Justin Willson | The Icon Museum and Study Center (original) (raw)

Papers by Justin Willson

Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 2024

The attitude of Slavs towards Byzantine speculative thought can broadly be described as hesitant.... more The attitude of Slavs towards Byzantine speculative thought can broadly be described as hesitant. This essay takes the writings on visions of the Bulgarian theologian Euthymios of Tarnovo as a case study to test this thesis. Whereas the Greek hesychast Gregory of Palamas had argued that the saints behold God’s glory without mediation, Euthymios took a more modest approach, asserting that angels intervene to bestow visions upon the saints. Euthymios is often described in the scholarship as a ‘hesychast’, yet his views on visions in fact align more closely with Palamas’s opponents and the Corpus of Pseudo-Dionysios.

Print Quarterly, 2024

In early modern Russia, icon painting workshops developed a set of techniques for reproducing the... more In early modern Russia, icon painting workshops developed a set of techniques for reproducing the outlines of compositions. They employed the results, here named icon prints, as teaching tools and records of imagery. Closest to a monotype, the prints fall somewhere between a drawing and a fine arts print and have seldom been studied by art historians. This essay introduces a previously unstudied collection of icon prints kept at the Hilandar Research Library in Columbus, Ohio, which once belonged to the icon painter Pimen Sofronov (1898-1973). Icon print collections played a pivotal role in the late nineteenth-century revival of medieval iconography, and the Sofronov collection provides glimpses into the documentary practices and didactic aspirations of Old Believers, whose studios preserved traditional craft techniques.

Art in Translation, 2023

In early modern Russia, church officials who validated cults sought to curb the authority of pari... more In early modern Russia, church officials who validated cults sought to curb the authority of parishes which owned profitable, miracle-working icons. Nadezhda Pivovarova examines the investigations into the icon of Simon of Yuryevets, a holy fool whose image was banned in the early eighteenth century. This act of censorship reversed almost a century of devotion at the saint's shrine. Nevertheless, Simon's icon continued to be venerated by local parishioners until his cult was finally revived by scholars in the late nineteenth century, winning him immense fame. Through a meticulous reading of archival documents, Pivovarova elucidates the steps taken by the Holy Synod to authenticate Simon's cult. Pivovarova's study provides valuable insight into the church's thinking when rejecting a popular icon. Moreover, her essay excavates the events that led to a reimagining of the vita icon-one of Byzantium's most enduring artistic forms-which still ranks among the most widespread icon types in Orthodoxy.

The Russian Review, Vol. 82, no. 2, 2023

Few debates in late seventeenth-century Muscovy were as heated as the controversy over the naming... more Few debates in late seventeenth-century Muscovy were as heated as the controversy over the naming of the Resurrection “New Jerusalem” Monastery (1656). This essay draws attention to an overlooked sixteenth-century source, a letter by the Greek-born Slavic translator Maksim Grek (d. 1556), which played an important role in shaping the Church’s thinking. Maksim’s letter helps to explain why Jerusalem ideology took a very different path in Russia than it did in Western Europe, and why replications of the Holy Sepulcher are only very rarely encountered in Muscovy. Maksim’s letter introduces several themes which foreshadow the course of the later debate: the irrevocability of Jerusalem’s name; the inalienable holiness of the loca sancta; and the connection between the holy sites and churches built on them. These themes, in turn, invite a reconsideration of the success of Jerusalem ideology in Muscovy, which has often been taken for granted. We first situate this contrarian text in its original context and then trace its mediation through important Ruthenian authors who guaranteed its wide reception in Moscow. Our study demonstrates that the Russian clergy and the Moscow Synod of 1666/67 based their critiques of the ‘New Jerusalem’ Monastery’s name on a reading of Maksim’s letter and its mediators.

