenko (see note 49), p. 54, n. 249.

52. "The name "Christ" is indicative of both divinity and

humanity?the two perfect natures of the Saviour" (Acts of the Seventh

Ecumenical Council [787]), in Mango (see note 22), p. 172.

Antirrheticus III, 397 D.

53. Acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787), in Mango (see note 22), p. 173.

54. Antirrh. Ill, 420D.

55. Antirrh. Ill, 400B.

56. For Theodore of Studion, the identity between the holy ?mage and its prototype is defined not only according to relationship (schesis), but also by the identity of names (to hom?nymon).


Figure 4. Christ, Ch?ra ton z?nt?n, and the Virgin, Ch?ra tou ach?r?tou, mosaic decoration,

theTemplon Mosaics, general view looking east, Chora Monastery, mid-fourteenth century. From Raul A. Underwood, The Kariye Djami. Vol. 2, The Mosaics (New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1966). Reproduced by permission of Princeton University Press.

Both Incarnation and naming circumscribe the space of the icon as a place of recognition and likeness

(homoi?sis, regio similitudinis, ch?ra). Both naming and

Incarnation provide the relation that prevents the icon

from slipping away from the archetype. They are

"mediators" of a relational type (schesis).57 The named one (to onomasthen) and its proper name (oikeia

pros?goria) meet together in the image. The relationship between the name and the named one makes the name

itself an icon (kai hoion tis physik? eik?n tou

kath'houper legetai, pephyken). Therefore, according to

doxa, they cannot be separated. Neither can be their

veneration split up (en hois ou dieschistai h? kata

proskyn?sin henot?s).58 The Name is power and

presence, it is "numen praesens."59 Nicephoros directs

an entire chapter against the enemies of the name, the

"onomatomachs."60 The destroyers of the icons are

destroyers of the name: the iconoclasts are equally "onomatomachs.

"

After ?conoclasm, the identifying inscriptions became a rule and a practice in the intercession of the beholder

and each image could be directly addressed in

prayers.61 The practice of writing the name on the ?mage survived long after the fall of Constantinople, in post

Byzantium and Russia, even if the "reading" of the

?pigraphe was no longer common, because the

inscriptions were often given in Greek. The inscriptions do not seem to have been really designed to be

comprehended?not as the modern reader may

57. Nic?phore, Discours, A I, 240 A, p. 82, n. 54.

58. Antirrh. I, 345B.

59. Archimandrite Kallistos Ware, The Power of the Name. The

Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Spirituality (Oxford: Fairacres, 1974), p. 10.

60. Nic?phore, Disours, A I, 309A-316B, pp. 134-140.

61. H. Maguire, 77?e Icons of Their Bodies: Saints and Their Images in Byzantium (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp.

40, 142, 144 (ch. "Naming and Individuality").


approach them62?but as Uspenski points out, they were

there "precisely to establish an internal, sacred (mystic) identification and to affirm the ontological connection

between the image and the name."63

The vison within

The role played by the pseudo-Dionysian, neo-Platonic, and Platonic elements in Byzantine theology and doctrine

of the image has already been described on a theological as

well as an aesthetic level. In approaching the mechanism of

vision and its beholder relative to the icon, one should not

fail to recognize in Plotinus the forerunner of later doctriners

of the image in Byzantium. It was Andr? Grabar who first

emphasized the contribution of the Plotinian doctrine to

medieval aesthetics.64 Grabar's concern was mainly to

outline Plotinus's model of vision, its mechanism of

contemplating "art" and this vision's philosophical and

religious value. Most important, writes Grabar, "Plotinus announces the spectator of the Middle Ages."65

Elements touching on the place of the spectator and its

object of vision are developed by Plotinus in his Fourth

Ennead on perception and memory.66 The question he

poses is, where does that vision take place? Is it in the eye or in the soul of the beholder, or is it in the object of vision

itself? The answer he gives is an early taste of the iconic

mechanism of vision, an aesthetic formula avant la lettre:

Perceptions are no imprints, we have said, are not to be

thought of as seal-impressions on soul or mind: accepting this statement, there is one theory of memory which must be definitely rejected.

In any perception we attain by sight, the object is grasped there where it lies in the direct line of vision; it is there that we attack

it; there, then, the perception is formed, the mind looks

outward;67 this is ample proof that it has taken and takes no

inner imprint, and does not see in virtue of some mark made

upon it like that of the ring on the wax; it need not look outward at all if, even as it looked, it already held the image of the object, seeing by virtue of an impression made upon itself.68

Constitutive for the definition of perception in Plotinus is

the relationship of sight to the object of contemplation.

Sight takes place in the object, the site where the image is conceived and with which the artist confuses himself.

