My American Lectures/The Byzantine in Roumanian and the Roumanian in Byzantine Art
THE BYZANTINE IN ROUMANIAN AND THE ROUMANIAN IN BYZANTINE ART
That an art exclusive to a single country or representing the qualities of a single people exists is decidedly to be denied. An unbiassed examination of the so-called Byzantine art tends to prove this.
As art, as culture, Byzantium is an abstract conception which can be transferred by circumstance to other countries, to serve other races. The classical sense of it contains a synthesis of the Oriental with Greek and Roman elements which came to be blended into an altogether novel, harmonious and characteristic type. But this synthesis, once, achieved, was capable of modification and it suffices to show that other nations than the Greeks and Slavs adopted the Byzantine formula to transform it into yet richer compositions, to prove this. The factors responsible for producing this change, at once logical and comprehensible, were: the nature of the new soil to which the alien form was transplanted and the nationality, the state of civilisation and the lives of the new workers and artists. In the awakening and development of Roumanian art this is clearly visible.
The earliest extant structure of brick and stone is to be found at Argeș: the celebrated church of the princes, with its beautiful 13th century frescoes in the manner of the mosaics of the Kahrieh Djamissi or the pictures of the Mistra, which represented a revolutionary period in the art typical to the Byzantine countries. The style is tliat of the Greek churches in the western provinces or on the holy mount of Athos. The technical composition of the walls corresponds to the ancient methods employed in the Balkan Peninsula. The inscriptions under the numerous paintings is partly in Greek and partly Slavonic.
Pater churches, as Vodița, Tismana, Cozia, Cotmeana, demonstrate the character of the Serbian art of the regions of the Danube. The general form is preserve and the ornaments encircling the windows present, notwithstanding the restorations of the 17th century, the eagles of the Nemanides. Radu cel Mare (the Great) erected upon the Dealu-hill, which dominates the ancient capital of Targoviștte, a stronger building, the Veneto-Dalmatian style of which is be traced in the dedicatory inscriptions.
When later, about 1500, Neagoe Basarab caused to be built an imposing episcopal church at Argeș, the same type of architecture was adopted, the chief characteristics being the excellence of the sculpture with which it was profusely decorated, and of the materials used. With the twelve columns of the pronaos and the oblique windows of the two main towers it is a somewhat larger example of the Serbian church at Krusevac. The now demolished metropolitan church of Târgoviște, with its numerous towers, was similar in appearance and was a repetition on a yet larger scale of the Argeș church.
This development, however, could not continue. After the definite fall of the Serbian states it was difficult to find artists of this race. It was long since the last of the Greek masters who might have helped the Roumanian princes in their desire to erect stone churches had disappeared and it was not until about the 15th century that the Saxon craftsmen of Transylvania, already renowned for their skill as metal-workers, were entrusted with the making of the candelabra, crosses and other ornaments of the old Wallachian churches. It has been said that the inscriptions of Dealu have been identified as being of Dalmatian workmanship, and it is possible that these same hands carved the more ancient ones upon the tombs of the first princes to be interred at Argeș. This tradition of shapely and symmetrical Latin script is maintained throughout the whole of a long series of funerary inscriptions in the principality. Further than this the influence of the Italian Occident did not go.
It is otherwise with Moldavia.
The Greeks and Slavs of the south were rarely to be found in the northern state, bounded by the Transylvanian mountains and the Russo-Polish plains. More probably therefore Polish craftsmen were introduced for the building, at Baia, the first humble capital of the province, under the shadow of the Carpathians, of a Catholic church for the Polish Princess Ryngalla, the wife of Alexandra cel Bun (the Good), the true founder of Moldavia. But afterwards under the glorious rule of Stephen the Great, the artists, whose relations with the princes may be studied in contemporary documents, were Saxons from the neighbouring city of Bistrița. They were asked to erect a church corresponding to the requirements of the Eastern Rite and after to decorate it.
But, as they knew only their own Gothic style of building, which was a miniature of the great German originals, the Byzantine pattern was bound to undergo changes due to the unexpected influence of an art which was very different in origin and meaning, being based on other principles and having developed along quite other lines. In the Moldavian church of the time, the Byzantine plan was rigorously adhered to, viz: pronaos, ship and altar, the customary three apses formed the choir and the altar was concealed from the worshippers by a high carved wooden screen; the colours used for the somewhat severe pictures were restricted to dark blue and shades of violet. Nevertheless, the arches of the lesser door, of the main ogive, of the imposing windows of the façade and of the minor ones of in lateral walls, were all formed of Gothic like intersections and broken arches.
