Modern discussions about the distinction between art and non-art or about the status of the work of art make us hesitant to apply unqualifiedly modern concepts (art, aesthetics) to the pre-modern era of Byzantium. The very existence of aesthetics in the Middle Ages is questionable and the medieval concept of art differs from that of antiquity and, even more, from that of the Renaissance. We cannot expect Byzantium aesthetics to be an autonomous branch of philosophy. On the other hand, the Byzantine writers often discussed aesthetic concepts (beauty, image, light) and problems (aesthetic values and properties, the function of the work of art, the role of the beholder). But in most cases this discussion was made in the context of wider theological and philosophical issues that mostly attracted the Byzantines’ interest.
What we can call ‘‘Byzantine aesthetics” has certain main characteristics: (a) It neither has a systematic nature nor does form a coherent whole. It emerged as a response to specific problems that were occasionally aroused; so, in regard to its major issues (theory of image, attitude to Greek art) it is mostly polemic. (b) There is almost no particular thinker who treated traditional aesthetic issues per se, analyzing the concepts he used or concluding his discussion without reference to the spiritual domain. (c) The Greek and Patristic heritage was always present in the manner the Byzantines speculated about art and it must be considered as the major source for the formation of Byzantine aesthetics. (d) Byzantine aesthetics referred not only to Byzantine art but also to ancient Greek art.
Hence, Byzantine aesthetics unlike traditional aesthetics does not deal primarily with the categories of beauty and taste, aesthetic experience or pleasure, critical examination and evaluation of beauty. More than a theory of beauty Byzantine aesthetics must be considered as a theory of art, that is, about the status of the work of art, its functions, its reception, its beholder, etc.
World History