Vision takes place within: "One must bring the vision

within and see no longer in that mode of separation."69 If one sees in separation, one sets oneself outside vision.

But those filled by the divine beauty "cannot remain

mere gazers: no longer is there a spectator outside

gazing on an outside spectacle."70 The beholder:

must give himself forthwith to the inner and, radiant with the Divine Intellections (with which he is now one), be no

longer the seer, but, as that place has made him, the seen.7^

Two conditions are, in Plotinus's view, indispensible to achieve the contemplation of the divine: the

interiority of vision, which leads to the identification

with the divine, and the recognition of the divine in

likeness?as constitutive of the self:

... to see the divine as something external is to be outside

it; to become it is to be most truly in beauty: since sight deals with the external, there can here be no vision unless in the sense of identification with the object.72

And this identification amounts to a self-knowing, a self

consciousness, guarded by the fear of losing the self in the desire of a too wide awareness.73

In terms of the syntax of the image, interiority of vision can be expressed as inward point of view, a reverse

perspective. The inverse perspective in the icon is conceived

according to an internal viewing-point, from inside the

pictorial plane. Inner orientation, or the orientation to an inner point of view and not that of an external

spectator, functions as a dominant principle of sacral

aesthetics. Renaissance representation was conceived as a

window to the world, oriented toward an external and

"estranged" viewpoint: the position of the viewer of the

painting was that of nonparticipation in the representation. The making and the beholding of the icon was based on

quite an opposite principle. As B. Uspenski explains it:

Medieval painting, and above all icon-painting, was oriented

primarily to an inner viewpoint, i.e., to the viewpoint of an

implied observer within the represented world, and

consequently facing the viewer of the picture. In such

62. N. Isar, "L'iconicit? du texte dans l'image post-byzantine moldave: une lecture h?sychaste," Byzantinoslavica 59 (1998):92-112.

63. B. Uspenski, The Semiotics of the Russian Icon (Lisse: The Peter

de Ridder Press, 1976), p. 24, n. 25.

64. Grabar (see note 4), pp. 15-29

65. Ibid., p. 16.

66. IV 6. 1.

67. Emphasis mine.

68. The Fourth Ennead. On Perception and Memory (IV. 6. 1 ),

Plotinus, The Enneads, trans. Stephen MacKenna (London: Faber and

Faber Limited, 1969), p. 338.

69. Plotinus, Enneads V.8.10 (see note 68), p. 431.

70. Ibid.

71. Ibid., p. 431-432.

72. Emphasis mine.

73. Ibid., p. 432.


instances his right hand would correspond to our left, and so on. Thus, when we turn to the icon-painters' podlinniki (pattern-books), i.e., the verbal commentaries to the icons, we

are able to state with certainty that in icon-painting

terminology the right side of an icon was regarded as the left

side and vice versa. In other words, in deciding which is the

right and which is the left side of the picture, we have recourse

to the point of view not of the spectator, but of an observer who is situated within the picture, facing the spectator.74

Inner orientation is manifest also when applied to the

sacred space of the church. Most evocative for the

relationship between the sacred space and its beholder

is the Patriarch Photios's homily on the consecration of

the church of the Virgin Pharos in Constantinople. Here,

image and vision overlap, with their beholder within:

When one has painfully torn oneself away from there and

glanced into the church itself, one is filled with a great and

huge delight and also with confusion and astonishment. One is wholly awed as if one has entered into Heaven itself with no one barring the way from any side and been

illuminated as if by the stars by the beauty in many forms and partially visible everywhere. Furthermore everything appears to be as in a vision 75 and the church itself to be

spinning round. For in both their every twist and turn and their ceaseless movement, which the variety of the

spectacle on all sides compels the spectator to experience, one imagines one's own experience into the things seen.76

Participation: choreia

In my reading of "Christ Chora o? the living," I

followed the image and its beholder, from a liturgical perspective. The liturgical context insists on the

interiority of vision, on the internal point of view of the

beholder. Image as likeness reveals itself in a process of

recognition through participation. The liturgical aspect is

conditioned by and is an intrinsic part of the

ontological. I am here thinking of the ontological dimension of the term participation, the participation in

"the being" (ho on), where the ontological meets the

theological, that is, the participation in Logos and Life.

