Day 122 - Egyptian Byzantine wall design

January 28, 2019

Gallery 302,  carved out from under the Grand Staircase leading from the main to the second floor, is dedicated to the art of Byzantine Egypt. It's a reminder that until its conquest by the Muslims in 641, Egypt was one of the most important and wealthiest parts of that empire.  Christianity played an important role in the culture and art of the period; its influence can be seen in architectural elements taken from monasteries (among them, birds nibbling grapes, a symbol of the Eucharist) and in crosses adorning gravestones. I knew that the Coptic Church evolved separately from the Orthodox and Roman churches, but not that the name "Coptic" derives from the Greek term for Egypt, Aigyptos. (Now there's a word origin grounded in fact, not my idle speculations!)

Many objects come from the Met's turn-of-the-20th-century excavations in the Kharga oasis, located in the western desert at the intersection of trade routes from Nubia and the Nile Valley. The area had an active Christian community, and today's work comes from the Christian necropolis at Bagawat in that oasis. It's a facsimile done by a Met artist  of a 4th century painting found on the wall of a tomb there.  The caption says that the geometric design resembles textile and mosaic patterns found throughout the Mediterranean region, illustrating the connections  of the people of Kharga to the larger world.

But what I especially like is the effect of the optical illusions created by the diagonal lines and squares, some of which seem to protrude, others to recede.  There's no vanishing point of the kind we find in Renaissance perspective painting, but there's a three-dimensional quality nonetheless (which I hope my snapshot captures in some measure).  It reminds me of the work of Escher, so many hundreds of years later -- proof of the enduring power of these geometric forms. It's fun to look at, and I think the artist must have had fun creating it.