For want of a better term, we will label this latter group non-donation contact portraits, although we will return to the question of terminology at the conclusion of this study. A case-in-point is Albrecht Drers self-portrait from 1500. Endowed funds provide income every year in perpetuity to carry out the designated purpose of the fund. James WEALE, Gnalogie de la famille Morales, in Le Beffroi, 18641865, pp 179196. As Brubaker points out, however, this cannot be the case for the Constantine and Justinian panel, because the mosaic is dated to the tenth century, a minimum of 300-plus years after the death of its most recently living lay figure, Justinian, who died in 565. In Italy donors, or owners, were rarely depicted as the major religious figures, but in the courts of Northern Europe there are several examples of this in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, mostly in small panels not for public viewing. For a detailed discussion of the panels themselves in relation to their historical context, see I. Andreescu-Treadgold and W. Treadgold, Procopius and the Imperial Panels of S. Vitale, Art Bulletin 79 (1997): 70823. Their purpose is fundamentally different. : Harvard University Press, 1991. In order to understand how this development comes about, and indeed, in order to appreciate the distinctive character of the Byzantine iteration of these scenes, it is beneficial to look at examples of contact portraits in the artistic traditions preceding Byzantium. Actually, you dont have to imagine, with thankQ CRM, you can do it! Nicolas Rgnier: Self-Portrait with a Portrait on an Easel. Each image, then, plays a delicate game, attempting to combine various factors in different proportions in order to achieve a precise, although not equal, degree of power and piety. It is true that, within the overall pictorial schema of the church, the gift is ultimately destined for Christ in the apse, but the absence in the image itself of the figure for whom it is intended has certain consequences. All you need to do now is start talking to them.So, what are you waiting for? While representation of the middle class was considered the norm in Holland, other, more politically conservative European countries saw their painters stick with royalty and nobility. For the imperial scenes see also Spatharakis, Portrait, 12229, and P. Magdalino and R. Nelson, The Emperor in Byzantine Art of the Twelfth Century, Byzantinische Forschungen 8 (1982): 12384, at 14951. For Theodore, there is no question but that he is entirely focused on Christ, wrapped up in his relationship with him. 666 in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, of around 1120. Here too, the thought of ownership comes more to mind than donation. I, 23642. Throughout Byzantine history, a steady stream of pictures in manuscripts, mosaics, ivories, and coins proclaimed the supreme rank of the emperor, and declared his almost-godly standing.Footnote 6 The clearest statement of this is to be found in the numerous divine coronations emanating from the royal palace in Constantinople. If you dont know who they are (yes, there can be more than one segment or portrait) you are fundraising in the dark. Dive into your data and start designing a donor journey that lasts! 1.7). ), The Languages of Gift in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 4261. From the coronation mantle to the angle Rigaud used, every element of the painting works together to create a single, instantly recognizable effect: making the king appear larger than life. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It speaks not only of the status of the emperor, but is an explanation of that status, telling how it comes to be. The more we look at the Dragutin and Oliver scenes, however, the less they appear to concern a true donation, and the more appropriate the term ktetor seems to be. Donor portraits are very common in religious works of art, especially paintings, of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the donor usually shown kneeling to one side, in the foreground of the image. Theodore, for example, leans forward imploringly, his brow knitted in consternation, as Christ remains sealed within his own energy field. Imperial ktetor scenes obviously differ in several respects from these coronations; yet, when viewed through the prism of power relationships, they share certain key features. In Byzantium this is the general rule for imperial images, for the reasons discussed above. Donor portrait usually refers to the portrait or portraits of donors alone, as a section of a larger work, whereas votive portrait may often refer to a whole work of art intended as an ex-voto, including for example a Madonna, especially if the donor is very prominent. 39 On the manuscript and its miniatures, see K. Lake and S. Lake, Dated Greek Minuscule Manuscripts to the Year 1200, 10 vols. From the upright monk in the Melbourne Gospels, who nonetheless inclines toward the Virgin and Child with some intensity, to the apparent abjection of the supplicant in ms. Lavra A 103, to the sincere concern of Theodore at the Kariye Camii (Fig. For example, a chapel at Mals in South Tyrol has two fresco donor figures from before 881, one lay and the other of a tonsured cleric holding a model building. Whenever the development takes place, however, it certainly opens a new chapter of immediacy and intensity in the contact between the lay and holy figures in the images. gr. 1.21).Footnote 31 Here, we have a representation of Hadrian (although his head was later reworked to resemble the emperor Constantine) on the right of the image, extending his hand over an altar, in the process of sacrificing to the goddess Diana. Also see K. Clark, Checklist of Manuscripts in the Libraries of the Greek and Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem (Washington: Library of Congress, 1953), 15 and 30, and Spatharakis, Portrait, 5759. Gradually these traditions worked their way down the social scale, especially in illuminated manuscripts, where they are often owner portraits, as the manuscripts were retained for use by the person commissioning them. It is often passionate and exaggerated, leaving little doubt that the physical exertions required to enter the position could only be motivated by the most powerful feelings toward the figure being adored. They appear more impassive, and their royal demeanor is better maintained. In sum, then, the distinction that emerges most clearly from the above discussion concerns images that on the one hand demonstrate ownership, and on the other are preoccupied with contact, irrespective of whether they show the human figures giving a gift or not. Often, even late into the Renaissance, the donor portraits, especially when of a whole family, will be at a much smaller scale than the principal figures, in defiance of linear perspective. 41 Von Simson, Sacred Fortress, 2729. Muz., Syn. If they are on different sides, the males are normally on the left for the viewer, the honorific right-hand placement within the picture space. In family groups the figures are usually divided by gender. Figure 1.11: Young boy and man approaching S. Demetrios, mosaic on west wall, Church of Hagios Demetrios, Thessalonika, before 620. Groups of members of confraternities, sometimes with their wives, are also found. Hostname: page-component-75b8448494-jf2r5 Portrait of a Female Donor, c. 1455 Not on View Medium oil on panel Dimensions overall: 41.8 x 21.6 cm (16 7/16 x 8 1/2 in.) The Mosaics of the Southern Vestibule, Gifts and Prayers: The Visualization of Gift-Giving in Byzantium and the Mosaics at Hagia Sophia, The Languages of Gift in the Early Middle Ages, Architecture and Ornamental Mosaics in the South Vestibule of St Sophia at Istanbul: The Secret Door of the Patriarchate and the Imperial Entrance to the Great Church, Sacred Fortress: Byzantine Art and Statecraft in Ravenna, Writing in Gold: Byzantine Society and its Icons, The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai: The Icons, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Period (ca. See also S. Radoji, Geschichte der Serbischen Kunst: von den Anfngen bis zum Ende des Mittelalters (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1969), 42. To fundraise successfully, you cant rely on industry averages. In courtly settings, portraits often had diplomatic significance. 1514; Louvre) uses the half-length format seen in the Mona Lisa but tightens the focus on the sitter by highlighting his lively face against a softly lit gray backdrop. Instead, you should start by analyzing your data as a whole. ), Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204 (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 1997): see especially Maguires chapter The Heavenly Court, 24758. 40 For more on proskynesis in Byzantine art, amongst a large bibliography, see A. Cutler, Transfigurations: Studies in the Dynamics of Byzantine Iconography (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1975), 5391; L. Brubaker, Gesture in Byzantium, Past and Present 4 (2009): 3656; and Hillsdale, Byzantine Art and Diplomacy, 12633. ), Das byzantinische Herrscherbild (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1975), and H. Maguire (ed. New York: Pantheon, 1966. This is visible in the forward tilt of his shoulders, and his head leaning back to peer up at Christ through slightly furrowed brows. Now that people were able to capture each others likenesses instantly and with greater precision than any human hand ever could, modern painters much like the ancient ones finally returned to abstraction. The representation of Hadrians sacrifice operates in what might be called realist mode, restricting itself to a description of a ceremony such as it might have been seen to take place in the world at a particular moment in time. Even if true supplicants, fervent and humble, seeking contact and the opportunity to deliver a plea, Leo and Theodore are also ktetors, and these images cannot help but speak of social status too. The Hagia Sophia panels constitute, in effect, the later, updated version of the same idea. This change reflected a new growth of interest in everyday life and individual identity as well as a revival of Greco-Roman custom. Yes, its a process. This uneven chronological distribution of the images sets natural limits to the time-frame of this study, since most of the images and, indeed, related discourses and texts used in our investigations fall between the late eleventh and fifteenth centuries. Figure 1.27: Basil before the Virgin, Lectionary, Greek Patriarchate, Jerusalem, Megale Panhagia 1, fol. Market research:If you dont know much about your donors, there is no harm in asking. See also A. Beihammer, S. Constantinou, and M. Parani (eds. If youre swimming in numbers, it can be hard to make sense of them, so think carefully about the fields you need, and keep your analysis focused. In 2019, the university's Women & Science Initiative and Women in Science at Rockefeller came together in what is now called the Women & Science Portrait Initiative. [27], Donor portraits in works for churches, and over-prominent heraldry, were disapproved of by clerical interpreters of the vague decrees on art of the Council of Trent, such as Saint Charles Borromeo,[28] but survived well into the Baroque period, and developed a secular equivalent in history painting, although here it was often the principal figures who were given the features of the commissioner. Weve all heard of Gwendolyn Giver the stereotypical supporter (just in case you havent, shes female, aged 45 to 60 and loves to give, preferably with cash). Of course, with thousands of donors on the books, we dont expect you to create a profile for each one. After many centuries in which generic representation had been the norm, distinctive portrait likenesses began to reappear in Europe in the fifteenth century. Rogues like Drer and Van Eyck notwithstanding, portraiture did not make a large-scale comeback until the start of the Renaissance a period during which the genre acquired new meanings and purposes. 