The term for and the idea of participation have had a

long and recurrent history within and outside Christian

thought. I shall only refer to those aspects relevant for a

theory of participation of the beholder in the Byzantine

image. The term "participation" was first used by Plato, as participation of sensible things in the ideas and as

participation of the ideas among themselves (the most

frequent terms are methexis and metechein). But most

significant for the theory of participation in Patristic

theology is the revival of the Platonic tradition in Neo

Platonism. The topic of Patristic thought was derived

from a combination of Biblical and Neo-Platonic ideas

in which the Christian element was dominant.77

Participation in God, as much as likeness, belongs to

that core of basic concepts that assures the recognition of the image. Likeness and image rely on participation;

they are founded on the understanding of the creation of

man, kat'eikona theou, as participation in the Image of

God (that is, the Son). As Gregory of Nyssa puts it, "likeness" (homoi?sis) and "image" (eik?n) are both

based on a partaking (metoch?) o? God.78 To explain this

in connection with the icon, I should once more turn to

Theodore of Studion and his theological statement on

the icon, from the perspective of participation. The most striking aspect of Theodore's theology of the

icon is the degree of divinity that is manifested in the

icon. This reflects upon the identity between the holy

image and its prototype according to the likeness of the

hypostasis, that is, according to the person of Christ?his

divine as well as his human nature. The conception of

hypostatic or personal identity achieved by the icon is

clearly one of participation. The Plotinian term

metal?psis, used by Theodore in his Antirrheticus, concerns the relative (relational) participation (schetik? de metal?psis) that allows the icon to partake in the

74. B. Uspenski, "Semiotics of the Icon: An Interview with Boris

Uspenskij," PTL: A Journal for Descriptive Poetics and Theory of

Literature 3 (1978):540. See also B. Uspensky, "'Left' and 'Right' in

Icon Painting," Semi?tica 13 (1975):33-39.

75. Emphasis mine.

76. C. Mango, The Homilies of Photius Patriarch of Constantinople, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 3 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,

1958), p. 186. Emphasis mine.

77. The theme developed by St. Paul, which I have already mentioned, is that of Christians as participants of Christ, partaking of

His passions in order also to share His glory (Heb. 3.14: metochoi. . .

tou Christou . . .; 1 Cor. 1.9) and of their sharing of the Holy Eucharist

expressed in terms of participation (1 Cor. 16-18). In his work, St.

Athanasius understands the creation of man kat'eikona theou as

participation in the Image of God (the Son) and as a partaking of the

logikoi in the Logos. Maximus the Confessor makes clear his

Dionysiac view on participation. All beings "participate in a similar

way of God because they are the creation of God." {Ambigua II, 7 [PG

91:1080B]), apud. V. Karayiannis, Maxime Le Confesseur. Essence et

?nergies de Dieu (Paris: Beauchesne, 1993), p. 414.

78. David L. Balas, METOYSIA THEOY: Man's Participation in

God's Perfections according to Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Studia

Anselmiana 55 (Romae: I.B.C. Librer?a Herder, 1966), p. 18.


divinity (theot?s). The relational aspect of participation is

expressed by Theodore in terms of "grace." The icon

partakes in the divinity only by grace and veneration of

the divine (schetik? de metal?psei, hoti chariti kai time ta metechonta)79

In discussing the concept of the image, Ladner80

formulates the question of whether the influence of

Neoplatonic emanation ist ideas can explain Theodore of

Studion's claim that Christ's image is identical with Him

according to the likeness of the hypostasis and that a

degree of divinity is present in the icon. Ladner sees the

key point of the question in the Platonic-Aristotelian

Ratristic contrast between thesis and physis, that is, between imitation by art and natural or supernatural

generation, used by the theorists of Byzantine image doctrine. Imitation of the divine concerns grace. The

partaking of the divine in the icon through grace (schetik? de metal?psei, hoti chariti kai time ta

metechonta),m as stated by Theodore, closely echoes

Origen's homily on Exodus, quoted by Ladner: "If an

image is said to be similar to its model, this refers to the

grace that can be seen in the picture, while the

substance of images and model remain quite unlike."82

The reversed perspective, by which one is drawn into

the icon, is the place of recognition and grace that makes

the divine present for the beholder, as his own image, as

being like an imprint and an image of the other. In

Plotinus's words, a similar intertwined way of seeing is

described as "like images seen by their own light, to be

beheld by exceedingly blessed spectators."83 The grace concerns such transfigured sight, a field of vision that

reflects back an image of recognition and likeness.84

I return one last time to our image and its beholder:

Christ "Ch?ra of the living" and the founder, Metochites.

"Chora o? the living" becomes the paradigm of iconic

place, the locus of vision, the land of the living, the

center of all things. "There, we are at rest."85 From

Plotinus and Pseudo-Dionysius to Gregory of Nyssa's

anthropology, to be "at rest" is to partake in life, to recline

in the light and region of living things. But to be at rest, that is, to partake in divine life, is to deny stasis,

"immobility towards the Good" (h? pros to agathon akin?sia) or separation from God (ch?rismos tou theou), that is, the "falling off from the participation of the Good"

(tes tou agathou metousias).86 This is a state of choreia, as

Gregory of Nyssa puts it, a state of dance (chorostasia), a

virtual movement, a run-up in circles.87 It reverberates

throughout Pseudo-Dionysius's Celestial Hierarchy88 and

Maximus the Confessor's Scholia89 prefigured in Plato's

Theaetetus90 and in the Plotinian image of the dance

(choreia) of the intelligibles around the One:

When we do look to him, then we are at our goal and at rest and do not sing out of tune as we truly dance our god inspired dance (choreian entheon) around him. . . .

