Under the Sign of the Deēsis: On the Question of Representativeness in Medieval Art and
Literature
Author(s): Anthony Cutler
Source: Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 41, Studies on Art and Archeology in Honor of Ernst
Kitzinger on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday (1987), pp. 145-154
Published by: Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University
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UNDER THE SIGN OF THE DEESIS:
ON THE QUESTION OF REPRESENTATIVENESS IN
MEDIEVAL ART AND LITERATURE
ANTHONY CUTLER
"Si usano segni e segni di segni solo quando ci fanno difetto le cose."
Umberto Eco
I
n a notable lecture at Dumbarton Oaks in
March 1985, Ernst Kitzinger discussed the famous
mosaic in the Martorana (S. Maria dell'Ammiraglio)
at Palermo showing George of Antioch
prostrate before the Virgin. He pointed
particularly to the use of the term &1lot; in the
inscription above the admiral and, following S.
Der Nersessian,' related the attitude of the Virgin
to that of the Mother of God formerly evident on
the templon screen of Daphni and still preserved
in the "two-figure Deesis" before which Isaac Comnenus
and Melane the nun kneel in the Church of
the Chora.2 Now the presence of the word Deesis
in the inscription at the Martorana does not require
that this was the Byzantine term used for
such a composition, although, when the mosaic is
related to that at Kariye Camii, there may be reason
to suppose that this arrangement of figures
was at least one regarded as conveying the idea of
entreaty or supplication. Moreover, the persistence
of a Deesis with two rather than three sacred figures
should serve as a caution that there is nothing
immutable about the more usual triadic composi-
tion.
Nonetheless, the literature on the subject3 has
traditionally equated the term Deesis with a group
of three figures, specifically, Christ between the
Virgin and St. John Prodromos. This particular arrangement
does not survive among the mosaics of
Norman Sicily, although, as O. Demus observed, in
the eighteenth-century restoration of the apse mosaic
of the Cappella Palatina, the figure of the
Magdalen displaced one that probably represented
the Virgin.4 With the Prodromos, one of
four figures5 on the wall beneath the conch which
S"Two Images of the Virgin in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection,"
DOP 14 (1960), 71-86. Since the present study was written,
a broader version of Kitzinger's lecture has appeared:
'Evcg vadbg to 12oo acdvca dq toptvog ol 6x0or6o. 'H Hacvay(a
uoi3 NxudgXot ou6 HflaXkgo, AEXT.XptoT.'AgX.'ET., 4th
ser., 12 (1984). See esp. 185-88.
2P. Underwood, The Kariye Djami (New York, 1966), I, 45-
48; II, pls. 36-41.
Studies devoted in whole or in part to the Deesis are legion.
Those most frequently cited in this paper are D. Mouriki, "A
Deesis Icon in the Art Museum," Record of the Art Museum,
Princeton University 28 (1968), 13-28; C. Walter, "Two Notes on
the Deasis," REB 26 (1968), 311-36; idem, "Further Notes on
the De sis," REB 28 (1970), 161-87 (both reprinted in Walter's
volume cited in note 80 below); see also idem, "Bulletin on the
Deasis and the Paraclesis," REB 38 (1980), 261-69; and M. Andaloro,
"Note sui temi iconografici e della Haghiosoritissa,"
RIASA 17 (1970), 85-153. Together, these four works contain
references to the majority of the older literature. A more recent
survey of "conventional" Deesis representations throughout the
Orthodox world is T. Velmans, "L'image de la Deisis dans les
6glises de G6orgie et dans celles d'autres regions du monde byzantin,"
CahArch 29 (1980-81), 47 ff. I have cited such works
only where they pertain directly to my argument or to the objects
on which it is based.
'O. Demus, The Mosaics of Norman Sicily (London, 1949), 37,
55, pl. 8.
5To the present Magdalen's right is an image of St. Peter
while, to the left of the Prodromos, is St. James. For the state of
conservation of these flanking figures, see ibid., 62 note 58.
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146 ANTHONY CUTLER
contains the image of Christ, Mary would have
formed part of a Deesis. The Magdalen here is obviously
a replacement, made much later and apparently
uncomprehending of the imagery involved.
Yet, in a remarkable number of cases an
"alien" third person is not a substitute for one of the
"canonical" group (usually the Forerunner) but a
representation in its own right, part of a set meaningful
on its own terms, to be understood in a way
other than that which reduces the Deesis to a prescribed
set of figures.
Even before we discuss this point, which I shall
do by presenting several texts and images (known
to scholars but not heretofore introduced into the
argument), it is imperative to consider the state of
research on the Deesis and, above all, the emphasis
upon the interpretation of this theme. Of late, the
necessity of interpreting (rather than merely perceiving)
Byzantine art has been insisted upon.6 In
fact, for nearly twenty years, the meaning of the
Deesis has preoccupied the attention of those who
have studied it closely, even at the expense of plotting
the course of its known variants, divergencies
of content and context that are essential to an adequate
definition and, by extension, to any understanding
of the theme. Briefly, but perhaps not unfairly,
it may be said, first, that the historian's
reading of the term Deesis as signifying a plea7 has
been interpreted by some art historians to mean
that the image of the Deesis was an emblem of intercession
(gQdxflnotg).s A second view, stressing
that the group normally called the Deesis is to be
understood as a special section of the celestial hierarchy
witnessing to the divinity of the Logos,9
has gradually succeeded, if not supplanted, the
first interpretation.