680850). To do so would be to show him as less than the powerful force he wishes to be taken for. If this image is not a contact-donation portrait, then, what of the mosaic panel in the southwest vestibule of the Church of Hagia Sophia, representing the emperors Constantine and Justinian (Fig. It documents historical events, and, to be sure, also refigures them by drawing them into a religious setting; these are not just public works, but works dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Christ, as is appropriate to the Orthodox Byzantine Empire. Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is Copyright 2009-2022, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Thus even though at first sight these imperial ktetor portraits look like a species of donor portrait, their closest structural relative is the coronation. 19 K. Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai: The Icons (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), icon B39, 6667. Brooklyn-based artist Brenda Zlamany, who painted a . The Literal, the Symbolic, and the Contact Portrait: On Belief in the Interaction between Human and Divine. Vatic. [13], Donor portraits of noblemen and wealthy businessmen were becoming common in commissions by the 15th century, at the same time as the panel portrait was beginning to be commissioned by this class - though there are perhaps more donor portraits in larger works from churches surviving from before 1450 than panel portraits. The central panel shows the Incredulity of Thomas ("Doubting Thomas") and the work as a whole is ambiguous as to whether the donors are represented as occupying the same space as the sacred scene, with different indications in both directions. Not one member of the retinue rocks his or her head back to gaze at the gods looming above. Here we return to the issue of the dual agenda of these images, as making claims both religious and social, although not necessarily in equal degrees. A donor portrait or votive portrait is a portrait in a larger painting or other work showing the person who commissioned and paid for the image, or a member of his, or (much more rarely) her, family.Donor portrait usually refers to the portrait or portraits of donors alone, as a section of a larger work, whereas votive portrait may often refer to a whole work of art . For example, a chapel at Mals in South Tyrol has two fresco donor figures from before 881, one lay and the other of a tonsured cleric holding a model building. [7] Additional family members, from births or marriages, might be added later, and deaths might be recorded by the addition of small crosses held in the clasped hands. Published online: 26 October 2018. Figure 1.4: Zoe and Constantine Monomachos before Christ, mosaic in south gallery of the Church of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, 102850. John and Irene are more upright and frontal than Zoe and Constantine, and their size relative to the holy figures has been increased. Using your data to create a great donor portrait. Look at your headline numbers. In the first place, Christ is given the benefit of the uppermost, centralized placement, in contrast to the two emperors, who appear below him, and to the side. All show a similar range of concerns to the ones seen above. Yet, in terms of standard contact portraits, this image is still unusual. Early Netherlandish painters, bridging the gap between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, introduced a number of features we take for granted today. Moreover, the emperors do not turn to acknowledge Christ, but stand stiff, facing rigidly forward. Figure 1.2: Despot Oliver, painting in narthex, Church of the Holy Archangels, Lesnovo, FYR Macedonia, 1341. Oliver looks entirely regal, proud, and majestic every inch the king. These scenes, however, are not the only ones demonstrating the overlapping concerns of the worldly and the spiritual. The reasons for this discrepancy are instructive. Donors give for many reasons, but donors stop giving for primarily one reason; they don't know how their gift is being used. 1.16).Footnote 26 An Akkadian seal in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has the supplicants approaching a seated deity in prayer, but empty-handed (23502200 BC, Fig. 31 M. Boatwright, Hadrian and the City of Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 190202. They are your audience, the people reading your direct mail, visiting your website, or following you on social media. The profile view, which was favored in ancient coins, was frequently adopted in the fifteenth century, for instance, in Fra Filippo Lippis picture of a woman at a window, with a young man peeking in (89.15.19). As is to be expected, almost nothing has survived from the iconoclastic period, the one exception perhaps being an icon of St. Irene with a very small supplicant in proskynesis beside her, dated by Weitzmann to the eighth or ninth century (Monastery of St. Katherine, Sinai, Fig. This is particularly the case for the last chapter, which is less dependent on contemporary historical factors than arguments made earlier in the book. Gr. As you start to find the basic shape, dig into the details and look for commonalities across your supporter