And in this dance the soul sees the spring of life. . . .91

The idea of "ceaseless movement" and vision

"spinning around" from Photius's description echoes

Florenkij's definition of the "living image" (that is, the

image governed by the inverse perspective) seen as a

"pulsatory" image, an image in "permanent run," ever

"changing" and "twisting from all parts towards the

beholder." The "living image" plays ceasselessly, it shines,

pulsates, it never stops in an inner contemplation of a

"dead scheme of the object."92 This, I relate to Plotinus's

79. Antirrh. I, 344C.

80. Ladner (see note 9), p. 98.

81. Antirrh. I, 344C.

82. In Exod. homil. VI, 5, GCS, Or?genes, VI, 196 f., apud. Ladner

(see note 9), pp. 102-103.

83. Plotin, Enneads, V.8.4, Plotinus with an English translation by A. H. Armstrong (London: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 253.

84. The problem of participation to the divine is discussed by Ralamas (XIV c.) in terms of grace (kat? chari') or energy (kaf

energeian.) 85. Plotin, Enneads,V\. 9. 8, (1969), p. 622.

86. Balas (see note 78), p. 78.

87. In Psalm., VI, 44, 508 B, J. McDonough and P. Alexander, eds.,

Gregorii Nysseni 86, 14-17 (Leiden: Brill), 1962. Balas (see note 78),

p. 62, V. Raduca, Antropolog?a Sfintului Grigore de Nyssa (Bucuresti,

1996), pp. 230-231.

88. "This, so far as I know, is the first rank of heavenly beings. It

circles in immediate proximity to God. Simply and ceaselessly it

dances around an eternal knowledge of him" (Pseudo-Dionysius, "The

Celestial Hierarchy" in Luibheid [see note 48], p. 165).

89. "Scoliile Sfantului Maxim Marturisitorul," Sfantul Dionisie

Areopagitul. Opere Complete si Scoliile Sfantului Maxim

Marturisitorul, traducere, introducere si note Dumitru Staniloae (Raidea

Bucuresti, 1996), p. 50.

90. "Theaetetus" 176 b, Plato, Complete Works, ed. J. M. Cooper

(Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997), p. 195,

about man's flight from earth to heaven in his aim to become similar

to God.

91. Ennead VI, 9. 8-9. 9 (see note 83), p. 335.

92. P. Florenskij, "Obratnaja perspectiva" ("The Inverse

Perspective"), in Collected Works about Art (in Russian) (Moskow,

1996), pp. 9-72, esp. 9-17, 64, 66-67. By contrast, the direct

perspective derives from another ontology, that of a "separated" person, with its isolated point of view: the individual consciousness and not the

person, (ibid., p. 16) For the rediscovery of Florenskij's text, I am

endebeted to Francesco Pellizzi, who drew my attention to him.


theory of interiority of point of view in experiencing the

divine. The image, just like vision, fills up the beholder, who places himself and his experiences right "into the

things seen." The gap between the icon and its prototype is removed. The "beholder's share" in participation

provides the bridge between the icon and the archetype. Here I take L. Brubaker's view in opposition to Barber's.93

The "beholder's share" is grounded in his participation and self-awareness. The knowledge (eidenai) of the

beholder's sight makes the icon ("we know what we

worship") (John 4:22). This is stressed twice in

Nicephoros's text.94 The beholder's share extends the

relational character of the iconic vision and removes the

gap. It secures the icon from being just a representation, a gap between the icon and the archetype.

Thomas F. Mathews develops similar points about the

identity of participation in the icon, that is, just as in the

Eucharist, the partaking of the same grace and presence in

the icon.95 To a certain extent, Charles Barber96 agrees with his view in discussing the transformation symbolism of the beholder in the icon. But what finally prevents the

icon from becoming the site of the beholder's

transformation, Barber believes, is the "imagination," the

element of projection involved in perception, in which

the viewer only imagines one's own experience into the

things seen. Barber attributes this inner perception to

desire. What prevents the realization of the transformation is the fact that the experience takes place only at the level

of a phrase functioning as a conjunction: "as if" ("as if one has entered Heaven"), which leads to an

interpretation of the icon as a site of "desire" and

"absence," a "pure signifier." Nicephoros's insistence on

schesis and the knowledge of seeing on behalf of the

beholder shows the limit of the dichotomy: either "the

representation of Christ" or "Christ himself." The icon

provides a third variant of figuration based on schesis, the

relation between the icon and the archetype. It saves the

icon from being either a pure signifier, or a pure signified.