This was not sufficient for the acclimatization of the Byzantine forms in this country, whose interests were in great part directed towards the west. The Moldavian nature demanded its due.
Her Russian winters, abundant in snow, require a special roof, both high and of deep pitch: and the result is a complete transformation of the roof-line, which has come to be an element of characteristic beauty. In the spring the fields and glades in the centuries-old forests are covered with a smiling world of flowers of all kinds and of vivid hues, recalling a Botticellian landscape. This has had a direct influence on the style of decorations, hence the bewildering opposition of reds, blues and greys in the mural paintings and frescoes which at once ravish and impress the observant eye. The torrential rains of the province too urged the need of strong foundations and this need of strength has resulted in the horizontal broad outer continuation of the walls, the prispa, which the peasants use and foregather in through the long clear summer nights.
All this determined sweeping changes, interesting innovations of diverse origin in the traditional art borrowed from Byzantium and subjected to the usage of the Transylvanian craftsmen.
The foundation of the Moldavian churches was made of grey stone. Brick was employed for the greater part of the walls, either free red brick or of faience. At the intersection of the cloisters small discs of faience are also inset, forming multi-coloured groups of red, yellow and green imposed on the darker red surface. On the belfry the same coloured ornamentation is to be found.
Only one thing was omitted by the architects: the need for light was completely overlooked. The rays of the sun hardly entered through the narrow windows. In the interior of the church priests and worshippers foregathered in semi-darkness. The church was all too small, also, to hold those participating in family ceremonies which required the blessing of the priest. Thus, in the Moldavia of the 16th century, the outer narthex took form, an example being that of the church at Bălinești. In the second half of the following century this innovation became more or less general.
Towards 1550 the Wallachians adopted this synthesis, which was the work of their northern brethren. In the warmer climate of the former province the porch was even more necessary than in Moldavia. The principal features of the Roumanian church, however, could not be further changed.
The artists in both principalities were no aliens from the Balkan Peninsula or the more appropriate occidental states. Foreign craftsmen were employed by the rich princes who wished to perpetuate the memory of their reign by the erection of churches. In the burial church of Cozia the works of the last Serbian painters are to be found.
But how a new era of a strongly uniform character had begun. Each new development is determined by the qualities of the race, but the workers were subjected at the same time to the two-fold influence of Turkish art from the east and the Western Renaissance.
Turkish influence was first perceptible in the opening years of the 17th century and exclusively in Moldavia. Only an architect who had lived for many years in the provinces of the Ottoman Empire could have introduced those innovations which are to be found in all churches of the northern principality up to the latter part of the century. This new influence was chiefly noticeable in ornamentation: large flowers and stars, quadrates of geometrical shape were added to the groins of the vaults. Tomb-stones appeared enriched by similar ornaments. In Wallachia, the Orient, a more extended Orient has given to the architecture of the province the floreated and foliated door and window frames (where they do not assume the old Gothic lines of Moldavia), the carved profusion of the burial stones and, towards 1700, figures of stucco on the outer walls of churches or in the interior decoration of palaces, representing grapes, flowers, Persian lamps and Asiatic birds.
But the stronger influence is of local peasant inspiration. It corresponds to the designs of the carpets and rugs, of the skirts and other garments, of many objects used in the villages. The church is literally covered with a cloak of vividly hued figures. Prophets of Israel, the tree of Jesse and the genealogy of the Virgin, the Sybils and Sapients of ancient Greece, the joys of Paradise and the torments of Hell, figures representing the hereditary enemies of the peasant, sinners of all grades down to the man who comes too late to church, not omitting the usurer and the grasping merchant, all these form the interesting gallery of folklore in South-Eastern Europe, and were duly made to play their part in the church-decoration.
In this manner Byzantine art, which had a stronger appeal to the more cultivated classes, descends to the sentiments and the tastes of the humble peasant. It also affords striking proof of the truly democratic soul of the Roumanian people.