base. gr. This is imperial iconography at its purest. A portrait was often commissioned at a significant moment in someones life, such as betrothal, marriage, or elevation to an office. To save content items to your account, 1162) e dellevangeliario greco Urbinate (cod. These are a great place to start, and if you want to dig deeper theres no shortage of online platforms or providers that can offer a deep-dive into your analytics. Gr. gr. But what if we told you she doesnt exist? Visual documentation includes donor portraits (images where the features of the patron are included in the work), inscriptions, coats of arms, and other imagery that represents the family or the community of the person or people paying. Jnsdttir, in a discussion dealing with medieval Icelandic manuscripts, yet clearly applicable to our field as well, states that such scenes are not likely to be pictures of donors, because [they] do not show what they are giving, or whether they are giving anything at all.Footnote 4 Only representations of an actual donation are donor portraits, she maintains. [7], At least in Northern Italy, as well as the grand altarpieces and frescos by leading masters that attract most art-historical attention, there was a more numerous group of small frescoes with a single saint and donor on side-walls, that were liable to be re-painted as soon as the number of candles lit before them fell off, or a wealthy donor needed the space for a large fresco-cycle, as portrayed in a 15th-century tale from Italy:[8]. Donor portrait explained. It is thus not an image in which those represented are themselves seeking forgiveness and salvation.Footnote 15. The Middle Ages, ushered in by the fall of the Roman Empire and the dissolution of its cultural influences in central and northern Europe, saw a complete overhaul in the style of portrait painting. Before the 15th century a physical likeness may not have often been attempted, or achieved; the individuals depicted may in any case often not have been available to the artist, or even alive. In family groups the figures are usually divided by gender. Figure 1.19: Christ and St. John Chrysostom, Gospels, Iveron Monastery, Mount Athos, ms. 5, fol. And not least, their spectacular gold costumes create a display more impressive than Christs relatively subdued blue robes. On the one hand, these variations are rendered possible because these portraits of lay figures do not have to adhere to the rules governing the representation of holy figures in their eternal truth. One of the distinctive features of these contact portraits is their appearance through many levels of society. A prosperous glassmaker and his family, 1596. In medieval art, donors were frequently portrayed in the altarpieces or wall paintings that they commissioned, and in the fifteenth century painters began to depict such donors with distinctive features presumably studied from life. 1.6). These paintings were called donor portraits, and their purpose was to inspire the commissioner and their loved ones toward prayer. 1v, c. 1120. What had first appeared to us as a donor portrait, then, is rather an image of an emperor asserting to his lord the orthodoxy of his views. [16], A particular convention in illuminated manuscripts was the "presentation portrait", where the manuscript began with a figure, often kneeling, presenting the manuscript to its owner, or sometimes the owner commissioning the book. In addition to these rather public aspects of identity, portraits may also suggest the sitters inner psychology or state of mind. 18 R. Cormack, Writing in Gold: Byzantine Society and its Icons (London: George Philip, 1985), 8185. All the other scenes would go by the name ktetor portraits. Jan van Eyck's Rolin Madonna is a small painting where the donor Nicolas Rolin shares the painting space equally with the Madonna and Child, but Rolin had given great sums to his parish church, where it was hung, which is represented by the church above his praying hands in the townscape behind him. 1350, with donor portrait of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor holding a miniature church, as he had presumably paid for the whole building the painting was intended for. Although none have survived, there is literary evidence of donor portraits in small chapels from the Early Christian period,[11] probably continuing the traditions of pagan temples. Jacobs, Lynn F., "Rubens and the Northern Past: The Michielsen Triptych and the Thresholds of Modernity". [11] In subsequent centuries bishops, abbots and other clergy were the donors most commonly shown, other than royalty, and they remained prominently represented in later periods. Mannerist artists adjusted these conventions to produce works like Bronzinos portrait of a young man (29.100.16) painted in the 1530s: the figure again appears half-length, but the expression is aloof rather than serene, curious pieces of furniture replace the barrier along the lower border, and the handsthe right fingering the pages of a book and the left fixed on the hipsuggest momentary action and bravado rather than quiet dignity. But in devotional subjects such as a Madonna and Child, which were more likely to have been intended for the donor's home, the main figures may look at or bless the donor, as in the Memling shown. 15035; Muse du Louvre, Paris), for instance, increases the sense of connection between sitter and viewer by placing the hands on the window ledge; the enigmatic smile departs from the perfect composure seen elsewhere. 32 D. Levi, Antioch Mosaic Pavements, 2 vols. The gesture signifies an aggrandizing flow of power from the dominant force in the universe to his designated beneficiaries.Footnote 8. The image articulates these positions through a number of pictorial devices.