It may be that the Deesis is suffering, as Peter
Brown said of Iconoclasm, from "a crisis of overexplanation."'0
The error of imposing a single interpretation
upon a particular piece of Byzantine
sacred imagery has long been appreciated." But
the even greater danger (once neatly labeled the
"dictionary fallacy") of "assuming a one-to-one relationship
between sign and significance"'2 is especially
pressing in the case of the Deesis, on the
one hand, because so many representatives of this
image are portable objects, deprived of their pristine
function; and, on the other, because, even
when the example is monumental and thus to be
seen in something approaching its original setting,
a just estimate of its significance may depend upon
a proper reading of that setting in toto. V. A. Kolve
has recently and precisely stated the nub of the issue:
"it is context alone that turns a sign into a
communication, limiting its possibilities, defining
its exact and immediate intent." '
II
Precursors of or variants on the Deesis have
been seen in works as diverse as an icon in Kiev
showing the Prodromos standing between figures
of Christ and the Mother of God who turns toward
him;14 the miniature in the Vatican Cosmas Indicopleustes
showing Christ between the Virgin and
John (inscribed O BAIITIXTHC) accompanied by
Zacharias and Elizabeth beneath Anna and Simeon
in clipei above them;'5 the "two-figure Deesis,"
already mentioned, to be supplemented, according
to M. Andaloro, by a reliquary casket in the
Vatican bearing the Virgin turning toward Christ,
two half-length angels in the central panels, and
Peter and Paul shown full-length on either side of
6 R. Cormack, Writing in Gold: Byzantine Society and Its Icons
(London, 1985), 6, 10, and passim.
7The term Deesis is common in administrative parlance between
the 7th and the second half of the 11th century, especially
in connection with the officer 6 bdt u6wv beilocwv ("Master of
Requests"), who succeeded the antique magister memoriae. His
job was to judge the fitness for reception by the emperor of
pleas addressed to the sovereign; sometimes they were answered
by this dignitary himself. For seals of such officers, see
V. Laurent, Corpus des sceaux de l'empire byzantin, II. L'administration
centrale (Paris, 1981), nos. 230-55; and, on the office generally,
R. Guilland, "Le 'Maitre des Requetes'," Byz 35 (1965),
97-118. See also Walter, "Two Notes," 317.
8Mouriki, "A Deesis Icon." This view has recently been
reaffirmed by M. E. Frazer in The Vatican Collections: The Papacy
and Art (New York, 1983), exhibition catalogue, no. 40, Ai propos
of the ivory triptych in the Museo Sacro.
-Walter, "Two Notes"; idem, "Further Notes." See also T. von
Bogyay, s.v. Deesis in LCI 1 (1968), cols. 494 ff. For a modified
and subtler reading, see A. W. Carr in Gesta 21 (1982), 6.
'""A Dark-Age Crisis: Aspects of the Iconoclastic Controversy,"
EHR 88 (1973), 3.
" C. Mango in H. Kahler, Hagia Sophia (New York, 1967), 54.
For specific examples of polyvalent imagery, see N. Thierry and
A. Tenenbaum, "Le c~nacle apostolique i Kokar kilise et Ayvah
kilise en Cappadoce: Mission des Ap6tres, Pentec6te, Jugement
Dernier," JSav (Oct.-Dec. 1973), 229-41, and A. Cutler, "Apostolic
Monasticism at Tokah Kilise in Cappadocia," AS 35 (1985),
57-65
'2E. H. Gombrich, Symbolic Images: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance
(London, 1972), 11.
'3V. A. Kolve, Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative (Stanford,
1984), 73-74.
" K. Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount
Sinai. The Icons, I (Princeton, 1976), 34-35, pls. xIv, LVII, here
said to be of "the end of the fifth century" or "about sixth century."
For supposed literary versions of the Deesis of this period,
see I. Myslivets, "Proisholdenie Deisusa" in Vizantija,
jutnye slavjane i drevnaja Rus (= Festschrift Lazarev) (Moscow,
1973), 59-73.
'5Andaloro, "Note" (note 3 above), 93, fig. 35, describes the
image as "un incunabolo fino ad un certo punto."
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UNDER THE SIGN OF THE DEESIS 147
the Cross;'6 "a Deesis with two substitutes": Christ
flanked by Mark and Isidore in the Capella di Sant'
Isidoro in S. Marco, Venice;'7 and the lunette mosaic
in the narthex of St. Sophia, Constantinople.'8
Furthermore, it is customary among sigillographers
to identify as a Deesis a great variety of images
which, while lacking the term in their legend
and displaying saints such as Nicholas, Menas Kallikelados,
Panteleimon, and Demetrius on either
side of the Virgin, or of Christ in a medallion
above them, conform approximately to the triadic
composition associated with the "normal" Deesis.19
Even this random canvass of the literature suggests
that art historians have implicitly rejected the
limitation of the term to the familiar group showing
the Lord flanked by the Prodromos and the
Mother of God. The implication is that Byzantine
artists enjoyed no such restriction, creating a large
number of Deesis-like compositions without feeling
harried by rigidly defined rules of content. Indeed,
going further than others, two scholars have
recently described as "a kind of deesis" a picture
known to have been set up by Manuel I in the
Blachernae Palace showing the Virgin in a conch
between the emperor and his parents (or possibly
only the latter).2? Was the Deesis a concept, realized
in widely diverse forms, a group comprising a
limited number of "acceptable" figures, or simply
a compositional scheme? The only way to tell is to
consider the way the term was used in Byzantine
references to Byzantine works of art. Uniquely
useful in this respect is a passage in the late eleventh-century
Life of Lazarus the Galesiote by
Gregory, his disciple.21 The author pauses in his
biography to relate the death of an old monk
named Nikon:
In the hour that he was about to expire he stood with
his brethren at Compline and before the Dismissal
prayed and made obeisance to his brethren. And he
came out to the refectory-for it was there that he
slept on the ground-and lay down on his straw mat
in the place in which there are holy images of the
Theotokos and of the archangel Michael stretching
out [their arms] in supplication to the Saviour, and
quietly surrendered his soul to God through the
hands of the angels.22
This one sentence (in Greek) is trustworthy since it
is incidental to the life, describing a few, passing
moments and not written for effect. It tells us
much that we need to know about the Deesis and
remedies incorrect views that have become current.
First, the term &OLo; is used categorically.
