The British Art Historian Andrew Graham-Dixon presented a three-part television series for BBC, called Art for Eternity. (link on the right column of this blog) He offered a critic on this marvellous brilliant Coptic Art as revealed by recent discoveries. This Coptic Art created in the medium of fresco of the thirteen century reveals the expressive sense of divine mystery. Here two articles.
THEODORE, THE COPTIC MASTER WHO PAINTED THE WALLS AT SAINT ANTONY’S CHURCH, MONASTERY OF SAINT ANTONY (THE RED SEA, EGYPT) JUNE 19, 2012
The recent restoration work at St. Anthony’s Monastery has revealed the extraordinarily beautiful wall paintings at the oldest church in the monastery, the Church of St. Anthony, which is believed to have dated from the times of the St. Antony (ca. 251–356). The great restoration work was undertaken by a joint Coptic/Italian/USA effort, and was carried out between 1995 and 1999. The result of the restoration was astonishing – it revealed master pieces by a Coptic painter from the thirteenth century. I have spoken about the wall paintings and their restoration in previous article, to which the reader can refer.
As Jill Kamil says, “the result of professional cleaning, conservation and restoration is breathtaking. All appear as though painted yesterday”. But one has to focus less on the restoration itself than on the art work which has been revealed by it. The brilliance and genius of such work has raised the stature of Coptic art to higher levels, and added to our understanding of the thriving Coptic culture in the thirteenth century. The British art historian and critic describes it as “some of the most profoundly moving works of Christian art ever created.” “[The] cycle of frescoes [revealed by the restoration] is like nothing else in the Christian art tradition: stark but simple images of monks, priests and martyrs, with wide and staring eyes; a Madonna and Child painted in a style of such almost abstracted power and force that it resembles nothing so much as a late Picasso (who himself looked back to the art of earlier periods for inspiration, but could never have known this particular image); a depiction of the Vision of Ezekiel that might evoke comparisons with the sharp, dream-like paintings of the Dada and Surreal movements of the early twentieth century.”
The Coptic master work of art has been celebrated – it is a shame, however, that the Coptic artist who created that work is little known, and rarely mentioned by art critics and historians. This article is written specifically to bring to my readers the name of that brilliant Coptic painter, which my previous articles failed to reveal. The name of the Coptic artist is retained on the walls in an inscription – it was Theodore. Sadly we don’t know his full name, or his biography. One would hope that the beautiful work at St. Antony’s Monastery would carry his name – “Theodore’s Frescos at the Monastery of St. Antony”. This way his name can be kept in the mind of Copts and lovers of Coptic and Christian art.
The inscription on the wall also reveals that the wall paintings were made by Theodore and his team in the years 1232-1233 AD.This is towards the end of the long nineteen years of patriarchate vacancy after the death of John VIII (1189 – 1216) and Cyril III (1235 – 1243). The reigning Muslim king at the time was Al-Malik Al-Kamil (1218 – 1238). These are days of trouble and division within the Coptic nation, as they were divided on the election of the next patriarch, but, paradoxically, it was a period also of extraordinary flourishing in Coptic culture in many ways.
A work on such a scale that takes almost two years in a desert monastery could not have been undertaken without sponsorship from Coptic archons (prominent, rich and influential Copts). We are fortunate that the inscription found on the walls retained the identity of the archons that funded the work – we know them as simply “the sons of Ghâlib”; yet some of the many humble Coptic heroes who left us nothing to remember them except the work they sponsored and a simple name.
Andrew Graham-Dixon, Coptic Art, Monastery of St. Antony
source: here
THE BRILLIANCE AND GENIUS OF
COPTIC ART AS REVEALED BY RECENT DISCOVERIES AND PRESENTED BY THE BRITISH ART
HISTORIAN AND CRITIC ANDREW GRAHAM-DIXON
JANUARY 11, 2012
Source: here
Christ
Pantocrator, or the Apocalypse; recently revealed wall painting
at the
Monastery of saint Antony, Egypt
The brilliance and genius of
Coptic art and the Coptic artists have been hidden for centuries. The
Copts, who are the direct descendants of the Pharaohs, once revitalised by
Christianity, created some of the most beautiful art of humanity. This was
despite the fact that the Copts never had a state of their own or a secure
aristocracy that could sponsor art – rather, they experienced untold
persecution and oppression by the Romans, Chalcedonian Byzantines and lastly
the Muslims. The Islamic persecution, never remitting except during short
periods of history, was particularly severe and systematic during the reign of
the Fatimid Caliph,
al-Hakim (997-1021) and the Mamlukes (1250-1517) who launched in the 14th century
a nation-wide series of campaigns of destruction of Coptic churches,
manuscripts, works of art and culture. What was left us, or
executed after the 13th century, was passed by some
unsympathetic critics as great art “only in a very few cases.” But does that represent Coptic art or the Coptic
artistic talent and genius?
Thank Providence that modern
renovation and restoration work in Coptic churches and monasteries across
Egypt have revealed old works of art that lied hidden by layers of plaster or accumulating soot
and dust. We are able now to look at Coptic work produced in the early
Christian centuries and up to the 13th century, and evaluate
it; and what a new understanding of brilliance and genius of Coptic art it has
brought us.