Toward a post-iconoclastic model of iconic vision

What defines the cftora-space of the ?con is the

relational element: the relation (to pros ti) articulates, links up the icon to the visible Logos. "The prototype

and the image"?writes Theodore of Studion?"belong to the category of related things" (To pr?totypon, kai h?

eik?n, ton pros ti h?stin). The prototype and the image "exist simultaneously" and "they are understood and

subsist together" (ha ton hama h?nta, ?mou kai nenoetai

kai hyphesteken). Simultaneity suspends temporal distinction: "no time intervenes between them." No

primacy of one over the other one can exist; they "have

their being, as it were, in each other."97 "Presentness"

and "present tense" are both intensified in the icon, as

in the liturgy.98 For Nicephoros, the Aristotelian pros ti defines the

link between the ?con and its model as an uninterrupted and simultaneous relationship.99 But schesis indicates

the modality of this relationship, the

"phenomenological" character of sighting (stochasma), a

"living and intentional intimacy" between the icon and

its prototype.100 The relation (schesis) is what radically

distinguishes the icon from the idol. The idol is not a

"relative," it has no model.101 If the icon is somebody's icon, the idol is an icon of nothing, it has no ontological

existence. The idol has no "inscription," it knows neither

visible form nor contour.102

The relation is established?according to

Nicephoros?by the gaze, a specific look that insists on

the spiritual nature of the beholder's vision (opsis noera), so that the icon makes present the absent, h?s paronta, as it is there. "As it is" (h?s) is neither simulation nor

merely a phrase functioning as a conjunction, but "it has

the entire force of intention, which makes present" (the ?con as a site of presence). The intensity of sighting (stochasma) is the foundation of the iconic presence,

which ascends (diabainein) toward Logos. H?s refers to

diabainein, and it is the "knowledge (eidenai) of the

look" ("le savoir du regard"), rather than the painter, that

93. Brubaker (see note 6), pp. 35-37; C. Barber, "From

Transformation to Desire: Art and Worship after Byzantine

Iconoclasm," The Art Bulletin 75 (1993):15.

94. Nic?phore, Discours, A III, 436 D, 437 A, pp. 228-229.

95. T. F. Mathews, "TheTransformation Symbolism in Byzantine Architecture and the Meaning of the Pantokrator in the Dome," in

Church and People in Byzantium, ed. R. Morris (Birmingham: Centre

for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of

Birmingham, 1990), pp. 191-214.

96. Barber (see note 93), pp. 7-16.

97. Theodore of Studion, Antirrh. Ill (PG 99:429C, D).

98. Christ's image is identical with Him hypostatically, according to

Theodore of Studion. See also H. Belting, Likeness and Presence. A

History of the Image before the Era of Art, (University of Chicago

Press, 1994), pp. 174, 179.

99. Nic?phore, Discours, A I, 277D-280A.

100. Nic?phore, "Preface," Discours, p. 25.

101. Nic?phore, Discours, A I, 277 B.

102. Nic?phore, Discours, A III, 360A.


makes the icon.103 To see the icon is therefore to "know"

it, to recognize it. The principle of recognition involves more than the denotative aspect of the icon:104 the

"familiarity" of the beholder with the image is essential.

The inverse perspective makes the icon a challenge for

sight, an image not simply to be looked at, not in any case

to be looked at idolatrously with metonymical desire, but

to come close to in contiguity for its veneration:

The more frequently they are seen ?n representational art, the more are those who see them drawn to remember and

long for those who serve as models, and to pay these

images the tribute of salutation and respectful veneration

(aspasmon kai ti met? ken proskynesin) 5

In distinguishing between absolute and relative

worship, Nicephoros sees yet another sense of schesis

"in the "intimate familiarity" achieved in the veneration

of the icon.106 The liturgical space is fundamentally a

"relational" space. The relation brings together the

object and the subject, the icon and the participants in

the act of veneration, of "salutation and respectful veneration" (aspasmos kai timetiken proskynesin).

A theory of participation in the icon should no doubt

involve the materiality itself of the icon, which is fully

expressed in its veneration. Proskynesis, translated so far

in the texts as "salutation," refers, in fact, to two

concrete actions reflected in the etymology of the word, and in the practice of veneration derived from a long tradition.107 It implies both prostrating and kissing? actions that are not performed in relation to an

inanimate object, but to the person (hypostasis) iconized

there: "he who venerates the image, venerates the

person represented in that image" (kai ho proskyn?n ten

eikona, proskyne? en aut? to? engraphom?nou t?n

hypostasin) 8 After iconoclasm, the typika already

contain instructions about the kissing of the icons, and

the practice is still maintained in the Orthodox Church.109

The kiss is the "oscular" trope of participation in

which the bodies (divine and of the beholder) are in absolute proximity.110 By a kiss one becomes contiguous

with the materiality of the ?con as one does not kiss the

image but the material itself, which is sacred. To kiss the

icon is to be kissed by it, to be haptically sanctified.