The passage thus refutes the belief that there is no
good reason to suppose that the subject today
called the Deesis was given this name by the Byzantines.23
More concretely, it contradicts the notion
that "the only case where we find the word &r1 or
8~rotg associated with the picture is when a petition
is actually being presented to Christ in the
name of the donor of the picture."24 Here there is
no question of a donor and no petition, unless one
imposes on the text a hypothetical prayer for his
soul on the part of Nikon. Nor does it indicate that
Nikon asks for intercession;25 he simply takes the
mat on which he was accustomed to sleep26 and
dies beneath the holy images. There is no evidence
"'Ibid., 115, fig. 25.
T O. Demus, The Mosaics of San Marco in Venice, II. The Thirteenth
Century (Chicago, 1984), 69.
"C. Osieczkowa, "La mosaique de la porte royale de Sainte
Sophie et la litanie de tous les saints," Byz 9 (1934), 41-83. This
interpretation was roundly rejected by N. Oikonomidas, DOP
36 (1975), 155-58, and Oikonomidas' reading in turn questioned
by R. Cormack, Art History 4 (1981), 139-41.
"'G. Zacos, Byzantine Lead Seals, ed. J. W. Nesbitt (Berne,
1984), nos. 404, 448, 518, 539, 599, 621, 635, 687, 702. N. Oikonomides
has kindly drawn my attention to two other variants:
Laurent, Corpus des sceaux, nos. 465, 466.
,2P. Magdalino and R. Nelson, "The Emperor in the Art of
the Twelfth Century," BF 8 (1982), 141, interpreting a text preserved
in Venice, cod. Marc. gr. Z524. As I read this document,
the emperor himself was not represented in the image.
'ActaSS, Nov. 3, ed. H. Delehaye, col. 560E (cited below),
based on the 14th-century ms. Athos, Lavra 1.127. I am grateful
to A. P. Kazhdan for drawing my attention to this passage and
to P. Topping for his expert translation. Lazarus died in 1054,
and the vita was written by his younger contemporary Gregory.
Thus Delehaye dated it to the 11 th century, as did Ch. Loparev
(VizVrem 4 [1897], 364-78) and I. Sevienko (Harvard Ukrainian
Studies 3-4 [1979-80], 723-26). Halkin, BHG3, II, no. 979,
simply cited this text without dating it. However, H. G. Beck,
Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinische Reich, 2nd ed.
(Munich, 1977), 701, saw this Life as "wohl frfihestens im 14.
Jahrhundert (Beginn)." This is either a mistake or unjustified
scepticism, depending excessively on the date of the ms. The
vita is full of eyewitness references.
22KLd ydV Avatt TO w<ct, Av fl FpeXXe TXTLeVrd, perdL TOv
6Xkepv otbg Av Tq) LToOn&oJTp, notV 1 Tiv &tudkvotv yev~obatt,
eivd4 vog xa e T dvotv oJtloag rolg c6t&Xpolg,
XclLL xa&l Tb aeT~cJO alo dX1?h~v-ixel ydtq flv AuL
&dcpov;g xQ eV0c6cL-v LxhIe?Wg JTL Tg xjtLd1oV Wtto ~o v T
TO6mp, ?v 41 ilg Ti oroT6xovat x o3 To~ &XgayyOkov MLtXcL 0kfef
&oLV &x6vwg &g &potV aUbg T6V oTfigLa rt&v6evctt, fiLQg TiV
xi)1JlV 6t& X0WAV &yyOmyv Jagabmxe TO) ~w .
-'Walter, "Two Notes" (note 3 above), 317. Walter's notion
that the term Deesis is a Russian invention of the 19th century
was accepted by R. S. Nelson (ByzSt 9 [1982], 352).
21 Ibid. The term is repeatedly used without reference to a
donor in the diataxis (1078) of Michael Attaleiates, ed. P. Gautier,
REB 39 (1981), 89.1195-96.
-The passage may articulate the distinction of Asterius of
Amaseia (PG 40, col. 324A) quoted by Walter ("Two Notes,"
319): "For our prayer (&ipotg) is not intercession (nactgdxkotg)
but the recollection of our sins."
-"Cf. the predictable saintly preference for sleeping onprayer rugs even when a bed was available, in the V S. Andreae
Sali, PG 111, col. 705A.
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148 ANTHONY CUTLER
that he chose this situation because it was connected
with a painting of the Last Judgment.27
Lastly, and most importantly from our point of
view, the figures flanking the Saviour are the Virgin
and the archangel Michael; the Prodromos is
not mentioned. There is no doubting Byzantine
belief in the efficacy of either figure as intercessors.
The actions of the Mother of God in this role
are the subject of a vast body of literature.28 Those
of the archangel may represent a tradition at least
as old,20 while elaborate devotions to him in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries are fully attested.30
It is certain that Michael's presence in the image is
not to be explained by the dedication of Nikon's
monastery.3' He is here because he is one of the
three major constituents of the group called the
Deesis.
Much the same conclusion is suggested by an image
in the twelfth-century Skylitzes manuscript in
Madrid.32 The miniature shows a deacon standing
on a ladder in order to deface icons arranged as
an epistyle on an ambiguous structure that resembles
a templon screen even less than it does a
ciborium (Fig. 1)." A. Grabar read the panels as
"un archange et une D6isis align6s au bas d'un toit
en coupole,"34 identifying the event as one of the
attacks on images made by the iconoclast patriarch
John VII "the Grammarian" (known to his enemies
as lannis) while in office. This doubly defies
the text of the Chronicle that our miniature illustrates.
Skylitzes stipulates that the incident took
place after lannis' deposition35 and imprisonment
in a monastery. The chronicler specifies that the
icons were of Christ, the Mother of God, and the
archangels.36 Whether the Madrid manuscript is
a Southern Italian copy of an illustrated Greek
chronicle or an original Sicilian creation,7 the
miniaturist has here (as elsewhere) followed the
text faithfully: to the left (from our point of view)
of the frontally disposed Christ, the Virgin turns
toward him with her hands raised in the attitude
of paraklisis. The same gesture of intercession is
made by the two outermost figures. That to our
left is winged; his counterpart is also clearly beard-rCf.
