Thomas Whittemore has been chipping away plaster walls off for 14 years.

From Time –  Jan. 27, 1947,

Glory be to God, who hath thought me worthy to accomplish so great a work; 1 have vanquished thee, O Solomon!

This was the proud thanksgiving uttered by Justinian the Great at the dedication of the church of St. Sophia (”Divine Wisdom”) in Constantinople 14 centuries ago. Justinian had something to crow about; “compared with the formation of the vilest insect,” as Historian Edward Gibbon pointed out, the church might be dull and insignificant, but the peak of its interior is one of the Highest in the world (180 feet) and as art, St. Sophia doubtless surpassed Solomon’s temple. Among the church’s beauties, noted Gibbon, were “a variety of ornaments and figures . . . curiously expressed in mosaic; and the images of Christ, of the Virgin, of saints, and of angels, which have been defaced by Turkish fanaticism. . . .”

Last week Boston Archeologist Thomas Whittemore returned home from Istanbul, with proof that the conquering Moslems had not been guilty of defacing, only of concealing, St. Sophia’s Christian mosaics. Whittemore, a spry, enthusiastic bachelor of 76, and director of Boston’s well-heeled Byzantine Institute, has been chipping away at the church’s plaster walls off & on for the past 14 years.

He had won the approval of Turkey’s late President-Dictator Kamal Atatürk for the project. At first, because the church was in use as a mosque, Whittemore and his assistants had to take Fridays and Moslem prayer hours off. But in 1935 the Turkish Government made St. Sophia a public monument, and since then work has proceeded on a businesslike 9-to-5 schedule (except for winter months, when the place gets too chilly to work in). Whittemore went right on chipping through the war.

Under the plaster he has discovered close to a thousand years of history—in silver, gold, marble, and sparkling glass cubes put together into a parade of saints and influential sinners which stretches from 537 to 1453 A.D., when the Turks came marching in.

Among the mosaics already laid bare are portraits of Emperor Leo VI (made about 900 A.D.), Constantine the Great and Justinian II (995), Empress Zoë and Constantine IX (1042), John II Comnenus, Empress Irene, and their son, Alexius (early 12th Century).

Whittemore still has years of chipping ahead, and not much of an idea what he will find next. His men work mostly on scaffoldings high up on the walls. They use no chemicals to dissolve the plaster and paint which the Moslems spread over the murals (the Moslem religion forbids pictures of people or animals, as the Jewish forbids graven images). Whittemore has found it safer to flake off inch by inch with “a small steel chisel, [the kind] used in delicately cleaning fossils.”

Where they have been freed of plaster, St. Sophia’s walls and vaulting seem to dissolve in color. The mosaics, says Whittemore enthusiastically, meet “the vision as if charioted on a billow of light, each with an appeal as thrilling and compelling and personal as it seems possible to experience. The effect as you move past them has the cumulative power of a rising flood, and they engulf you in the religious enthusiasm of Byzantine conviction. . . . We may say of all [the mosaics] that we are in the presence of [works of] metropolitan masters, compared with which the contemporary mosaics in Italy, for instance, are provincial and derived. We have only to look at extant gth Century mosaics in Roman churches and their feeble treatment to assure ourselves that the fountainhead of the art was at Constantinople.”

Throughout the 1,000 years in which they were made, St. Sophia’s mosaics hardly varied in style or excellence. They were made by the best artist of each generation, working in “orchestral” anonymity of the sort that, Scholar Whittemore believes, “life is trying to induce us to return to.”

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Drama in the Round

by Robert Ousterhout,
author of The Art of the Kariye Camii
Article with historic photgraphs published in Cornucopia 27

The dramatic mosaics and frescoes of Istanbul’s Kariye Camii, or Church of the Chora, blew away the stiff conventions of Byzantine art. Their energy leaves Giotto looking staid. But theyare now in danger of turning to dust. The powerful pictures on these pages are from a new book by Robert Ousterhout, who fell in love with the church twenty-five years ago. Here he makes a passionate case for preserving this fourteenth-century masterpiece

When I first set foot in the Kariye Camii years ago, I fell in love. It was the academic equivalent of a blind date – I’d committed myself, sight unseen, to write a PhD dissertation about a building I’d never seen in a city I’d never visited. Happily, the Kariye caught and held my interest.