Therefore, the beholder is not only absorbed into the

ritual act of worship, but one can say that he/she is

"passed through the materiality of the icon."111 To reject the veneration of the icon would be heretical: "the one

who rejects the veneration of the icon through a relative

honour" (hapanainomenos h?de t?n kata ti men

schetik?n proskynesin)U2 is declared heretical.

The icon knows no spectators, nor any aesthetic

moment of representation. It invites and insists on

participation. Therefore, no icon has a frame?not in the

sense of our modern conception of the frame as a

regular enclosure isolating the field of representation.113

103. Nic?phore, Discours., p. 228, note 92/

104. Dagron (see note 20), p. 26; Maguire (see note 61 ), pp. 19, 40-46.

105. Mansi, XIII, 377D.

106. Nic?phore, Discours, p. 196, note 26.

107. Proskynesis is composed by the preverb pros, from the same

family as para, peri, or pro, a preposition indicating the "movement

towards" somebody or something, and the verb kyne?, wh?ch means

"to kiss somebody or something" {Greek-English Lexicon, Henry

George Liddell D.D. and Robert Scott D.D. [Oxford: The Clarendon

Press, 1953], p. 1518). The old tradition of salutation, which involved

prostration and kissing, can be traced back to Herodotus. John of

Damascus distinguishes for the first time between "latreia" and

"proskynesis" ?n his De imaginibus, oratio III (PG 94), P. B. Kotter, Die

Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, vol. 3 (Berlin: de Gruyter,

1975). His definitions are to be found also in the Actes of the Council

of Nicaea II. Nichephoros devotes to the same topic the chapter 10 in

his Antirrh. Ill, 392B-392C. He distinguishes between different kinds

of proskynesis (inspired by love, fear, and law). The veneration of the

images, for which proskynesis timetike is reserved, is a proskynesis o?

honor, though relative, and distinct from proskynesis latreutike,

reserved for God alone.

108. Mansi, XIII, Canon VII Council of Nicaea 787, 377 D.

109. R. Taft, Creaf Entrance: A History of the Transfer of Gifts and

Other Pre-anaphoral Rites of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 200 (Rome: Pontifical Institutum

Studiorum Orientalium, 1975), p. 416, n. 211, on diataxeis,

prescribing the kissing of the icons on the templon by the priest before

entering the sanctuary; Belting (see note 98), p. 183; K.-M. Hofmann,

Phil?ma hagion (G?tersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1938), pp. 106ff., 141.

110. After iconoclasm, icons were no longer made using the

encaustic technique. Instead, tempera, a mixture of pigments with a

binding agent soluable in water, was used. E. Sendler, The Icon, Image of the Invisible: Elements of Theology, Aesthetics and Technique

(Chelsea, Mich., Oakwood Publications, 1988), p. 234. The

terminology used in the making of the icon alludes to the Incarnation,

and therefore it can be seen as an anti-iconoclastic statement in itself.

The making of the icon starts with the darker shades, proplasmos (like

in proplasso, referring to Christ's union of natures at Anastasius Sinaita

(Lampe [see note 24], p. 1162), and continues in successive layers of

color to light: grapsimata, sarkomata, glykasmos, psimmythies (the Old

Slavonic equivalent ozhivki, that is, living features).

111. C. Lock, "Iconic Space and the Materiality of the Sign,"

Religion and the Arts 1, no. 4 (1997): 17.

112. Theodore of Studion, Antirrh. I, 349D.

113. The raised borders of the icons (rare on Greek icons, but a

norm in Russia between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries) could

respond to a change in the function of the ?mage (the hollowing space "framed" by these borders is called in Old Slavonic kovtcheg, that is,


The liturgical meaning is always a meaning without

frame, a meaning about to be absorbed not by the look

of representation but by participation. For the aim and

end of the icon is certainly not to be seen in the

"aesthetic" mode, but to be inhabited in a ritual space of participation. What vanity is to the idol,114 charity,

agape is to the icon.115 Line without closure, inscription

beyond representation, the iconic graphe defines a place "free from all closure, because it is the threshold of

infinity."116 The iconic graphe is therefore neither the

limit of space, nor the limit of sound (silence), but

rapture (harpag?) o? light and the exultation of gazes. Icons are signs of a dialogical essence, in Bakhtin's

terminology. They look at us and they speak to us about

the "dialogic" of seeing.117 In the act of seeing, the

viewer is not only seeing but is being seen. Iconic vision

joins seer and seen, beholder and image, and in seeing, the beholder is himself actually seen. He/she becomes, like in the Plotinian vision, an object of contemplation,