L. Brdhier, L'art chritien (Paris, 1928), 147: "la Ddisis
n'est qu'un episode du Jugement Dernier." On this mistake, see
Walter, "Two Notes," 335-36.
" Much of it is cited in Der Nersessian, "Two Images" (note 1
above), where the Virgin's "private" role is emphasized; for her
"public" and political capacities, see Averil Cameron's studies
reprinted in her Continuity and Change in Sixth-Century Byzantium
(London, 1981), nos. xvI, xvII.
"For a ring of the 5th-7th century, found at Achmim and
bearing, on one side, the image of an angel holding a globe and
a cross-staff and, on the other, the orant Virgin, with pleas addressed
to each, see Forrer, Die friahchristlicher Alterthiamer (note
76 below), 19-20, pl. xili.6-60.
3"Thus, e.g., Niketas Choniates on the commitment of Isaac
II Angelus (1185-95), trans. C. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine
Empire, 312-1453 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1972), 236. The same
devotion of an earlier emperor, Michael IV (1068-71), is not
qualified by the sacred pun involved in having this archangel
offer him the labarum on a gold histamenon (M. Hendy, Coinage
and Money in the Byzantine Empire, 1081-1261 [Washington,
D.C., 1969], 41--47, 71-72, pl. 1.9-12).
: We do not know at which of the four monasteries on Mt.
Galesios Nikon (or Lazarus) was a brother, but none was dedicated
to the archangel: R. Janin, Les ?glises et les monastares des
grands centres byzantins, II (Paris, 1975), 241-45. C. Mango, "On
the History of the Templon and the Martyrion of St. Artemios
at Constantinople," Zograf 10 (1979), 40-43, has shown that the
figures of Artemius and the Prodromos on an early 7th-century
epistyle are to be explained as representing the patronal saints
of the church that contained it.
"- Bib. Nacional, cod. vitr. 26-2, fol. 64v a (A. Grabar and M.Manoussacas, L'illustration du manuscrit de Skylitzbs de Madrid
[Venice, 1979], no. 159, fig. 66). For the date, see N. G. Wilson,
"The Madrid Scylitzes," Scrittura e civiltd 2 (1978), 209-19.
Manifest difficulties attend the interpretation of the structure
either as a templon or as a ciborium. Single icons may have
been displayed within the latter, although the evidence for such
a practice (see Cormack, Writing in Gold [note 6 above], 63, 129,
fig. 18) is limited. Templa-the normal loci of framed panels
attached to an architrave-were not domed. The doors necessary
to such a screen are missing from the miniature, as is the
altar that would aid in reading this structure as a ciborium. An
icon of the Virgin turning toward one of a half-length Christ is
attached to a ciborium over a lectern in the 12th-century Sinai gr.
418, fol. 269r (J. R. Martin, The Illustration of the Heavenly Ladder
of St. John Climacus [Princeton, 1954], fig. 213). To see in our
miniature a specific representation of the ciborium at St. Sophia
in Constantinople, as did E. Barbier in Synthronon, Bibliotheque
des Cahiers Archdologiques 2 (Paris, 1968), 201 note 26, fig. 1,
is to ignore both Skylitzes' text and the inscription above the
miniature.
:fL'illustration (note 32 above), loc. cit.
"Considerable disagreement attends the dating of the deposition:
V. Grumel (EO 34 [1935], 162-66) suggested 4 April
843; V. Laurent in Catholicisme, hier, aujourd'hui, demain 6 (Paris,
1967), s.v. Jean VII le Grammarien, col. 514, declares that the
patriarch was forcibly taken from the patriarchal palace after
the death of Emperor Theophilus (20 January 842).
'"Skylitzes, ed. H. Thurn, CFHB 5 (Berlin, 1973), 84.84-88:
'O 8' QvLtgog 'Ictvvig bovWOJlTCp vtvt xaeLteXTitg xat Av tLV
ALst ToUToV &vaorniXwpviv beaodgevog dtx6va XpLotrof Too
eov xctt TTfl5 0sol?oog xatL TWv %XcLyydV, q),, hctLoV StO x6vw
aVoodkaWLv TvaWdvre T?v oekioo(wv etx6vyv avoqicat
Toitg 6op0a4olg, t0y pt EXetV aUlYoUg Tv Tol 89Uv 8OvatVc .
That the iconoclastic deed took place after the patriarch's deposition
is confirmed by Theophanes continuatus, ed. I. Bekker
(Bonn, 1838), 157.15-24, who, however, speaks of the destruction
of only "one icon painted near the ceiling" (eix6vog AgRL
xaud rhv 6Qoopov). Zonaras, ed. Th. Btittner-Wobst (Bonn,
1897), III, 384.68, tells of "an icon of the Saviour Christ" and
then, in the plural, of "the eyes of the holy images."
7 For the debate, see I. Sevienko, "The Madrid Manuscript
of the Chronicle of Skylitzes in the Light of Its New Dating,"
in Byzanz und der Westen, ed. I. Hutter, SbWien 432 (1984),
124-30.
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150 ANTHONY CUTLER
less and thus cannot be John the Forerunner.38
What we have here is another "unrepresentative"
Deesis group, akin to the trimorphon39 described by
Gregory in his Life of Lazarus, in that the Lord is
flanked by the Mother of God and an archangel,
but enlarged by the addition of another angel.
