Bologna, Italy, 2025

I can find something interesting in any time period/style of art, but I do have my favorites; for painting, Impressionism, and for sculpture, the Baroque, Bernini in particular. I confess to being dismissive of centuries of creative work, thinking anything prior to the Renaissance was just preparation for what came next (which I suppose is kinda always true about everything), and Byzantine work felt so flat I never spent much time looking at it. It also used a lot of gold leaf, which felt like void spaces in the composition, and, unlike some folks, I think a little gold goes a long way.

From a distance, taking in the whole of a Byzantine painting, it feels flat because it predates the use of perspective in drawing and painting, using visual illusions to suggest depth. Those clues could include linear perspective (parallel lines converge in the distance), aerial perspective (scenes at greater distances are hazier), overlapping, size constancy (the same object at a greater distance will be smaller).

But visiting the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna’s collection of Italo-Byzantine work made me realize, I don’t think I had ever seen an original Byzantine piece up close, only reproductions in books, or slides in an Art History class. It was revealing. While the overall image might be flat, the interior details include substantial light and shadow modeling to give three dimensional feeling to the faces and features of the people in the scene. And in the gold leaf, the impressions made to create the halo give that dimension as well.

I haven’t changed my favorites, but came across a random show and it showed me something.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index