In fact, the Kariye proved to be the perfect blind date, possessing both beauty and brains. As I quickly discovered, the dazzling spectacle of its mosaics and frescoes was balanced by a coherent architectural framework and by firm intellectual underpinnings. It is one of Istanbul’s greatest treasures, once the main church of the Byzantine monastery of the Chora, and now a well-visited museum. Built and decorated between 1316 and 1321, the Kariye represents the patronage of Theodore Metochites, one of Byzantium’s greatest intellectuals, who was both an accomplished poet and prime minister. As sophisticated and erudite as a contemporary work of Byzantine literature, the Kariye is structured like a vast epic poem.

Theodore Metochites, famously depicted above the entrance in his big hat, was not only a powerful politician and the greatest scholar of his age, but he was also fabulously wealthy – the ideal patron for a project like the Kariye. More importantly, he was fortunate to find artists capable of translating his vision into built form. The hothouse conditions Metochites provided led to one of the most experimental periods of Byzantine art. If the word originality can be applied to the Byzantine, the Kariye is as original as it gets.

As the art historian Otto Demus once commented, at first glance the art of the Kariye seems to have no acknowledged canons, as if the artists preferred the abnormal to the normal, the distorted to the regular, the chaotic to the harmonious. It is the Byzantine equivalent of Postmodernism, breaking all the rules, but doing so in such a delightful way that we barely notice. As the key monument of late Byzantine art and architecture, there is absolutely nothing that can compare with it in Istanbul, or anywhere else for that matter.

Ten years after my first encounter, I was still in love with the Kariye. Our relationship had survived the dissertation, the revisions and, finally, the publication of the monograph. Then, after twenty-five years, I celebrated our silver anniversary with the publication of a second book. Although I began with a study of bricks and mortar, I found I couldn’t ignore the mosaics and frescoes. To be sure, I have been involved in a variety of other projects, but I keep coming back to the Kariye.

With its intricate architectural settings and its wealth of decoration, with each visit I seem to discover something new. On my last, for example, I started noticing the trees, how and where they are represented: in addition to a variety of expressive stumps and shrubbery in the mosaics, I realised that David of Thessaloniki, a dendrite (that is, a hermit who sat in a tree) shown at the entrance to the funeral chapel, is positioned equidistant from Christ Calling Zaccheus (who had climbed a tree in order to see Christ as he passed through Jericho) and Moses Before the Burning Bush. In each, we witness an encounter with the divine – Old Testament, New Testament, Byzantine.

Byzantine poets loved this kind of comparison. On an earlier visit, a friend pointed out how the drama and violence in the mosaic of the soldier pursuing Elizabeth with the infant John the Baptist (the last scene in the cycle of the Massacre of the Innocents) is emphasised by the soldier’s sword severing Elizabeth’s name in the inscription: eli-sabeth. Words and images work together.

Guidebooks are quick to point out the contemporaneity of the Kariye with the work of Giotto – as if we needed the Italian Renaissance to appreciate Byzantine art. There is certainly a similar power and sense of life in both, but the Byzantine artist worked differently from his Italian counterpart. Giotto developed an early system of perspective, so that his scenes appear as if viewed through a window, in a space beyond the picture plane. In contrast, for the Byzantine artist, pictorial space and the space occupied by the viewer were one and the same. As a consequence, the scenes at the Kariye have a greater sense of immediacy and are thus more emotionally compelling.

What is more, the setting for the art is not the flat walls of a big anonymous box (the typical Italian church), but rather a series of small, tightly interlocking spaces, in which architectural form and decoration are perfectly fitted together. We are led – personally, experientially – from one space to the next by the narrative, by the gestures of the figures and by the visual and thematic connections between the scenes.

The Byzantine artist did not attempt to create an artificial space through the science of perspective; instead, he created three-dimensional representations that come to life as we interact with them. Where else can we walk through the midst of the Last Judgment, with the scroll of heaven rolled up above our heads, flanked by the blessed and the damned?