Thus the Skylitzes picture is also anomalous by
virtue of its four persons. While neither the chronicler
nor the miniaturist explicitly describes this
group of icons as a Deesis, more than the mere
positions of the figures suggests that the term was
applied to sets larger than the normal triad. Seventy
years after Lazarus the Galesiote died in
1054, a great fire occurred in the quarter of Kiev
known as the Podol. "A certain Christ-loving man,"
we are told in the Paterikon,40 built a church in the
stricken area and set out to commission icons for
it. He gave silver to two monks from the Pacerskij
Lavra to give to Alimpij, their brother-monk and a
famous painter. The text specifies that the anonymous
donor desired "five (icons) of the Deesis and
two fixed icons."41 Two of the five figures that make
up this Deesis are identified later in the rambling
tale, when Alimpij failed to honor the contract (because,
according to the text, his brothers had embezzled
the funds) and the abbot of the PeZerskij
miraculously produced the "unmade-by-hand image
of our Lord Jesus Christ and (of) his most pure
Mother and his saints."42 It is possible that the
Prodromos was one of these saints; it is certain that
the group, here explicitly identified as a Deesis, included
five figures.43
The Kievan story has a terminus ante quem of
1124; the Skylitzes manuscript seems to have been
produced ca. 1142.44 Even if neither is precisely
datable, one conclusion seems sure: by the middle
of the twelfth century images in a variety of different
media, showing a varying number of variable
figures, represented what was known beyond the
perimeter of the empire (and, as the Vita Lazari
confirms, within it) as the Deesis.
III
The mutable content of the pictures described
by the term Deesis is perhaps the most interesting
aspect of the question, one that is both illuminated
by the history of the composition and, in turn, illuminates
the large number of images of "Deesistype"
that have come down to us without a label or
unattached to any text that "explains" their particular
components. For a decade the reality of variation
among the figures peripheral to the central
trimorphon has been pressed upon us by the large
group that makes up the Deesis in the room above
the vestibule of St. Sophia.45 Only more recently
has the diversity of the nuclear group been appreciated
as an essential aspect of its iconography.46
This newer understanding frees us from the notion
that the significance of the composition was in
any way tied to the identity of its constituent figures
and from the supposition that where, for example,
Martha, the sister of Lazarus, appears in
the place usually occupied by the Virgin,47 she
:8 The identities of the figures were correctly read by S. Cirac
Estopafian, Skyliitzes Matritensis, I. Reproducciones y miniaturas
(Barcelona, 1965), no. 165. C. Walter, "The Origins of the Iconostasis,"
Eastern Churches Review 3 (1971), 264, described the
structure as a "baldaquin" and followed Skylitzes' identification
of the icons in the miniature, here represented by a line
drawing.
"For the (recent?) history of this term, see Walter, "Two
Notes," 313.
'"The Kievan Paterikon, written by Polycarp and Simon in the
late 12th century, was edited on the basis of late 15th-century
rmss. by D. Abramovia, Kievo-Peterskij Paterik (Kiev, 1930), rpr.
as Das Paterikon der Kiever Hbhlenklosters, ed. D. Tschitewskij,
Slavische Propylien 2 (Munich, 1964). I am grateful to Dr. Jonathan
Shepard for discussing this text with me and to Dr. Muriel
Heppell for letting me see her forthcoming English translation.
On the passage in question here, see V. Putsko, "Kievskij
cudoznik XI veka Alimpij Peterskij," WSJb 25 (1979), 63-87,
who, however, is concerned not with the Deesis group but with
the two "fixed" icons.
"Das Paterikon, 176: "pjat' Djesusa i dva namjestje." It must
be stressed that this means "five of the Deasis" not "five of Deeseis."
The fact that seven icons (in all) were required is repeated
on the same page. The term namjestje is (to me) problematical:
I follow Mango's translation; Heppell prefers "dedicatory"
icons.
"Paterikon, loc. cit.
' That the Deasis in the 10th-11 th centuries could be distributed
over three panels or confined within a single frame is made
clear by the Georgian Lives of SS. John the Iberian and his son
Euthymius: M. Chatzidakis, "Anciennes ic6nes de Lavra d'apres
un texte gdorgien," in Rayonnement grec. Hommages & Charles Delvove,
ed. L. Hadermann-Misguich and G. Raepsert (Brussels,
1982), 427-28.
" Sevienko, "The Madrid Manuscript," 121.
'5R. Cormack and E. J. W. Hawkins, "The Mosaics of St. Sophia
at Istanbul: The Rooms above the Southwest Vestibule and
Ramp," DOP 31 (1977), 202, 246, figs. 26-47. The "witnesses"
here include four iconodule bishops. C. Walter, Art and Ritual of
the Byzantine Church (London, 1982), 183, rightly calls this compound
work "the earliest developed Deasis." However, the supplicating
angels in the Skylitzes miniature (Fig. 1) and other
works require that his description of the Virgin and the Prodromos
as the "two personages [who] alone hold their arms outstretched"
be modified.
'" Demus, as in note 17 above.
7 V. K. Mjasoedov, Freski Spasa-Neredicy (Leningrad, 1925),
14, pls. XXXVI, LXVII. For the interpretation of Martha as a
"stand-in," see A. Frolow, "Sainte-Marthe ou Mere de Dieu,"
BByzI 1 (1946), 79-82.
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UNDER THE SIGN OF THE DEESIS 151
must be seen as a substitution. Not only may the
Deesis consist of the Lord flanked only by angelsthe
so-called "Engeldeisis"48-but even Christ
may be "replaced," on occasion, by the Mother of
God.49 Local cults may account for the presence of
certain saints, such as Mark in the place of the
Baptist above the main door of S. Marco in Venice,50
but the motley group of apostles, monastic
saints (such as Macarius and Panteleimon),51 and
even bishops52 who occupy this position of honor
on Middle Byzantine epistyles are not all explicable
in patronal terms.
