Is it possible to visualize transcendence? Can human imagination combine with technical skill to fashion from the earthly stuff of pigment and stone an appropriate representation of the divine, a force unseen save for the effects ascribed to its intervention by sacred writing and belief? As a glance at any introductory art history text will confirm, history has answered that question with a resounding "yes." From the earliest societies into the modern age, human beings have taken up the project creating painting, sculpture and architecture dedicated to just that end with visual strategies as varied as the cultures that produce them. Thus, Raphael's Sistine Madonna of 1512 poses a very different answer to the question than the devotional paintings created by Ad Reinhardt for Thomas Merton in the 1960s.
No less than others, the Byzantines explored the possibilities of divine representation, and it is their strategy and its legacy that Clemena Antonova examines. Although the title suggests a focus on the distinct visual phenomenon of the Byzantine icon, her topic is actually the whole of what she refers to as Eastern Orthodox art. In considering this material she identifies the pictorial means of spatial organization known as "reverse perspective," the construction of objects and space around multiple points of view within a given image, as the technique used to convey the sense of sacred presence central to Orthodox image theory. To this end, the discussion surveys the writings of early 20th-century Russian authors who argued for the recognition of reverse perspective as a characteristic feature of Eastern Orthodox art and posits that the use of the technique is related to the liturgical and spiritual function of the icon.
Antonova lays out the argument in an introduction and five chapters. In the Introduction, she establishes the icon, a term which she does not define, as the focus of discussion. Observing the long and continuing life of icon manufacture, the wide geographical distribution of such images, and their use in a variety of religious contexts, she eschews an investigation into discrete historical moments and asks instead what visual characteristic consistently distinguishes the icon from other images. The answer is reverse perspective; however, Antonova offers no definition of the term, stating only that icons from the sixth-century to the fifteenth share this formula for spatial organization as a means to express the theological doctrine of "timeless eternity." Thus, she sets the frame for the continuing discussion by positing a relationship between space and time in icon art.
Chapter One, "The Role of Time in Pictorial Art," examines theories regarding the interrelationship between space and time in images as considered first by Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781) and then by two early 20th-century Russian authors, Pavel Florensky (1882-1937) and Mikhail Bahktin (1895-1975). In Laocoon: An essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry, Lessing famously rejected the classical equation between painting and poetry most clearly and succinctly expressed in the Horatian dictum, "ut pictura poesis" to claim autonomy for the two art forms, describing as he did poetry as an art of time and painting as an art of space. Antonova rejects Lessing's dichotomy, and introduces the work of Florensky and Bahktin, writers who explored the workings of time and space, Florensky by examining the relationship between "reverse time," defined as the experience of time common to dreams and art and reverse perspective in icons, and Bakhtin by describing the intrinsic links between space and time in literature.
Chapter two, "On Reverse Perspective--A Critical Reading," opens with an apology for reverse perspective, noting that the predominance from the 15th century of the linear perspective system as a means for organizing two-dimensional composition in space prevents viewers from understanding the visual structure of icons and therefore their meaning. In response to the view that iconographers are technically inept and icons inferior works of art for their failure to deploy a one point perspective system, Antonova posits that the rendering of objects and space in terms of reverse perspective represents not only a deliberate choice, but also an enduring trait that is itself a carrier of meaning. In an effort to better explain the workings of the icon, Antonova tracks the writings of three Russian authors. She returns to Florensky's essay, and continues with an examination of two more recent authors, Lev Zhegin and Boris Uspensky. Woven into the discussion is an attempt to define reverse perspective first through diagrams and then with the analysis of actual images. This investigation leads to a definition of reverse perspective as vision in simultaneous planes. The chapter concludes with the observation that Russian thinking about eastern Orthodox art, while correct in making the equation between time and space, is flawed as it carries on the discussion by using concepts and categories of analysis derived from the very Renaissance theory it attacks.
