404 Kalopissi-Verti
loss of Constantinople, either continues the old artistic models or simplifies
and schematises them.
The second half of the 13th century is characterised by a great number of
monuments and an almost equal number of painters. In contrast to the monu-
ments of the first half of the century, only rarely can a painter be attested that
worked on more than one monument. The diversity of stylistic idioms and the
gradations in quality show a broad participation of different social strata dis-
posing of varying financial means and differentiated taste and cultural niveau.
Although the majority of the painted ensembles show a simplified and con-
servative style still adhering to Komnenian models, the principles of the new
trends of official monumental art as developed in the great artistic centres,
placing emphasis on the painterly means and the rendering of volume, gradu-
ally penetrate, particularly after the recapture of Constantinople in 1261.
As far as the selection of iconographic subjects is concerned there are
details indicating the problems that arose from the confrontation with the
Latin doctrine and culture and their reception by the locals. The emphasis on
both leading apostles Peter and Paul, as representatives of the two Churches,
and sometimes the prominent place given to St Paul, the apostle par excellence
of the East,76 as well as the portraiture of significant Orthodox metropolitans
before the Latin conquest, namely Michael Choniates and Ioannes Kaloktenes,
may be considered as expressions of identity.77 The predilection for images of
mounted warrior saints has been interpreted by Sharon Gerstel as “a reciprocal
interchange” between the two cultures.78 A symbolic indication of approach
between the Latin and Orthodox population is probably reflected in the depic-
tion of the Embrace of Peter and Paul.79 These subjects seem to be a kind of
response, a conscious reply, to the new challenges provoked by the encounter
with the conquerors, their culture and doctrine, a response that propagates
identity or shows either opposition and reaction or rapprochement. The depic-
tion of the Melismos, the pictorial expression of the Eucharist according to the
76 Mouriki, “An Unusual Representation,” pp. 154–55, 170.
77 See above, pp. 383–85 and 392.
78 Gerstel, “Art and Identity,” pp. 269–80, esp. p. 273.
79 See the church of St George at Skourta in the region of Dervenochoria in Boeotia (end
of the 13th century). The frescoes are destroyed but they are known from old photos:
Koilakou, “Μνημειακή ζωγραφική στη βυζαντινή και μεταβυζαντινή Βοιωτία”. On icono-
graphic subjects in Byzantine art inspired by the confrontation of the two Churches,
see Nikolaos Gkioles, “Εικονογραφικά θέματα στη βυζαντινή τέχνη εμπνευσμένα από την
αντιπαράθεση και τα σχίσματα των δύο εκκλησιών” [“Iconographic Themes in Byzantine Art
Inspired by the Confrontation and Schisms of the Two Churches”] in Θωράκιον, pp. 263–81
(on the Embrace of Peter and Paul, pp. 276–77).