Since this large cast of sacred actors are-by definition
as well as by their position-visionaries beholding
Christ or his Mother, and most, at the
same time, shown in the attitude of turning in supplication
(and often bowing), if not actually raising
their hands in entreaty, it makes little sense to expound
upon their roles in exclusive terms, that is,
to see them either as intercessors53 or as witnesses to
(or participants in) the heavenly host.54 "A firm
univocal definition of 68lotg," as has been justly
said, "is impossible."''55 Nonetheless, the number of
variations on the theme precludes limiting examples
to those showing a saint or the Virgin praying,
the latter presenting a petition, or an ex-voto
image in which a donor acts in this way.56 Even if
the number of instances exhibiting a "normal"
Deesis still exceeds the quantity of known digressions
from the norm,57 it is not helpful to describe
the former as representative and the latter (if only
by implication) as exceptional. The deviations
must be assumed to represent, at the very least, the
intentions of the client and/or his craftsman, both
in cases where the motivation is transparent58 and
in those where it has yet to be ascertained.59 And
none of the documents we possess suggests that
the donor's wishes, in any case, were unusual.
But, more broadly, to exclude from the class
known as the Deesis works of art that do not fit
traditional notions is to fall into two sorts of historical
error. First, since images of the Deesis are
likely to be representative of Byzantine art generally-in
the sense that both have been decimated
by losses-it would be unwise (to say the least) to
insist that surviving representations of this theme
represent all that were ever created. Indeed, the
number of "exceptions" presented above argues in
itself for a once even richer diversity. Again, to insist
that the Virgin and the Prodromos represent
the intercessors most widely credited by the Byzantines
is to ignore some texts that attest to Byzantine
concerns for intercession. True, the two oldest
records that we have of such lost pictures
document images depicting Christ, the Mother of
God, and the Prodromos. The celebrated passage
in the Miracula SS. Cyri et Joannis by Sophronius,
patriarch of Jerusalem (634-638), 60 relates the
healing of a young Alexandrian heretic by virtue
of his encounter with just such an icon, while the
same triad, disposed on individual panels(?), is reported
in a less well-known passage in the Life of
St. Stephen the Younger (d. 765).61 But even ear'"
I borrow the term from R. Lange, Die byzantinische Reliefiko>e
(Recklinghausen, 1964), 104, no. 36, describing three
joined marble reliefs found immured at Topkapu in Istanbul.
While the flanking figures in this 12th(?)-century sculpture are
half-length, a composition, similar save for its standing angels,
on a glazed tile from Nikomedia now in the Walters Art Gallery
(P. Verdier, "Tiles of Nicomedia," in Okeanos. Essays Presented
to Ihor Sevienko on His Sixtieth Birthday ... , Harvard Ukrainian
Studies 7 [1983], 632-36, fig. 1) suggests that there is nothing
unique about such a composition. Thus the epistyle of the templon
in the Blachernae church at Arta (A. Grabar, Sculptures
bvzantines du moyen age, II [Paris, 1976], no. 152, pl. cxxvi, b, d)
shows two angels supplicating the Virgin.
'"Sevienko, "The Madrid Manuscript," 121.
5oDemus, The Mosaics (note 17 above), 67-70, pls. 102-5.
51J. P. Sodini, "Une iconostase byzantine ?i Xanthos," in Actes
du Colloque sur la Lycie Antique, Bibliothbque de l'Institut Frangais
d'Etudes Anatoliennes 27 (Paris, 1980), 132-35. An unidentified
monastic saint "replaces" the Prodromos in a fivefigure
Deesis group in a steatite found at Agara in Georgia: I.
Kalavrezou-Maxeiner, Byzantine Icons in Steatite, Byzantina vindobonensia
15 (Vienna, 1985), no. 23.
52M. Bityuikkolanci, "Zwei neugefundene Bauten der Johannes-Kirche
von Ephesus: Baptisterium und Skeuophylakion,"
IstMitt 32 (1982), 254, pl. 59.
53Note 8 above.
5 Note 9 above.
55Walter, "Two Notes" (note 3, above), 324.
56 Ibid., 323.
57The attempt in this article to "open up" the definition of
the Deesis should not be taken as a predisposition to read all
similar works as representations of this theme. Even where
triadic compositions are employed, as in the reliefs on the Berlin
"scepter-tip" (K. Corrigan, ArtB 60 [1978], 407-16), the
presence of elements, such as the act of coronation, and the
absence of others, such as the gesture of entreaty, preclude their
interpretation as a Deesis.
58As in the case of a (lost) liturgical roll in which St. Basil is
shown interceding for the emperor and the people: Walter,
"Two Notes," 321-22.
59As in the case of a headpiece to Matthew in a gospelbook
(NewJulfa, cod. 477, fol. 16r) made at Noravank in 1300, where
the pyle is dominated by a Deesis in which an unbearded apostle
(St. John the Evangelist?) stands entreating Christ to his right. I
am grateful to T. F. Mathews for drawing this unpublished miniature
to my atterition.
60PG 87 , col. 3557, trans. Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire
(note 30 above), 135-36.
6, PG 100, col. 1 144A. Neither this Life nor the Miracula employ
the word Deesis. We identify the images in question as such
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152 ANTHONY CUTLER
lier requests for intercession are addressed to the
Virgin and all the saints, without supplementary
particulars.62 Nor, given the little-studied nature of
Byzantine private devotion as expressed in artistic
commissions,63 should one exclude the likelihood
of appeals being made to any member of the heavenly
host whose images were approved for veneration
by the Church. The Horos of the Seventh
Ecumenical Council (787), for instance, lists such
pictures as Christ, the Mother of God, the angels,
and holy men,64 again without further specification.
Visions of the celestial hierarchy that appeared
to male and female saints, as recounted
in their Lives, rarely offer greater precision. St.
Irene, troubled by the devil one night in or after
842, was comforted (in the order that they are
cited in her biography) by the Virgin, Christ, the
archangels Michael and Gabriel (to whom the
monastery in which she lived was dedicated), and
all the heavenly powers.65
The Prodromos is not mentioned as part of
Irene's vision, and he is likewise absent from the
particulars given by Paul the Silentiary in his account
of the images on the chancel barrier of the
Great Church.66 Indeed, whether the Deesis was
represented on the screens of St. Sophia and St.
