Anghéliki Stavropoulou, «La représentation du Temple de Salomon dans les icônes crétoises: quelques aspects iconographiques», Cahiers Balkaniques 34 (2006), p. 145-157. (original) (raw)

“The representation of the Temple of Solomon in the Cretan Icons: certain iconographical aspects”, Cahiers Balkaniques 2004 This paper examines the representation of the Temple of Solomon in post-Byzantine Cretan icons. The focus of the research was centered on certain iconographical variants which display innovation, influenced by the tradition of the works of Western art. It is accepted knowledge that in Byzantine art, buildings are depicted conventionally. The Temple of Solomon, a characteristic monument of Jerusalem, has, in the background of scenes showing holy events, been depicted not in its original peripteral form but rather as a circular structure. This is due to the fact that the Mosque of Omar/Dome of the Rock, a Muslim construction, was built on the site previously occupied by the demolished Temple. The interchange between the two temples became prevalent following the Crusades through the seals of the Templars, but also in later eras through cartographical depictions of Jerusalem, which depicted the Judaean temple as a circular structure. The particular focus of the research was the circular structure which emerges over the walled Jerusalem and which older studies had identified as either the Holy Sepulcher or the Temple of Solomon. In the course of the research on the iconography of the Entry into Jerusalem it was ascertained that the aforementioned circular structure is not depicted in this particular scene before the 12th century, in other words before the Crusades. This information allows the hypothesis that it must refer to the Temple of Solomon. A presentation was subsequently made of the iconographical particularities of the depiction of the Temple of Solomon, which lacked Byzantine symbolism, having wholly adopted the realistic morphological elements reminiscent of “actual” structures [Mosque of Omar/Dome of the Rock, Tempietto by Bramante] or idealized Renaissance and Gothic structures. The Cretan painters, in the Venetian cultural environment of Crete, drew upon various Western templates for their creations [cartographical depictions of Jerusalem, Renaissance paintings and sketches]. The second section contains an examination of the icon by Ioannes Apakas [2nd half of the 16th c.] in Venice, which is of particular interest due to its depiction of the Temple of Solomon as its main subject. Here, the Temple is depicted in the form of a walled medieval city, the morphological templates of which were discerned in Italian works of the Quattrocento. At the same time, however, the symbolism of the structure refers to the Heavenly Jerusalem of the Apocalypse, which is given a similar rendering in the art of the medieval West.