The Triumph of Orthodoxy did not secure the survival of the Byzantine Empire. In 1453 the city fell to the Turks, Constantinople became the capital of the Ottoman Empire, and the great cathedral of Hagia Sophia became a mosque. The world's balance of...
What the viewer around 1400 might not have realised is that some of these saints and martyrs were not even born in 843. The icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy shows a whole society revisiting its past through a work of art, begging God to secure its fu...
It shows us the Empress Theodora and that great restoration of 843. She stands beside the Hodegetria image of the Virgin and Child, and with her is her child, the boy Emperor Michael, both of them wearing elaborate Imperial crowns. Below them, in the...
So a great wave of iconoclastic violence swept the Orthodox Church in the years following 700. The theological debates went on for well over a century, and were very complex. But throughout, the people remained on the whole very firmly attached to th...
But what exactly is the Triumph of Orthodoxy, as shown in our painting at the British Museum? To find out, we've got to go back about seven hundred years. Given the centrality of icons in Orthodox worship, and the fervour with which they're described...
The painting of icons was primarily a spiritual rather than an artistic activity, and it was governed by strict guidelines. The particular artist is not important, what's key is motivation and methodology. It's an aspect of icons that fascinates the...
'Icon' is simply the Greek word for picture, and this picture is about a foot (30 cm) high, in fact it is almost exactly the same shape as a laptop computer. It's painted on a wooden panel, the figures in black and red, the background shining gold. I...
This week our programmes are about how people use objects to get closer to their gods. And how states use religious imagery to help rally the public. For the Byzantine Empire around 1400, it had never been more important to seek divine help. The succ...
067:EPISODE 67 - Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy 正信凯旋圣像 Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy (painted in the late fourteenth century), from Istanbul What does a great empire do when it's faced with imminent invasion and destruction? It can...
Certainly the veneration of the Crown of Thorns remains very much alive. It was Napoleon who decided that it should be housed permanently in Notre Dame, and there, on the first Friday of every month, the whole Crown of Thorns, from which our one thor...