Polyeuktos in Constantinople remains a subject of
lively controversy.67 The chancel barriers of these
great sixth-century churches almost certainly did
not bear "normal" versions of the Deesis. (The
much-damaged reliefs from that at St. Polyeuktos
do not appear to include the Forerunner). But if
our demonstration that the term, at least as it was
used later, can apply to a group other than the canonical
trimorphon, and if evidence from the eleventh
century can properly be applied to the sixth,
then this difficulty as least is removed.
I have no reason to insist that the Deesis appeared
on these great Justinianic monuments and
surely none to suppose that it was as widespread in
this situation as it was in the Middle Byzantine period.68
On the other hand, it can no longer be
doubted that between the ninth and the twelfth
centuries the Deesis assumed forms that cannot be
accommodated within its conventional definitions.
This being so, one must allow the possibility that
Western works that include, for example, images
of archangels turning toward a frontal Christ
might echo the broader conception that I have
proposed as underlying the Deesis. This possibility
is strengthened when donor figures appear at the
feet of the Lord, as Emperor Henry II (1002-24)
and Queen Kunigunde do on the gold altarfrontal
from Basel cathedral now in the Mus6e de
Cluny, Paris.69 The stylistic connections between
this antependium and Middle Byzantine art have
often been noted.v7 Certainly, in light of the wide
diversity that obtained in Byzantium, the presence
of St. Benedict at the far left of this five-figure
composition in no way inhibits reading it as a
Deesis.
Historians of Western medieval art have long expressed
dissatisfaction with univocal interpretations
of monuments.7' Nor is this a purely modern
problem for it is appreciably related to the high
medieval distinction between significatio and suppositio.
In the Summulae logicales of Petrus Hispanus
(1210/20-77),72 signification is considered to be a
property of words (in the present case, and as it
was used in Byzantium, the word Deesis) not of
things, for words signify whereas things are signibecause
of the description of their contents. It follows logically
that other texts, describing pictures with different content, may
yet refer to images of the Deesis which we do not recognize
because we a priori exclude them from this class. For the questions
surrounding the date of this vita, conventionally said to
have been written in 807, see Cormack, Writing in Gold (note 6
above), 118-20.
62Thus, e.g., Maurice, Strategikon, ed. G. T. Dennis, CFHB 17
(Vienna, 1981), 68.6-9.
"~ A start has been made in this direction by KalavrezouMaxeiner,
Steatite (note 51 above), 66, who sees images of the
Deesis as especially appropriate to private prayer in that they
could facilitate a personal relationship with a saint.
6, Mansi, 13, col. 252.
65ActaSS, July 6, col. 608E.
6P. Friedlander, Johannes von Gaza und Paulus Silentiarius.
Kunstbeschreibungenjustinianischer Zeit (Leipzig, 1912), 110. S. G.
Xydis (ArtB 29 [1947], 11) supposed that the Prodromos was
included among the "heralds of God" (the prophets) who, along
with the archangels, are said by Paul to flank the figure of "the
immaculate God." L. Nees (ZKunstg 46 [1983], 17 note 8) reasonably
objects to this supposition of omission on the part of
the normally prolix Silentiary.
67 See most recently Nees (as in note 66), 16-20.
680n this, see A. W Epstein, "The Middle Byzantine Sanctuary
Barrier: Templon or Iconostasis,"JBAA 134 (1981), 1-28.
69P. Lasko, Ars Sacra, 800-1200 (Harmondsworth, 1972),
129-30, pl. 130, who suggests a date late in Henry's reign for
the antependium. One objection to the understanding of this
object as a Latin version of a Deesis is the absence of any gestures
of entreaty. Nonetheless, the similarity between its formal
organization and that of the arcuated Byzantine epistyle remains
striking.
7For these arguments, and the earlier literature, see T. Buddensieg,
"Die Baseler Altartafel Heinrichs II," Wallraf-RichartzJahrbuch
19 (1957), 133 if, and W. Messerer, "Zur byzantinischen
Frage in der ottonischen Kunst," BZ 52 (1959), esp. 35-41.
7' For a classic example, see A. Katzenellenbogen, "The Central
Tympanum at VWz6lay: Its Encyclopaedic Meaning and Its
Relation to the First Crusade," ArtB 26 (1944), 141-51.
72The Summulae logicales of Peter of Spain, ed. J. P. Mullaly
(Notre Dame, Ind., 1949). For an analysis of suppositio and its
place in medieval thought, see I. M. Bochenski, Formale Logik
(Munich, 1956), 186-99.
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UNDER THE SIGN OF THE DEESIS 153
fled. Whoever may be the figures in a Deesis, the
term signifies the same thing. However, it may
"suppose" something (or some things) different. In
other words, the signification of the Deesis-bearing
object was not affected by the differentiations that
patrons or artists imposed upon it. The distinction
is between the meaning and application, the intention
and extension, the connotation and denotation
of a term.73 I have suggested that the connotation
of the Deesis-that is, its underlying
significance-is not to be too narrowly defined.
Nor should this be supposed to change with its secondary
denotations. To the medieval mind, then,
all forms of the Deesis would be representative of
the same essential idea. At this level it mattered
little whether there were two, three, or five figures;
whether Mark "replaced" the Prodromos, Martha
was "substituted" for Mary, or all human forms
gave way to angels.
IV
The problem is not so much that the same sign
means different things in different contexts ("all
signs can be interpreted again and again because
every sign, on each occasion it comes into play,
holds a slightly or largely different meaning for
each interpreter of it")74 as it is that different signs
in different contexts can mean the same thing. Applied
to the Deesis, then, the proper and prior
question is not what it represents but what examples
of it are representative.75 Our mutable image
may be a classic example of this difficulty, but
it is only one instance of a supposedly univocal sign
used in contexts that defy its presumed significance.