"like images seen by their own light, to be beheld by

exceedingly blessed spectators."^8 Such an event can

be described as "euphoric." In the "euphoric" gazing, the viewers are directing their gazes to each other with

similar intensity.119 They become One?"mim?tes

Christou."The exchange of gazes is actually what

differentiates the icon from the idol:

The icon lays out the material of wood and paint in such a

way that there appears ?n them the intention of a

transpiercing gaze emanating from them. ... If man, by his

gaze, renders the idol possible, ?n revert contemplation of the ?con, on the contrary, the gaze of the invisible, in

person, aims at man. The icon regards us, it concerns us.no

What renders the ?con complete is this intertwined, somehow "chiastical" disposition of gazes?a principle

by which seeing is performed in a nonlinear manner.

Typology, chiasmus,121 and iconic vision seem to be

organized in a similar way, around a center (mesites): the Incarnation.122

What makes an image become an idol is the

idolatrous look, when a person gazes at it ?dolatrously. It

is when the icon is looked at with no other intention

than to see what is there that the image becomes an

idol. To see only what is there concerns the surface of

representation?a means of exorcising the "emptiness." What concerns the iconic vision is the transgression of

the surface. The honor paid to the image "traverses" it,

reaching the model (h? gar tes eikonos time epi to

pr?totypon diabainei).U3 The space beyond differentiates the icon from the idol, it is what gives the

icon infinitude:

The ?con summons the gaze to surpass ?tself. . . . The gaze can never rest or settle if it looks at an ?con; it always must rebound upon the visible, in order to go back ?n ?t up the infinite stream of the infinite.124

The icon cannot be a "pure signifier," a "signifier of

absence," and "an autonomous depiction," a "purely

pictorial space."125 It belongs to another order of

cognitive apprehension, which resists Albertian logic or

any other categories of modern cognition. It cannot be an

empty sign, more than being "empty" insofar as it is the

place of ken?sis. The paradoxical play between presence and absence is found on a theology of kenosis,ue which

defines the kenotic emptying?the absence?as fullness.

"ark," a term used for reliquary cases). In manuscripts, the borders

respond rather to an aesthetic exigence of the image ("clarity"),

according to M. Shapiro, "On Some Problems in the Semiotics of

Visual Art: Field and Vehicle in Image-Signs," in Theory and

Philosophy of Art: Style, Artist, and Society, Selected Papers (New York:

George Braziller, 1994), pp. 8-11.

114. The idol has nothing to do but with the "vanity of objects without ontological existence" (Nic?phore, Discours, A II, 360A, p.

172). The Biblical Hebrew for "idols," "elilim" (pi.), like in Leviticus

19: 4 and 26: 1, comes from "elim," meaning vain, nothingness. 115. Jean-Luc Marion, God Without Being, ed. Mark C. Taylor

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 132-138.

116. Marie-Jos? Baudinet, "The Face of Christ, The Form of the

Church," in Fragments for a History of the Human Body, part one, ed.

Michel Feher with Ramona Naddaff and Nadia Tazi (New York: Zone,

1989), p. 152.

117. Maguire (see note 61 ), pp. 115-117. One of the most

powerful examples of what Maguire calls "the Eye of Justice" could be

the icon of Spas Jaroe Oko (The Saviour of "the Fiery Eye") from the

mid-fourteenth century (Uspenskij Sobor, Moskow). One of the most fascinating cases is the oracular ?con of Empress

Zoe answering questions by changing its chromatic color, reported by Michael Psellus in Chronographia in the eleventh century, in Belting

(see note 98), text 16, p. 512.

118. Plotinus, Enneads, V.8.4, p. 253. Emphasis mine.

119. A. J. Greimas, Du sens (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1970), pp. 282-283. Gandelman, "Penetrating Doors," in Reading Pictures,

Viewing Texts (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), p. 44.

120. Marion (see note 115), p. 19.

121. J. Breck, The Shape of Biblical Language: Chiasmus in the

Scripture and Beyond, (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's Seminary

Press, 1994).

122. Nic?phore, Discours, A I, 240 A, p. 82, n. 54.

123. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (see note 12), 1:133-137.