The Kariye owes its preservation to the vagaries of history. It is set in what was originally a rural area by the land walls – the name Chora may be translated as “in the fields” – in the northern corner of the city, which became a hub of activity in the late Byzantine period, with the nearby Blachernae Palace as the main imperial residence. After the Ottoman conquest in 1453, however, the centre shifted back to the end of the peninsula, to Topkapi Palace, and the Chora church became an all-but-forgotten neighbourhood mosque.

Through the early Ottoman centuries, its decoration remained uncovered and, in fact, was never completely covered. The frescoes were whitewashed, some of the lower mosaics were removed, but the dome mosaics remained visible, and some of the wall panels were covered with wooden doors – to be opened to visitors for a small tip. When the Byzantine Institute of America undertook its extensive programme of cleaning and consolidation between 1948 and 1960, the surviving mosaics and frescoes were discovered to be in pristine condition.

Not so today. Both the Kariye and I are older than when we first met. The rapid growth of Istanbul’s population has increased the levels of humidity and pollution throughout the city. Crowds of visitors have also raised the level of humidity inside the building, which may be compounded by the lush garden planted close to its foundations, as well as by leaks in the roof and windows. The results are all too visible: in the parekklesion (the funeral chapel) the painted plaster has crumbled away at floor level, and efflorescence, or “bloom” (dampness causing salts to leach through the plaster and collect as a cloudy white substance on the surface), now obscures many painted scenes. For example, Theophanes the Hymnographer is represented below the dome in the parekklesion. He pauses while writing a funeral ode on the theme of Jacob’s Ladder as a guarantee of our access to heaven, holding his pen to point towards the adjacent scene of Jacob’s Ladder and, beneath it, the tomb of Theodore Metochites.

His meaningful gesture, which served visually to connect these several elements of the composition, is now all but invisible. A similar cloud of bloom obscures the Daughter of Jairus, raised from the dead by the hand of Christ, as well as the figure of Satan bound and gagged in the great fresco of the Anastasis (the Resurrection) which forms the visual termination of the parekklesion. Within the mosaics, protective covers of Perspex have created micro-environments in which the humidity is concentrated, causing the setting plaster to crumble.

What is to be done? First, a careful evaluation of the building, its mosaics and frescoes, is required, followed by a comprehensive programme of conservation, regular monitoring, and possibly the installation of climate controls. In France, the Lascaux caves, with their famous prehistoric paintings, have been closed to tourism and the interior environment sealed, controlled and carefully monitored. Even the scientists are allowed only limited access. It may be that nothing quite so drastic is required at the Kariye, but as a new government is elected, it might be worth reminding it that the long-term preservation of Turkey’s unique cultural heritage deserves greater priority than the quick-fix economics of tourism.

As I escorted a friend’s aged grandmother through the Kariye recently, it occurred to me that old buildings are like grandparents.

We love them just as much in their old age. But they require periodic check-ups and regular care – and occasionally treatment by specialists and prescription medicines. I am still in love with the Kariye Camii, but right now it needs urgent medical attention.

© Robert Ousterhout
Robert Ousterhout’s earlier book, ‘The Architecture of the Kariye Camii in Istanbul’ (Dumbarton Oaks Studies 25, 1987), is available from www.doaks.org

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Discovering the Greek side of Istanbul

That Istanbul is a real treasure chest for history, art and architecture freaks is no secret. Its colorful mosaic of historical city structures — mosques, churches, synagogues, palaces, castles and towers — reflects the many, many social and cultural influences of a number of foreign communities that have left their indelible footprints across the city throughout its long history.

The oldest settlement on the land that is now İstanbul was, however, Greek.
Already, in 685 B.C., settlers from the ancient Greek town of Megara chose to colonize the town of Chalcedon, in today’s Kadıköy district, thus aiming to secure the Bosporus as a channel of trade between the Greek polities and the Black Sea region. Some years later, in 667 B.C., famous Greek King Byzas went on colonizing the European side of the Bosporus further, thus founding the city of Byzantion.