The cross-nimbus, for example, is a motif
which, whatever its formal varieties, is always held
to designate Christ and to distinguish him from his
disciples or martyrs. Yet the nimbus cruciger is
found in widely differing cultures attached to figures
other than the Lord. A clay lamp, found
in the excavation of St. Severin in Cologne, shows
Peter holding a key and Paul a cross-staff; behind
each of their heads is a large cross-nimbus.76
Again, among the fragments of the Insular gospelbook,
St. Gall cod. 1395, is a miniature of Matthew
wearing just such a halo.77 Two evangelists,
Mark and Luke, as well as John's eagle, in a late
Carolingian manuscript in Cambridge, Fitzwilliam
Museum 45, are similarly endowed.78 Much later,
and returning to the Byzantine world, Sinai cod.
gr. 1216, an illuminated sticherarion, has a bustlength
image of Mary the Egyptian with a nimbus
cruciger.79 The miniatures, at least, are works of
high quality, an important point since it is obvious
that an incompetent craftsman is as likely to make
iconographical as aesthetic mistakes.s8 More objectively,
one may observe that a mistake is possible in
any one (or more) of these cases but that the likelihood
of all being errors is greatly reduced when
each displays the same "mistake."
These examples may have nothing to do with
one another and, since they involve a single motif
rather than a complex work, do not afford an analogy
to the case of the Deesis. Yet, if the conclusion
drawn from them is accepted, it follows a fortiori
that variations on a theme used in the culturally
homogeneous world that was post-iconoclastic Byzantium
are even less likely to be accidental. Moreover,
the probability of error is much smaller in
elaborate compositions such as the Deesis, where
meaning may be supposed to inhere in the relationship
of parts, than in individual motifs the significance
of which can be transformed or distorted
with a stroke of the brush or chisel.
In the face of unwonted variations, iconographic
method traditionally resorts to one of two strategies.
The first is to seek to relate the "misfit" to
nonartistic data. A particular type of Christ, for instance,
may be shown to reflect a theological controversy,
or an unusual attribute of the Virgin may
be held to embody the content of, say, a homily. In
such cases, controls are applied in the form of a
text which, if it is not considered to be the cause of
the variation in question, is believed to "explain"
it. The second strategy is, on its face, simpler and
employed even when the first is not. It is to com-
7 Mullaly, Summulae logicales, xlii.
7J. Sturrock, New York Times Book Review, 13 May 1984, 17.
75I use the term "representative" rather than "typical" first
because the concept of "type" has a specific connotation in Byzantine
theology not directly related to the present issue and,
secondly and conversely, because in modern English the word
"typical" has taken on too imprecise a meaning for my purpose.
76R. Forrer, Die friihchristlicher Alterthiimer aus dem Gruiberfelde
von Achmim-Panopolis (Strasbourg, 1893), 12, pl. V.2.
77J. J. G. Alexander, Insular Manuscripts, 6th to the 9th Century,
A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles 1 (London,
1978), no. 57, fig. 281. Alexander does not comment on
Matthew's nimbus.
78 F. Wormald and J. Alexander, An Early Breton Gospel Book
(Roxburghe Club) (Cambridge, 1977), pls. E, F, H. The form of
these haloes is not remarked upon.
79The miniature on fol. 112 is unpublished. K. Weitzmann,
Illustrated Manuscripts at St. Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai
(Collegeville, Minn., 1973), 25-26, suggests that a Latin hand
may have participated in the decoration of this book.
8oSee the review by A. W. Epstein of C. Walter's Studies in Byzantine
Iconography (London, 1977), in ByzSt 9 (1982), 161-62.
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154 ANTHONY CUTLER
pare the unexpected variation to the corpus of
(supposedly) unvariegated artistic representatives-as
I have just done implicitly in the case of
the nimbus cruciger-in order to measure the degree
to which the problematical example departs
from the norm. Its significance (if any) can then be
assayed, even if, by this means alone, it cannot be
accounted for. Thus our studies are governed by
the twin notions of explicability and representa-
tiveness.
In truth, the steps that constitute the first strategy
are simply a subset of the second. By testing
the apparent exception rendered in a visual medium
against a body of literary work produced by
the same culture we are merely relating it to a
much larger sample: both devices are tests of representativeness.
And this single (if often far from
simple) test is justified because in Byzantium (and
probably the medieval world in general) the ratio
of preserved to lost productions is much greater in
literature than in the visual arts. Precisely because
of this statistical incongruity, tests against literature,
while a necessary step for the art historian,
entail an intrinsic risk. Since the surviving body of
literature is much larger, literary exceptions to a
rule can be recognized for what they are and (usually)
do not need to be "explained." One effect of
the difference between the size of the written and
artistic samples is that the former can accommodate
anomalies, innovations, and curiosa without
upsetting the conceptual framework within which
the history of Byzantine literature is understood.
We have the data, so to speak, and therefore do not
need to impose on it a predictive value. In art, on
the other hand, the sample that we possess is made
to play a normative role. Exceptions and oddities
cannot easily be reconciled to the assumed norm
(e.g., that the bearer of the cross-halo will always
be Christ). They must be squeezed into preconceptions
based upon a limited number of iconographic
types. The typical becomes tyrannical and
that which is not representative is held to be an
error or, worse, is ignored in framing consequently
incomplete iconographic constructs.
One result of this inexorable approach is a devaluation
of the richly imaginative range of Byzantine
art from the late eighth through the twelfth
century when, according to the received wisdom,
the almost wanton variety of the pre-iconoclastic
period, spawned in the diverse centers that were
Alexandria, Antioch, Ravenna, Thessaloniki, and
the capital, was replaced by an authoritative body
of content that is presumed to have emanated
from Constantinople. Such a notion not only
slights the inventiveness of artists and patrons in
outlying regions of the empire but imposes a chafing
and ultimately distorting corset upon the body
of Byzantine art both metropolitan and provincial.
The extent to which this disfigurement is our own
creation is subsumed in the debate over the Deesis.
The Pennsylvania State University
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