The double-line fold drapery motif
Date
1989
Authors
Marner, Dominic St. John
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
A great many art objects produced in Rome during the late eighth and ninth century are characterized by a linear style. The mosaics and metalwork of Paschal I (817-824), the wall-paintings in Santa Maria Antigua completed during the Pontificates of Paul I (757-67) and Hadrian I (772 - 95), and the wall-paintings in the lower church of San Clemente, commissioned during the Papacy of Leo IV (847 - 855), are only a few examples . A common stylistic trait of these works is the attempt to depict folds of drapery using two parallel lines.
This 'double- line fold system' occurs in almost every example of early- and mid- ninth century work from Rome and must be understood as the result of a gradual development towards the 'linear' in the style of Roman art during the latter half of the eighth century.
Apart from the Roman works of known date many of the objects in which the double-line fold system occurs are controversial in terms of date and place of origin. As a result it is necessary to examine thoroughly the scholarship surrounding these controversial works: the Sacra Parallela (Paris, B.N. cod . gr. 923), the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus (Paris, B.N . cod. gr. 510), the ivory scepter of Leo VI (Staatliche Museen), and the lost mosaic of the Virgin and Child in the Church of the Koimesis at Nicaea. These works can be dated to the second half of the ninth century and assigned to the region of Constantinople. Like the early-ninth-century mosaics and metalwork produced in Rome , the style of the drapery in these objects relies predominantly on the use of line to define form and the use of the double- line fold system to indicate folds of drapery.
Before considering a possible linear stylistic influence of the art of early-ninth-century Rome on the art of post-iconoclastic Constantinople certain questions must be answered: What is known about the art produced in the capital of Byzantium during the interlude between First and Second Iconoclasm (787 - 815)? Are there any other examples of influence, technical or iconographic, from the West to the East immediately after the restoration of the image? What are the means of transmission for this artistic influence?
If one considers the Coronation Gospels from Vienna and the Virgin and Child in the apse of St. Sophia as late eighth o r early ninth century examples of Byzantine art, then one must concede a strong illusionistic tradition in the art of the Constantinople produced during the interlude between First and Second Iconoclasm.
The artistic vulnerability of Byzantium during and immediately following Iconoclasm led to a receptive attitude on the part of the artists and patrons. The Emperor Theophilos adopted Islamic decoration from the Abbasid court at Baghdad; Carolingian enamel techniques were imported , and the painted initial was introduced to Byzantine manuscripts.
The point of contact between the West and Constantinople was Rome. A number of embassies passed between the two centers in the early- and mid- ninth centuries. With these diplomatic and ecclesiastical missions gifts were sent, often precious textiles, books, ivories and metalwork . It was from these objects that technical, iconographic and stylistic ideas must have passed between the centers of the Western and Eastern Church. These individual contacts between Rome and Constantinople were the means of transmission for this knowledge.
Because of the similarities in style between early-ninth century Roman art and post- iconoclastic Byzantine art, one can conclude that there was a stylistic influence on the art of Constantinople by Carolingian Roman art, an influence centered on the double-line fold system in the depiction of drapery.