Chapters three and four represent an attempt to correct this failing. In chapter three, "Registering Presence in the Icon," Antonova investigates the function of images that reject optical illusionism and states that reverse perspective is a canonical element of form sanctified by tradition that expresses the real, albeit partial presence of the image prototype. Although she does not make clear what tradition provides this canonical status, she does define "real presence" by analogy to divine presence in the Eucharistic host. Comment upon the cult of images as an aspect of eastern Orthodox identity follows, and although she takes the cult to be a defining feature of that identity she also claims that there is no fundamental ideological difference between the eastern approach to images and the western. She continues by addressing the relationship between icons and relics before returning to the issue of real presence as set out by John of Damascus. A review of antique visual sources for the icon observes the standard progenitors: funerary portraits, Roman imperial portraits, and divine images. She then outlines the issue of presence as defined in Platonic and Neo-Platonic sources before coming back to the definition in Christian sources and Byzantine theology, a return that brings her to outline the opposing positions in the Iconoclastic Controversy (730-843) and Florensky's own view on the subject. She observes that pictorial form can signal the partial presence of the prototype, and in an effort to clarify the meaning of that presence summons Kierkegaard's formulation of the Christian paradox before concluding that the detachment necessitated by a Kantian aesthetic theory is an invalid framework for understanding eastern Orthodox art.
Chapter four, "Seeing the world with the eyes of God: an alternative explanation of reverse perspective," proposes that reverse perspective is the visual means by which God's eternity is conveyed. Antonova argues that divine perception is simultaneous rather than successive because God is not subject to spatial location. In so doing she offers a corrective to Florensky who she examines further by way of the Cubists and Theosophists. Reverse perspective emerges newly defined as "the simultaneous representation of different planes of the same image on the picture surface, regardless of whether the corresponding planes in the represented objects could be seen from a single viewpoint" (105). Armed with this definition Antonova turns to authors as diverse as Parmenides, Gregory of Nazianzus and Augustine in support of the concept of "timeless eternity." She then connects these observations about space and time in the icon to modern liturgical studies and offers support for her hypothesis in the philosophical writings of Leibnitz, Schopenhauer, and Worringer. The book concludes with a "sample analysis" of a single image, Anton Rublev's Holy Trinity of 1411.
This book is a conundrum largely because it does not know what it wants to accomplish. On the one hand, it purports to be about the icon in Byzantine and post-Byzantine tradition. On the other hand, it is as much a book about Russian intellectual history. Although the two inquiries are not mutually exclusive, they do not serve one another well in this study, largely due to the fact that neither one is pursued systematically or completely and both are considered superficially.
For those interested in historiography, Antonova offers a view into early 20th-century Russian intellectual history by providing an introduction to Florensky and the early 20th-century milieu in which he operated. It is interesting to learn of the connections to Einstein, the Cubists, and the Theosophists, and to trace the roots of his thought in German philosophy; however, given the extent to which Antonova emphasizes historiography, it is disappointing that she hints at, but does not pursue the extent to which the concept of the icon was considered a powerful rallying point for Russian nationalism and imperialism.
Those looking for a historically based discussion of the icon will be disappointed: this is a rigorously a-historical book. The author establishes no chronological or geographical frames, and although the book purports to deal with eastern Orthodox art it also touches on art of the western Middle Ages. Likewise, although there is a desire to see the icon in terms of the liturgy, she establishes no functional contexts, a fact borne out in the selection images for this text. These range in date from the sixth century to the fifteenth. Subjects include both the sacred and the profane, narrative and portrait images. Contexts are monumental and miniature. The bond between them lies in their use of reverse perspective. Because several of the images discussed cannot be considered icons in any conventional sense the choices weaken the claim for reverse perspective as a defining feature of the icon.