Two prominent examples of ancient Greek architecture are the Serpentine Column and Leander’s Tower.
Being approximately 2,500 years old, the Serpentine Column is said to be İstanbul’s oldest remaining Greek monument. Erected to honor the triumph of the Greeks over the Persians at Plataea, it originally stood at Delphi (both ancient cities on Greek ground) and was moved to İstanbul in 324 B.C. by Constantine the Great to mark the declaration of the new capital city of the then-founded Roman Empire under the name of Constantinople. The originally eight-meter-high piece was made up of three intertwined serpents which supported a golden bowl. The bowl is believed to have been lost or stolen when the city was sacked during the Fourth Crusade. Some say the heads were hit and cut off by a drunken nobleman in the 17th century but one of them can still be seen in the İstanbul Archaeology Museum. The rest of the column can be found today at the Hippodrome in the Sultanahmet quarter.

Surrounded by no fewer stories is Leander’s Tower, often referred to as Maiden’s Tower and located offshore in the Bosporus in the Üsküdar district. It was actually built in 408 B.C. by an Athenian general to control Persian ships sailing along the Bosporus. Another more well-known story is that of a sultan who erected the tower to protect his daughter from a snake bite, predicted by an oracle. But, as the story goes, there was no way to escape destiny: On the day of her 18th birthday, the sultan brought his daughter a basket of fruit as a gift and hiding within it, of course, was the predicted snake. The tower, which also contains a small, romantic restaurant, can be visited today by taking one of the small boats that sail from the nearby shore.

However, with the fall of Rome in 476, all that remained of the Roman Empire was its eastern part, which then came to be known as the Byzantine Empire. Distinctly Greek in culture and the center of Greek Orthodox Christianity, its capital, Constantinople, was adorned with many magnificent churches, including probably the most well known, Ayasofya (Hagia Sophia), once the world’s largest Christian cathedral.

Other important churches that were built later on under Byzantine rule include the Pammakaristos Church, which is now Fethiye Mosque in the Çarşamba neighborhood of today’s Fatih district, and the Church of St. Savior in Chora, situated in the western Edirnekapı district of İstanbul and especially famous for its beautiful mosaics and paintings.

After the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Empire, under the command of Sultan Mehmed II (Mehmet the Conqueror) in 1453, naturally many city structures were destroyed. Mehmed’s main concern with İstanbul had to do with rebuilding the city’s defenses and re-population, and he soon devoted much energy to bringing prosperity to İstanbul. In 1459, he sent out orders that any Greeks — as well as Slavs, Jews and Armenians — who had left İstanbul as slaves or refugees and whose diverse skills were needed now to transform the city into a flourishing capital of the empire were allowed to return to the city.

Every third inhabitant in İstanbul was Greek

According to a census of 1477, there were 9,486 houses occupied by Muslims, 3,743 by Greeks, 1,647 by Jews, 267 by Christians from Crimea and 31 by Gypsies. Nearly every third inhabitant of the city was Greek at that time, so the Greek population played a significant role in the social, political and economic life of the city and the multiethnic, multi-religious Ottoman Empire in general. The leader of the Greek community within the empire officially became the ecumenical patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church, which was moved to the Church of St. George in İstanbul’s Fener district in 1586. The patriarchate complex includes the authorization offices, the patriarchate library, the financial offices and the public enterprises of the patriarchate and the Cathedral Church of St. George. The church is definitely worth visiting. It is especially famous for its priceless artifacts and relics, which include the patriarchal throne, believed to date from the fifth century; three rare mosaic icons; a fragment of the Pillar of the Flagellation to which Jesus was tied and whipped; and the coffins of the three saints.

Further on, the Greek High School for boys on the top of Fener hill became an important educational institution to educate young Greeks for Ottoman bureaucracy and orthodox clergy as well. The Yoakimyon High School for girls and Marasli Greek Elementary School next to the patriarchate are other schools that can still be found in the district.

As you see, the list of Greek footprints in İstanbul seems endless. To start tracing them back, just take a small tour of Fener — you will come across an incredible number of smaller, more or less well-preserved churches, and you can still find a few of the typical, small Greek single-family houses, recognizable by their finely decorated facades.

Just take a look — it’s well worth it!

by Kristina Kamp

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