Journal of Byzantine Studies (JOeB) - Jahrbuch der Oesterreichischen Byzantinistik, 2021

volume 71 (2021) Journal of Byzantine Studies (JOeB) Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinisti... more volume 71 (2021)
Journal of Byzantine Studies (JOeB)
Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik

with conbribution by Fabio Acerbi, Patrick Andrist - Caroline Macé - Sabine Fahl - Dieter Fahl, John Cotsonis, Andrea Massimo Cuomo, Christian Gastgeber, Álvaro Ibánez Chacón, Savvas Kyriakidis, Teresa Martínez Manzano, Andreas Rhoby, Justin L. Willson
Reviews of the following new publications:
Ingela NILSSON, Writer and Occasion in Twelfth-Century Byzantium. The Authorial Voice of Constantine Manasses (Carolina Cupane)
Nadine VIERMANN, Herakleios, der schwitzende Kaiser. Die oströmische Monarchie in der ausgehenden Spätantike (Nikolas Hächler)
Multidisciplinary Approaches to Food and Foodways in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean, ed. Sylvie Yona WAKSMAN (Nicholas Trépanier)

Speculum Vol. 98, no. 3, 2023

Byzantine art has a reputation for being less based in diagrams than Western medieval art. The pr... more Byzantine art has a reputation for being less based in diagrams than Western medieval art. The present essay offers a reassessment of this view through an examination of debates between Greeks and Latins from the eleventh to the fifteenth century. This cultural give-and-take led to a reassessment of trinitarian iconography among Greek theologians. Taking as its case study an overlooked class of theological diagrams, the paper suggests that late Byzantine art may in fact be more 'diagrammatic' than has typically been assumed. Exploring the relation between these diagrams and two types of trinitarian images, the Synthronoi and Paternitas, the essay shows that viewers interpreted schematic drawings in line with icons. Tracing the evolution of the 'triangular' diagram and 'rectilinear' axis through several Greek authors, this essay provides a period-vocabulary for discussing formal structures of representation that cut across East and West.

Word & Image, 2022

In medieval Greek manuscripts, scribes often compared their completion of the transcription of a ... more In medieval Greek manuscripts, scribes often compared their completion of the transcription of a codex to a ship reaching a harbor. Scholars have noted that this nautical imagery shaped how poets conceptualized their work as an author, but the harbor metaphor also carried over to metaliterary and ekphrastic passages theorizing the affect of images and the built environment. Thus, a technical metaphor born to describe the physical labor of book-making was adapted to describe the intellectual labor of book-writing, image-making, and building. In the present study, I discuss the harbor metaphor via the concept of “terminality,” an impulse towards closure that inscribed the content of an object (logos, eikôn) or space (chora) within an experiential horizon. The terminus offers an opportunity to appreciate the often-overlooked importance of the letters themselves (the graphai) in the world before print. The graphê, quite simply, traced the contours of how other media were understood and perceived, providing assurance that literature and art were as well-regulated as the practice of scribal transcription.

Journal of Icon Studies, Vol. 3, 2020

Vizantiiskii vremennik Vol. 105, 2021

Three ivory triptychs in the Vatican, Rome, and Paris form the basis of this study. Examining lit... more Three ivory triptychs in the Vatican, Rome, and Paris form the basis of this study. Examining literary sources pertaining to the Byzantine capital and feasts associated with the Cross, this essay examines the significance of representations of pseudo-cast metal crosses on the rear of ivory triptychs. Whereas depictions of the cross have often been interpreted via the visual economy of relics of the True Cross, this essay contextualizes them within the urban fabric of Constantinople, where luxury ivory objects were produced and where the visibility and presentation of crosses was a highly orchestrated affair. Focusing on materiality, form, and setting, the essay explores the highly specific meanings of this ubiquitous Christian symbol.

Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik Vol. 71, 2021

The present study investigates the spread of the ho Ôn (ὁ ὤν) inscription in Christ's halo. Devel... more The present study investigates the spread of the ho Ôn (ὁ ὤν) inscription in Christ's halo. Developed in the early Palaiologan period, the inscription originates with the liturgy for the Feast of the Transfiguration and was popularized through the theology of light elucidated by Hesychasts. Contextualizing the epigraphic innovation within the wider debates over Hesychast theology, this essay pursues lines of inquiry first proposed by Titos Papamastorakis, who drew attention to the proliferation of this inscription in dome ensembles. The study concludes by discussing the reception of the ho Ôn inscription in the Post-Byzantine Greek and Slavic worlds.

