Relief decoration of the church facades of the Byzantine world
No. 2 (9) (2018), Forum
No. 2 (9) (2018)

Relief decoration of the church facades of the Byzantine world

Forum
УДК 726.04 DOI: https://doi.org/10.25712/ASTU.2518-7767.2018.02.018
Published 2018-06-28
Olga Evgenievna Etinhof
The Research Institute of Theory and History of Fine Arts of the Russian Academy of Arts; the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities named after Y.M. Meletinsky at the Russian State University for the Humanities

eLibrary ID etinhof@mail.ru

Abstract

The article deals with plastic and sculptural elements that were inserted on the facades of churches of the Byzantine world in the 12th – 13th centuries. In the Athenian church of the Panagia Gorgoepikoos (the Little Metropolis) and the Venetian Cathedral of San Marco, according to an ancient tradition, spolias were used, albeit in different ways: in the Little Metropolis not only for decoration, but also as a building material, in San Marco for decorative purposes only. Among the used spolias there were not only medieval reliefs, sculpture and architectural plastics, but also various ancient fragments, including images with pagan subjects. Spolias were no longer used in the Cathedral of Saint Demetrius in Vladimir, all the reliefs were created just for this church at the same time. We can rightly consider the practice of such decoration of the facades as a kind of medieval installations, the precursors of modern art. This does not contradict the meaning of the term "installation" itself.

https://doi.org/10.25712/ASTU.2518-7767.2018.02.018

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