DAPHNIMuch of the original mosaic decora-
tion of the Hosios Loukas Katholikon does not sur-
vive, but at Daphni, near Athens, the mosaics pro-
duced during Byzantium’s second golden age fared
much better. In the Church of the Dormition
(from the Latin for “sleep,” referring to the ascen-
sion of the Virgin Mary to Heaven at the moment
of her death), at the Daphni monastery, the main
elements of the late-11th-century pictorial pro-
gram are intact, although the mosaics were re-
stored in the 19th century. Gazing down from on
high in the central dome (FIG. 12-1) is the fear-
some image of Christ as Pantokrator (literally “ruler of all” in Greek
but usually applied to Christ in his role as Last Judge of hu-
mankind). The dome mosaic is the climax of an elaborate hierar-
chical pictorial program including several New Testament episodes
below. The Daphni Pantokrator is like a gigantic icon hovering dra-
matically in space. The mosaic serves to connect the awestruck wor-
shiper in the church below with Heaven through Christ. The Pan-
tokrator theme was a common one in churches throughout the
Byzantine Empire. There was also a mosaic of the Pantokrator in the
dome of the Hosios Loukas Katholikon. Today a painting (FIG. 12-22)
replaces it.
On one of the walls below the Daphni dome, beneath the barrel
vault of one arm of the Greek cross, an unknown artist depicted
Christ’s Crucifixion (FIG. 12-23) in a pictorial style characteristic of
the posticonoclastic Middle Byzantine period. Like the Pantokrator
mosaic in the dome, the Daphni Crucifixion is a subtle blend of the
painterly Hellenistic style and the later more abstract and formalistic
Byzantine style. The Byzantine artist fully assimilated classicism’s
simplicity, dignity, and grace into a perfect synthesis with Byzantine
piety and pathos. The figures have regained the classical organic
structure to a surprising degree, particularly compared with Justini-
anic figures (FIGS. 12-10and 12-11). The style is a masterful adapta-
tion of classical statuesque qualities to the linear Byzantine manner.
In quiet sorrow and resignation, the Virgin and Saint John flank
the crucified Christ. A skull at the foot of the cross indicates Golgo-
tha, the “place of skulls.” The artist needed nothing else to set the
scene. Symmetry and closed space combine to produce an effect of
the motionless and unchanging aspect of the deepest mystery of the
Christian religion, as recalled in the ceremony of the Eucharist. The
picture is not a narrative of the historical event of the Crucifixion,
the approach taken by the carver of the Early Christian ivory panel
(FIG. 11-22) examined in the previous chapter. Nor is Christ a tri-
umphant, beardless youth, oblivious to pain and defiant of the laws
of gravity. Rather, he has a tilted head and sagging body, and al-
though the Savior is not overtly in pain, blood and water spurt from
the wound Longinus inflicted on him, as recounted in Saint John’s
gospel. The Virgin and John point to the figure on the cross as if to a
devotional object. They act as intercessors between the viewer below
and Christ, who, in the dome, appears as the Last Judge of all hu-
mans. The mosaic decoration of the church is the perfect comple-
ment to Christian liturgy.SAINT MARK’S, VENICE The revival on a grand scale of
church building, featuring vast stretches of mosaic-covered walls,
was not confined to the Greek-speaking Byzantine East in the 10th
to 12th centuries. A resurgence of religious architecture and of the330 Chapter 12 BYZANTIUM
12-23Crucifixion, mosaic in the Church of
the Dormition, Daphni, Greece, ca. 1090–1100.
The Daphni Crucifixion is a subtle blend of
Hellenistic style and the more abstract Byzantine
manner. The Virgin Mary and Saint John point to
Christ on the Cross as if to a devotional object.