A further problem lies in the lacunary and inconsistent examination of reverse perspective as a historical phenomenon. All of the examples used to illustrate and examine the technique lie within the chronological frame of the Middle Ages, but this system of spatial definition was not exclusive to the Middle Ages. Examples abound in Roman and Egyptian art, two visual traditions to which Byzantium was in debt, a fact unstated. Given that reverse perspective did not spring fully formed from the minds of eastern Orthodox artists but that it is claimed as a defining feature of Orthodox imagery, failure to consider this transformation weakens the thesis. Nor is there acknowledgement of icons such as the sixth-century Christ from the Monastery of Saint Catherine, Mt. Sinai in which reverse perspective is not a feature. If reverse perspective is a defining feature of icon art, how should images deprived of the system be understood? And what is to be made of the use of reverse perspective in images that are emphatically not sacred? Antonova's initial examination of reverse perspective defines the technique with an analysis of a miniature depicting the transport of landowner Danieles on a litter from the Chronicle of John Skylitzes (fig. 2.2). If reverse perspective is to be understood as a means for creating sacred presence, what are the implications for its use in the illustration of this profane text?
Equally problematic in terms of the historical question is the reliance upon modern thinkers, a choice that makes the discussion not only anachronistic but also inconsistent with the book's project. Antonova wishes to understand icons on their own terms by finding a means of visual definition consistent to all such images. In working towards this goal she is correct in two regards: 1) her observation that the modern habit of seeing and analyzing visual systems in relationship to the technique of linear perspective established in the fifteenth century has often negatively colored the understanding and appreciation of icons, and 2) the desire to step back from that habit in order to rethink the visual systems associated with icon painting and associate them with such contexts as the liturgy. This desire remains unfulfilled, however, as the arguments pay scant attention to primary source materials. Instead the main line of thinking works off the modern foil of Lessing or makes overt appeals to philosophers such as Kierkegaard and Worringer as the basis of its structure and organization. While an interesting philosophical exercise, this appeal flatly contradicts the desire to see and understand images within their own milieu. In terms of the twelfth century, it does not matter what Lessing observed about space and time. It does matter what contemporary thinkers thought; however, to the Greek Christian sources pertinent to the understanding of Orthodox tradition, Antonova gives a scant three pages. As a result, by observing images from what is predominately the view of modern thinkers she perpetuates the very thought process she condemns with respect to the appreciation of reverse perspective.
Also debatable are the visual analyses. To begin with, there are so few that the discussion remains largely theoretical. The one sustained attempt to address the visual format comes in the discussion of the Rublev Trinity; however, this discussion is weak in that it focuses largely on historiographical questions. Further, some of the observations she makes are inaccurate. Among other things, Antonova argues that the icon deploys isocephaly, which it does not: the head of the central angel in the composition is clearly set above those of the flanking figures. Because this is a book about visual technique the failure to set images at center stage and to grapple with the images as they are rather than as she would have them be represents a serious shortcoming.
Writing and organization underscore these difficulties. The book is too long. The text, which is repetitive in the extreme, could have been shortened by half. Unnecessary digressions also add to the length and detract from the central line of thinking. Grammatical and structural errors together with inconsistencies in spelling and dating also distract, especially in the final two chapters. One last technical point involves the illustrations. These are of extremely poor quality, small-scale and grainy. In a text devoted to the study of visual structure this is inexcusable. In short, Antonova has not been well-served by her editors.
What ultimately frustrates about this book is the fact that the author is not necessarily incorrect: the manipulation of space and form in icons may well demonstrate divine presence, but that point has not been argued persuasively. This is a pity because whatever the shortcomings of the study may be, Antonova deserves credit for the attempt to deal with icons as visual phenomena. Study of icons has been limited in this regard, with most discussions focusing on questions of iconography, function and use to such an extent that the visual quality of images has often been ignored. The desire to redirect the discussion to visual questions is therefore welcome. As such, Space, Time and Presence in the Icon can best be thought of as a stepping stone to a larger project which examines the ways in which style creates meaning in a more controlled and telling context.