West 86th Vol. 27, no. 2, 2020

Byzantium, like many other cultures, possessed a story of the origin of the crafts. Three ivory c... more Byzantium, like many other cultures, possessed a story of the origin of the crafts. Three ivory caskets in Cleveland, Darmstadt, and St. Petersburg depict the traditional story of Adam and Eve, only they include an unusual scene of the first couple at the forge as well as an image of Plutus, the god of wealth. Examining Byzantine ideas about the discovery of the technai, this essay interprets these boxes as object-genealogies, tracing their own material extravagance back into economic prehistory and eliciting wonder at the first couple's resourcefulness. The forge scene manifests a self-reflexive awareness within the artwork itself. The commodity claims to be descended from the first artifact. Romantically deriving craft labor from humanity's invention of metallurgy and farming, ivory workshops historicized a culture of consumption within the Byzantine capital. Adam and Eve's discoveries looked ahead to their own refined technology.

in Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Maria Alessia Rossi and Alice Isabella Sullivan (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 1-27, 2020

Solomon’s Allegory of Wisdom (Prov. 9:1-5) provided medieval craftsmen with a sophisticated medit... more Solomon’s Allegory of Wisdom (Prov. 9:1-5) provided medieval craftsmen with a sophisticated meditation on building. Examining a cupola fresco of the Allegory in Chrelja’s Tower (ca. 1335), I make an argument about intermediality. I posit that the painter left the iconography incomplete so as to be finished by the architecture. The painter’s interpretation of the allegory, the first of its kind, finds a parallel in a discourse by Patriarch Kokkinos. Demonstrating that Greeks and Slavs held similar views about building, I investigate what the fresco reveals about a shared cultural ‘commons.’ Rather than studying cross-cultural exchange via the models of ‘translation,’ artisanal networks, trade routes, or lines of ‘influence,’ the commons asks us to focus on the built conditions that enable any cultural give-and-take. Inquiring into how Byzantium (or rather Byzantine literature) and the Slavic world (a fresco in Bulgaria) shared forms of life, I discuss the fresco as a poignant reminder of general ideas about existence.

Res: Anthropology & Aesthetics 71/72, 2019

For nearly a century, scholars have interpreted a Byzantine reliquary of the True Cross at the Va... more For nearly a century, scholars have interpreted a Byzantine reliquary of the True Cross at the Vatican Museums using the framework of gift-giving, as famously theorized by Marcel Mauss. Brought to light in 1903, the reliquary is constructed of wood and consists of a shallow base with a sliding lid. Decorated with painted images outside and in, the reliquary’s unusual iconography has led scholars to suggest that it must have been designed as a gift from the Byzantine Church to the papacy. The outer surface of the lid displays a dramatic scene of the Crucifixion. Mary, who typically was shown standing beneath the Cross, drawing her hands to her mouth in grief, is instead represented bending forward to kiss her son’s feet. Dominating the inner side of the lid is an unprecedented, imposing image of the early bishop of Constantinople, John Chrysostom (340/50–407). Finally, at the bottom of the reliquary’s rectangular base, Peter and Paul, the foremost disciple and leading apostle of the Church, flank the relic cavity, a position artists often reserved for Constantine I (306–37) and his mother, Helena, who was believed to have miraculously discovered the True Cross in the fourth century.
It is the latter two sets of images—the depictions of John Chrysostom and of Peter and Paul—that have led to the conclusion that the reliquary was a gift from the Byzantine to the Catholic Church: scholars have claimed that Chrysostom was positioned to “face” the “Western” saints, Peter and Paul, when the reliquary was closed, as a sign of reconciliation between the Eastern and Western Churches. The present essay, drawing on liturgical texts overlooked by scholars writing about the reliquary, will instead argue that these iconographic features, in combination with the unusual representation of the Virgin, are better understood in relation to an important Byzantine feast: the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. In the first half of the essay, I shall introduce the complexity of the reliquary’s design in conversation with earlier scholarship. In the second half, I will show that these features can be explained through the liturgy of the Exaltation.

Byzantinoslavica: Revue internationale des études byzantines Vol. 78, 2020

The present study provides an edition and translation of a text on the interpretation of haloes b... more The present study provides an edition and translation of a text on the interpretation of haloes by the fourteenth-century scholar Theodore Pediasimos. Entitled "Theorems on the Nimbi of the Saints," Theodore's text was appended to the widely read Corpus of Pseudo-Dionysios the Areopagite who famously employed a metaphor comparing God to a circle. Theodore, who was a friend of the Hesychast theologian Gregory Palamas, abandoned the monastery early in life to teach literature and philosophy in Serres, Greece. Providing a glimpse into theoretical ideas debated by Hesychasts and their opponents during the Palamite 'Controversy,' the "Theorems" are couched in a meditative style. Over the course of eight aphorisms, Theodore argues for the polyvalent symbolism of nimbi, which in his view embody an eclectic variety of meanings. Noticeably absent is any discussion of God's light, then being fiercely debated by Hesychasts. Of far more interest to Theodore is the geometry and philosophical content of circles, as well as paradoxes of experience and dialectical reasoning. Presenting a normalized edition of the Greek text with a commentary, this essay situates Theodore's little-studied "Theorems" within the Byzantine tradition of writing about the icon and alongside contemporary artistic developments.