Andrew Graham-Dixon, the brilliant British art historian and critic
Perhaps there is no live art historian or critic in the world who matches the British Andrew Graham-Dixon. It was great, certainly Coptia’s good luck, when he showed some interest in Coptic art in 2006. The result was Art for Eternity, a three-part television series for BBC4, which was first broadcast on 20 Aug 2007. The journey of the series – which runs, broadly speaking, from the third century AD to the early years of the fourteenth century – included a study of early Christian art in Roman, Byzantine, Coptic and early Renaissance tradition. Speaking about it, he says: “Above all, I hope to show that the achievements of Christian art during its first thousand years and more are still capable of speaking to anyone, of whatever faith (or even of no faith). This is an art that communicates a religious message, certainly, but it also speaks to the most fundamental and universal human emotions: the fear of death; the love of a mother for her child; the agony of seeing those who are loved subjected to the violence of war and persecution. It might have its eyes set on another world, beyond time and space, yet it also remains rooted in the perpetual facts of human existence. I really believe that it is – in both senses of the phrase – an art for eternity.”
About his encounter with Coptic
art, he writes on his website:
One of the principal aims of
the series is to explore some of the least visited corners of early Christian
art, and for me one of the greatest revelations came when I travelled to Egypt
to look at the art of the Christian Copts. This was a tradition with
which I was previously unfamiliar – and about which precious little has been
written – yet which includes some of the most profoundly moving works of
Christian art ever created. It is a tradition that survives only in
fragments, many preserved in Cairo’s Museum of Coptic Art. This is where the
earliest examples of the Coptic style – withdrawn, solemn but tremendously
vivid images of Christ and his Apostles, the Virgin Mary and the saints, dating
back to the fifth and sixth centuries – may be found. But the real treasure,
the culminating masterpiece of this much vandalised and fragmented art
tradition, is to be found in the wild and mountainous landscape of the south
eastern desert. Travelling there, I visited the ancient monastery of St Anthony
– the first Christian monastery ever established – and was quite simply stunned
by the painted decorations of its great church. Only recently
discovered and restored, after centuries of neglect, this cycle of frescoes is
like nothing else in the Christian art tradition: stark but simple images of
monks, priests and martyrs, with wide and staring eyes; a Madonna and Child
painted in a style of such almost abstracted power and force that it resembles
nothing so much as a late Picasso (who himself looked back to the art of
earlier periods for inspiration, but could never have known this particular
image); a depiction of the Vision of Ezekiel that might evoke comparisons with
the sharp, dream-like paintings of the Dada and Surreal movements of the early
twentieth century.
One of the most fascinating
things about the art of the Copts is that it was created by a Christian
community that has never enjoyed any great worldly power, that has suffered
persecution throughout its history. It stands, in this sense, at the very
opposite end of the spectrum to the glittering mosaics of Christian Rome or
Byzantium. Coptic art, an art created in the humbler medium of fresco, its
colours those of earth and stone, is an art rooted in a very different sense of
poverty and humility – and a strong sense of the vanity of the things of this
world.
Graham-Dixon visits the Hanging Church (El Muallaqa) and the Coptic Museum, both in Old Cairo (Coptic Cairo), the Red Monastery (Monastery of St. Pishay) outside Sohag in Upper Egypt, and the Monastery of Saint Antony at the Red Sea in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. While other European visitors to Egypt were mostly visiting Egypt to explore Pharaonic Egypt, Graham-Dixon went, as he tells us, “in search of different kind of treasures, the great masterpieces of art – the early Christian paintings obscured by centuries of neglect but which have recently been discovered here. And they are truly are amongst the artistic wonders of the world.”
Graham-Dixon starts his
journey by visiting Old Cairo in the feast of St. George.
The occasion reminded him of South Italy; and he was not just struck by the
depth of the faith of the Copts but also by the friendliness and the festivity
of the event. Rather than lamenting and wailing the martyrdom of St. George,
the Copts were ululating at his festival in an expression of joy, almost
“persecution joy”. For a nation that has lived almost all its Christian history
under persecution, martyrdom must represented triumph of the spirit over the
forces of oppression and fear.
He then visits the Hanging Church
and Coptic Museum. There he was struck with the intense spirituality of the
Copts. At the Museum he talks about the “pride of the place” – the Psalms of
David in the Coptic language; a manuscript from the fourth century, which is
the earliest and complete manuscript of the Psalms. “It is a battered book, as
if it was an object that survived from a fire. It is a symbol of not only how
Coptic Christians treasure relics of early Coptic Christianity but also a symbol
for more – of Coptic art tradition as a whole because it is a battered
tradition; a tradition that had to live through persecution, through migration
of populations. It is amazing that anything survived at all.
