Narrative Mode in Late Byzantine Painting: Questions it Raises about Sacred Images
Narrative imagery is a fundamental element both in the culture and history of figural representation. Working from this premise, this paper focuses on the narrative as opposed to iconic-devotional imagery in the Byzantine art. It discusses a selection of compositional methods and features that illustrate the increasing popularity of narrative images and cycles in Late Byzantine mural painting (13th-15th cc.). It analysis how such techniques and devices influenced perception and reception of images and stimulated a stronger interest in their message. Stemming from a research project that investigates the significance of the growing narrative expression in Late Byzantine painting, this paper questions how pictorial discourse was created in such images. In turn, the increased narrative mode in pictorial representations is studied as a sign of deeper transformations in Late Byzantine culture and society: symptoms of a "fin d'epoque".