125. Barber (see note 93), p. 15.

126. Christ's death and His triumph on the Cross.


Emptiness and fullness, Incarnation and Resurrection are

both "foiled" and transfigured in the icon?the "work of

the spectator's gaze"127?"a kenotic practice."128 The perspectival gaze and its linear field of vision

stand at the origin and the constitution of modern

representation. In Martin Jay's view, "the visual model of

the modern era" is identified with Renaissance notions

of perspective in the visual arts and the Cartesian

subject in philosophy.129 Linearity of vision and linearity of reading, are fundamental principles by which image and the text are established in modernity. Linear vision

renders the icon invisible. The gaze dissociates the

image from the body of which it is constituted. It

therefore reifies and separates the viewer from the image and keeps him away, at the threshold of the frame. The

representation is a space of rationalized visual order that

"arrests" the eye and recreates illusory objects of

desire.130 "Desire" is a central concept in the definition

of the representation in modern vision.

Melancholy is a fascination with and a desire for the

vanishing point, the point of vanity and absence in

representation. Melancholia is the prototype for Vanity.131 The gaze of melancholy "sees all and nothing, all as

nothing, all that is as ?fit were not."132 "Vanity," writes

Marion, "marks the world with indifference" or the absence

of difference between Creation and Being. A site of desire

and absence?it cannot be true but for representation. Desire in the icon is intimately related to, and emanates

from, the desire for God. Here the theological meets the

pictorial, offering a model for the problematic of desire in

the ?con, to which I finally turn. In Gregory of Nyssa's

anthropology,133 desire for God is "progressive growth in

the participation of the divine goods." It is by nature

related to the dynamic character of participation and

veneration, the "epektasis" or the doctrine of infinite

progress.134 Chorostasia is this state of constant movement

and progression towards the divine, a quest and desire for

the essence of God, which is unattainable. Gregory of

Nyssa's anthropology serves to argue against the definition

of the icon as a site of desire and limit, and therefore a

space of stasis. The iconic vision resists stasis; it grounds itself in the relation that brings together beholder and

prototype in a dynamic and undiminished ascent.

Desire for God maintains desire, and generates and

grants satisfaction. In the dynamic of "God's infinity and

man's mutability,"135 "every attainment is a real

attainment," and "one has the sense of accomplishment or fulfillment; yet there is no stopping." There is both

satisfaction and expanding desire. The same is true for

the icon: it maintains desire, but does not defer

attainment. The icon knows no deferral of presence. It

promises identity and achieves it, though there is both

desire and expanding desire contained in it. Here lies the

paradox. The icon and desire for the icon are to be

understood in the same "relational" way of participation and "practice of ken?sis." Participation is recognition

through likeness.136 Therefore, to see is to partake in the

image, to be "familiar" with God and to maintain this

familiarity as an expanding movement of desire and

ascent.137 The icon erases the gap between the one

looking and the one looked at. They move together. Here

again Gregory of Nyssa's anthropology shows where the

ultimate answer to the problem of desire and the

function of the image as "practice of ken?sis" may lie:

The finding is the continuous search itself, for the seeking is not one thing and the finding another. But the reward of the search is the seeking itself.138

127. Baudinet (see note 116), p. 151.

128. Ibid., p. 152.

129. M. Jay, "Scopic Regime of Modernity," Vision and Visuality, ed. Hal Foster, Discussions in Contemporary Culture 2 (Seattle: Bay

Press, 1988), p. 4; M. Jay, "The Noblest of the Senses: Vision from

Plato to Descartes."

130. Bryson (see note 2), p. 94.

131. "The gaze of melancholy sees beings in the way in which they are not: by the escape of their vanishing point, they appear to ?t as not

being." "And Melancholy gazes at nothing other than this absent

vanishing point (point de fuite), absence of an escape, flight from any

flight," in Marion (see note 115), p. 134.


133. Vita Moysis II (PG 44:219-248); Commentary on Canticles;

G. B. Ladner, "The Philosophical Anthropology of saint Gregory of

Nyssa," Dumbarton Oaks Papers (1958):59-94.

134. As called by P. Dani?lou, with reference to Philip. 3.13:

"Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one

thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead."

135. Everett Ferguson, "God's Infinity and Man's Mutability:

Perpetual Progress according to Gregory of Nyssa," The Greek

Orthodox Theological Review 18, nos. 1-2 (1973):73.

136. Like, for instance, in the lines homoi? de to homoion kalesas

("calling like by means of like") (The Akathistos Hymn, kontakion ten).

137. Gregory of Nyssa founds the real life (h? ont?s z??) ?n

"becoming familiar with God" (he pros to theion oikei?sis) and the

opposite, death, in "falling off from participation of the Good" (tes tou

agathou metousias) or in "immobility toward the Good" (h? pros to

agathon akin?sia). Balas (see note 78), p. 78.

138. On Ecclesiastes 7 (PG 44:720C). English translation is taken

from Everett Ferguson (see note 135), p. 74.

isar, vision

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