The Dormition Church in Nicaea in the Byzantine Art History

§ Post-Iconoclastic and Classical Periods

When figurative art for the purpose of religious decoration was once more officially encouraged, it made its appearance, not with an onrush of profusion, but step by step. The first representational elements to be admitted to the decorative ensemble were isolated figures; and for some time these remained the only figurative elements in the pos-Iconoclastic decorations. Mary in the apse, Christ and Angels in the cupola, Apostles, Prophets and Saints in the naos, and a few almost non-representational symbols such as the Hetoimasia – these were the chief elements of ninth-century decorations. Scenic representations, with the exception of the Ascension and, possibly, of the Pentecost in the cupolas, were still excluded. In this the formal heritage from the Iconoclastic period certainly played a large part; but the theoretical attitude towards the pictures as it had been evolved during the controversy also had this influence. The controversy itself had, after all, centred on the “Portrait” – on whether representations of Christ and the other sacred Persons were permissible. When victory was won for the icons, it happened (as so often in the history of controversies) that, to begin with, only the paradigmatic point was remembered. The clergy and the artists were content, at the beginning, to restore the most sacred icons to the places where they were again legitimate. The figure of the Virgin, for instance, once more took the place of the Cross in the main apse. An inscription like the 'ΣΤΗΛΟΙ ΝΑΥΚΡΑΤΙΟΣ ΤΑΣ ΘΕΙΑΣ ΕΙΚΟΝΑΣ' in the Presbytery of the Church of the Koimesis at Nicaea sounds the triumphant note of the Iconodule victory. The accompanying ensemble – the four Archangels and the Hetoimasia – is austere and economical, but it embodies, together with the figure of the Virgin, a subtle theological programme. The Accent lies on the idea of the Trinity and its relation to the Incarnation and the rôle of the Theotokos. To this the naos must have added the idea of the All-Ruler whose image united the three Persons of the Trinity. This grand and simple scheme is typical of the beginnings of the new iconography. An even more archaic version is in part preserved in the Haghia Sophia at Salonica, whose cupola belongs to the end of the ninth and not, as often stated in handbooks, to the eleventh century. The mosaics of the apse are even older; the Virgin is probably the only surviving document of the short iconophile period under the Irene, at the end of the eighth century. The simplicity of the scheme makes it appear to be of one piece, although the main parts, the apse and cupola, with the Ascension instead of the Pantocrator, seems more archaic than that of the apse, though later in date. It was probably owning to the provincial situation of Salonica that the new type of the Pantocatator had not yet found entrance into the decorative system of this church….

Otto Demus, Byzantine Mosaic Decoration. Aspects of Monumental Art in Byzantium (London 1947), pp. 52-53.