[The reader is strongly advised to watch the two videos I have posted belowto appreciate the high quality of Graham-Dixon’s documentary]
[The reader is strongly advised to watch the two videos I have posted belowto appreciate the high quality of Graham-Dixon’s documentary]
To the Copts just as precious as
the word is the image. There were there some of wall paintings from the six
century, with very vivid faces. These are “master pieces”. “Tremendously vivid,
Picasso would have called it primitive power.” The Madonna suckling the Infant
Christ “has got something of Picasso about it”. “Perhaps the most striking
thing about Coptic art is the way the artist represents these eyes – these
extraordinary staring eyes. There is something peculiarly transfixing about
that gaze. It is not a gaze that is addressing you – it looks through you;
fixed on the idea and image not of this life but the life to come.”
Coptic art tradition,
Graham-Dixon says, is essentially mysterious. So much of it has been lost
during centuries of persecution and destruction which makes tracing its origins
particularly difficult, but “The earliest origins of Coptic art lie in the
funerary art of Ancient Egypt; which, with its own cult of afterlife, suggests
why Christianity found fertile ground here. There is a direct connection
between the art of Ancient Egypt and the art of Coptic Egypt.” In Room 14 of
the Egyptian Museum, in Cairo, he finds another link – the Fayum Mummy
Portraits, which are almost Greek, and date from the first and third centuries.
They must have influenced the vivid Coptic depiction of Christ and his
Apostles. In this nexus Coptic art is also connected to the ancient Greek
painting tradition.
But reading about it is not like
watching and seeing it. I strongly advise all of you to watch these two videos
that talks about Coptic art in Art of Eternity. Each is roughly 15
minutes long. Here is the first part:
First video
Covers Graham-Dixon’s visits
to Old Cairo, where he attended the Feast of St. George celebration and visited
the Hanging Church and the Coptic Museum, and then to the Egyptian Museum
Graham-Dixon then goes to
visit two Coptic monasteries, the Red Monastery in Sohag and the Monastery
of Saint Antony at the Red Sea. As he says, Coptic monasticism influenced not
just Christianity but also world’s art and culture.
The Red Monastery in Sohag dates
back to the six century. There he meets Professor Petsy Bolman (Elizabeth
Bolman), from the Temple University in Philadelphia, USA, and Director of the
White and Red Monasteries Project in Egypt. She was responsible for supervising the
restoration and renovation of the Red Monastery. There a new world of beautiful
Coptic art had been revealed. Bolman says about the fantastic art work that her
project has revealed, “It has enormous force. There is something magnificent
about this expanse of paint from floor to ceiling.” There was no disagreement
that Sohag’s Red Monastery was “one of the miracles of early Christian art”.
Graham-Dixon was struck by the explosion of colour in the wall paintings; the
vivid colour of late antiquity. As he says, “It is a work of art created by
masters of their art the equal of any in the Byzantine Christian Empire.”
Bolman mentions the outline, strong colour, fraternity, intense gaze of the
figures, and explains that the Coptic artists were “not interested at all in
creating a window into space on this surface. We tend to think that great art
is that which takes a flat surface and gives it a feeling of illusion of the
natural world around us. Here we see none of that whatsoever – not because they
couldn’t do it but because they didn’t want to do it.”
At the Monastery of Saint Antony,
Graham-Dixon meets the charismatic Coptic monk,Abuna Maximus, who was responsible for restoration
and renovation of the monastery’s architecture and wall paintings. And there
also a wonderful world of Coptic art had recently been revealed. Graham-Dixon
says, “I have heard the results were impressive but nothing prepared me for
the experience itself.” As Fr. Maximus shows him round, he remarks, “The
style is nothing like I have ever seen before in these unique and utterly
fascinating thirteen century wall paintings.” Fr. Maximus points to the
Ancient Egyptian motif in the pictures; and they both find a connection in them
between Ancient Egypt and Coptic Egypt. It is not only the ecstatic connection
but the sense of line, the symmetry, the design and interest in math and
geometry.
“Like some of the faces,” Graham-Dixon
says, “were painted by Picasso”. The Madonna, particularly (with everything
in it being circular) draws his attention. “This is not primitive
(art). This is very sophisticated use of symbolism, very subtle, very clever
art.” And he adds, “And also, she is so full of joy,” unlike the
Madonna figures in the West where she is depicted sad as she laments the death
of her Son. Fr. Maximus explains, “She is happy because she is the Mother of
the Saviour.”
But Fr. Maximus saved the best
until last, and the two went to the Chapel of the Four Living Creatures where a
depiction of the Apocalypse was. There the fantastic colours and intense
spiritual feeling dominated. “It was a work of genius; a masterpiece of
mystic surrealism.” “Even the sun and the moon have faces like a
modern children story book.” That was a masterpiece that reminded him
of religious surrealism – “fantasy paintings of the 20th century;
total freedom”.
At the end Graham-Dixon concludes, “Coptic painting, little known but full of its fiercely expressive sense of divine mystery, seems to me to be a microcosm of an entire world of early Christian art. This was a vital tradition capable of assuming radically different shapes and forms at different times and different places, yet always connected to a central core – the life of Christ and the teachings of the Apostles.”
But again, reading about it is not like watching or seeing it:
Second video
Explores the recent
discoveries at the Red Monastery in Sohag and the Monastery of Saint Antony at
the Red Sea.
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