March 2010

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The Royal Academy, London, gathered members of the press on Friday to announce its forthcoming October blockbuster exhibition ‘Byzantium’ with which it aims to rescue the empire from the unpopularity in which it has languished since the days when Voltaire declared it ‘a disgrace to the human mind.’ Some 300 objects – icons, silver and gold metalwork, ivories and enamels – on loan from 100 different organisations, will highlight the splendours of the empire that spanned Greece, Turkey, the Balkans, Ukraine, Syria and Egypt for over 1,000 years until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks.

I strongly suspect this is one show not to be missed for according to Robin Cormack, co-curator of the exhibition, it represents ‘the last opportunity to put it all back together again’ as many of the objects are extremely fragile while others, such as those from St Mark’s, Venice, are usually forbidden from travelling. A particular highlight will be works from the remote museum of St Catherine’s monastery in Sinai, including the Ladder of Divine Ascent by St John Klimacus that depicts the toil towards heaven and the fall of some to the clutches of evil-doing demons agitating below. It’s a striking and graphic work that I think Breughel would have enjoyed – had he had opportunity to see it.

Some five years in the planning, the RA show begins with the earliest Christian sculpture – 11 works including the Met’s Antioch Chalice – long believed to be the Holy Grail and likely to elicit much renewed attention by the press. The exhibition then examines the threat of iconclasm; the post-iconoclast revival; and the relationship between Byzantine and the early Italian Renaissance. Of course, one of the intriguing aspects of this empire is that it straddled the worlds of Islam and Catholicism for over a thousand years – a pertinent achievement given today’s struggle to comprehend how different faiths can peacefully co-exist. In a quiet comment about his hopes for the show, co-curator Robin Cormack said that he wants the objects to speak. Whatever the show collectively communicates to us once its doors are open, it looks set to fascinate.

Byzantium 330-1453 is a collaboration between the Royal Academy, London, and the Benaki Museum, Athens. It opens at the Royal Academy on 25 October and runs until 22 March.

The exhibition will be reviewed in a forthcoming issue of Apollo.