Studies in Iconography Vol. 41, 2020

The evangelist portraits in Stavronikita MS 43 (late tenth century) hold a central place in Middl... more The evangelist portraits in Stavronikita MS 43 (late tenth century) hold a central place in Middle Byzantine Gospel book illumination, but their relation to a nearly identical contemporary set of evangelist portraits in Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Palatini greci 220 has been little studied. The present study focuses on the gestures of the four authors, which are identical in the two manuscripts, alongside overlooked marginal scholia and a supplementary commentary in the Vatican Gospel book. I suggest that the miniatures ought to be interpreted as integral to the rhetorical content of the Gospel book rather than as entities appended to a finished text. Exploring what it means to view these images as portraits that were read “with,” this essay shows that reading habits were refracted through author portraits and cast light on questions concerning models and copies, and the ever-evolving relationship between writer and reader.

Journal of the History of Ideas Vol. 80, No. 1, 2020

Following Hans Blumenberg, this essay studies the genealogy of the idea of originality in a medie... more Following Hans Blumenberg, this essay studies the genealogy of the idea of originality in a medieval metaphor characterizing the church interior as a "meadow" or λειμῶν (leimôn). Scholars focusing on this metaphor have neglected its use as a description of artistic process. Procopius of Caesarea, John of Damascus, and Leo VI, "the Wise," form the basis of this study, which argues that compiling anthologies (Lat. florilegia, lit. "gatherings of flowers") provided a preliminary description of invention. This metaphor, in turn, laid an initial groundwork for modern writers, including Montesquieu, who sought to theorize originality against the language of manual labor.

Drafts by Justin Willson

Early Slavonic Webinar, Oxford, June 9, 2020

Edition and Translation of Primary Text

Talks by Justin Willson

Lecture at Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies , 2024

Printed media have been described as antagonistic to the art of icon painting and the act of vene... more Printed media have been described as antagonistic to the art of icon painting and the act of venerating holy images. This lecture challenges that view by sketching a broader picture of how printers in the Balkans and adjacent areas interacted with woodblock prints, engravings, and icon tracings.

Blog on Sources for Byzantine Art History Project, 2023

Books by Justin Willson

Cambridge University Press, 2028

Sources in Byzantine Art History, Volume 4 Orthodox art, for so long defined by the culture of t... more Sources in Byzantine Art History, Volume 4
Orthodox art, for so long defined by the culture of the Byzantine Empire, persisted long after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. This was not a static legacy. Rather, artistic production underwent a profound transformation during the Early Modern period. The artists and scholars who found patronage at the courts and ecclesiastical centers of the Early Modern Orthodox world were linked by a shared worldview shaped by the literary, philosophical, and liturgical heritage of Byzantium. Their world reached across and beyond the Ottoman empire, encompassing the Caucuses in the east, the African kingdom of Ethiopia in the south, the Venetian stronghold of Crete in the west and Moscow in the north. These varied voices reveal a vibrant, sustained engagement with questions that had long animated artistic discourse in Byzantium, even as they present new categories for conceptualizing that tradition. This volume will provide its reader with the texts necessary for understanding the fate of Orthodox art in the Early Modern era.
While dispersed across the map, the various cultural hubs that produced the texts to be edited and translated in this volume were linked by travel and trade, as well as by rhetorical postures, the spaces of literary imagination, and a shared body of rituals. Cities such as Venice, Moscow, Jerusalem, Kiev, Suceava and Tarnovo, and monastic centers at Athos and Sinai, as well as in Anatolia and Armenia, maintained and shaped this legacy, renewing the intellectual and spiritual life of the eastern churches. Their common ground endows the volume with coherence, even as the discursive breadth of the sources recognizes divergence within this wide-flung community.