Temporary Exhibition Byzantine Art of the 4th-15th Centuries is open in the Winter Palace

Temporary exhibition Byzantine Art of the 4th-15th Centuries is open in Hall No 152 of the Winter Palace.

At the end of 2010 the permanent exhibition of Byzantium which had located on the third floor of the Winter Palace since 1956 was closed due to long-term restoration of these rooms. The museum directorate decided to launch a temporary Byzantine exposition, including the best monuments of the Byzantine Arts in Hall No 152 on the second floor of the Winter Palace.

The State Hermitage is the only museum in Russia which had a special exposition dedicated to the arts and culture of Byzantium. It has been traditionally developed that in our museum in particular the culture of Byzantium is presented in all its diversity: painting and decorative art, sculpture and fragments of architecture, elite luxurious articles and common objects from everyday life. The Byzantine collection of the Hermitage is the best Byzantine museum collection in the world. And it is not an exaggeration. The iconic part is unique in particular; nowhere in Europe or America one can find such selection of ancient icons and of such high artistic level! The collection of silver and carved ivory is not less unique.

One of peculiarities of our collection is its origin. The most part of the applied monuments came as a part of the collection of Alexander Bazilevsky. It was bought in December 1884 in Paris especially for the Hermitage and was the basis for establishment of the Medieval Department in our museum. Another source of the applied arts items is archeological excavations in the Crimea, generally in legendary Chersonese. Valuable additions came to the Hermitage from a private collection of the historian Mikhail Pogodin, Museum of Baron Stieglitz and the Russian Archeological Institute in Konstantinopol. Ancient Byzantine icons are also obliged to their appearance in the museum by the activity of private collectors. The most considerable contribution into the icon’s collection formation was made by Pyotr Sevastyanov, having made several special journeys to monasteries of Mount Athos in the second part of the 19th century, Vasily Georgievsk , visited Holy Mount Athos in 1911-1913 and , certainly, Nikolay Likhachyev, collected a unique collection of Greek, Cretan, Balkan icons in the Mediterranean at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. One of the most important features of the collection that it does not include any icons or items from the churches, nationalized by the Soviet system after 1917.

At the end of 2010 the permanent exhibition of Byzantium which had located on the third floor of the Winter Palace since 1956 was closed due to long-term restoration of these rooms. The Hermitage Administration understands perfectly well how unique the Byzantine collection is and what important social-political and cultural place it occupies in the modern society. Thus Director of the Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky took a decision to launch a temporary Byzantine exposition in Hall No 152 on the second floor of the Winter Palace. Although sizes of this hall have not allowed displaying all the exhibit items which were on the third floor but all the best monuments of the Byzantine art have found a place there. According to the peculiarities of the room we paid attention to the aesthetic side of the Byzantine art. Why did Byzantium take so significant place in the culture of West and East from the 4th to the 15th century? What is “Byzantine luxury and splendor”? Why were Byzantine goods and icons so evaluated (and are still highly evaluated) all over the world? These are the questions we tried to answer. Light, elegance, classical sense of moderation, application of precious materials and, most important, the highest artistic level of works of painting and applied art - they are the criteria which are characteristic of the items, displayed in this exposition.

At the exposition we tried to show that the Byzantine art is not only of religious character as social plots were widely spread, for example in the Byzantine silver. Dishes with portraits of emperors, literary plots (especially related to Iliad of Homer), and mythological scenes may be seen on the sides from a famous icon Christ Pantocrator 1363. Images of Roman gods, nude figures, and playful puttos are presented on both secular and church Byzantine monuments, for example, on ivory pixes of the 4th century or silver jugs and scoops of the 6th-7th century.

The principal accent is obviously made on icons as picturesque icons in particular are usually associated in the mind of visitors with the idea of Byzantine. Here, in the Hermitage the guests of the museum have a unique chance to see the best examples of the Byzantine painting from the 11th to the mid 15th century. They are as capital Constantinopolitan icons like, for example, Holy Warriors and Philip the Apostle or Three Holy Warriors (both dated the end 11th - beginning 12th century), Christ Pantocrator 1363 as icons of different regions of the Byzantine Empire. For example, a famous icon Saint Gregory the Wonderworker (Macedonia (?), end of 11th - beginning of 12th century), Hodegetria (Berius, beginning of 14th century), Elijah Prophet in the Desert (Thessalonica, the 14th century) or icon John the Forerunner from Deesis tier made by the Serbian or Greek master in Rus’ in Pskov at the end of 13th - first half of 14th century.

Senior Researcher of the Orient Department
Yury Pyatnitsky

At the exhibition Byzantine Art of the 4th-15th Centuries
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Group of artifacts of silver of the 6th-7th centuries
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At the exhibition
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Eucharistic paten
491-518
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The exhibition is opened in Hall
No 152 of the Winter Palace
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Silver Plates
End of 5th- beginning of 6th centuries
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Marble capital
End of 13th century
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