Words for images: on perceptions of ‘Greek manner’ in Lithuania and Poland
ENHow is visually mixed experience purified by language? How and why does vernacular art become foreign? What does ‘Greek manner’ mean in regions far beyond the Mediterranean world? This paper summarizes the research, which has been prompted by the newly discovered Byzantine wall paintings in Lithuania (Vilnius, Trakai, Medininkai, Kreva) and developed into a study on sameness, difference, and otherness in perception of images. Approaching visual evidence as if a knot in a web of relations, the inquiry follows and constructs semantic threads across regions, time and narratives. The analysis of viewers’ relations to and reflections of images identifies three centenary turns. (1) The ‘Mute 1400s’ denotes a period when Byzantine painting was visual uniformity in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. This art was named ‘Greek’ only after it entered Poland under the patronage of Wladyslaw Jagiello. (2) The ‘Negotiated 1500s’ considers selecting icons to be venerated and verbal articulation of their reputation. (3) The ‘1600s in Translation’ explores how images were reworked to follow stories and the ‘Greek manner’ became valued otherness. Following the functioning and changes in perception of Byzantine and pseudo-Byzantine art in Lithuania and Poland from the late fourteenth to the early seventeenth century, the paper regards words as a filter for visual hybridity and concludes that tradition is a search for order through oblivion.This chapter summarizes the research, which has been prompted by the newly discovered Byzantine wall paintings in Lithuania and developed into a study on sameness, difference, and otherness in perception of images. The visual statement of 1470 relied on the muteness of images, the reception of which denied any relation with the Orthodox masters who painted them. However, when an Orthodox lady became a grand duchess, words were employed to reveal the presence and depth of the schism. The fact that Greek images had been produced by Greek painters just attests to the fact they were an integral part of the Roman tradition, which saved from iconoclasts not only holy images, but the entire heritage of visual mediation. In the image of Trakai, Virgin Mary keeps her head very straight and the central line of her face coincides with the vertical axis of today’s panel. [lvb.lt]
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