A Byzantine Masterpiece Recovered, the Thirteenth-century Murals of Lysi, CyprusThis book treats the dome and apse paintings pirated from a small Greek Orthodox church isolated in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus in the years following the Turkish invasion of 1974. It lays out a remarkable threefold effort of restoration. First is their restoration, through their rescue from the shadowy underworld of the illegal art market, to public awareness and admiration, as described in Bertrand Davezac's introduction. Second is their physical restoration undertaken by Laurence Morrocco, who received the paintings cut by the pirates into thirty-eight segments which had lost their curvature. Morrocco developed techniques of unprecedented sophistication to return the flattened segments to their original shape and then to fit them together so nearly perfectly that the beauties of the work, e.g., the rhythmic waves made by the wings of the angels in the outer ring of the dome, have been preserved. He precisely details here his uncharted course over four years, capturing its aspect as a perilous adventure. A third restoration unfolds in Annemarie Weyl Carr's text as the paintings are restored to their historical and artistic context. Richly informative about the life and meaning of Byzantine art, the paintings have proved to be even more important in casting light on the culture of Cyprus in the thirteenth century, when Crusader conquerors, native Cypriots, and Middle Eastern immigrants joined in a vibrantly creative, symbiotic society. The book shows how crucial it is that we protect artifacts in their own shape and context, restoring them to the worlds that made, used, loved, and found meaning in them. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
apse Archangel archbishop architecture artistic Asinou Athanasios Papageorghiou back-to-back angels Blachernai Byzantine art Byzantine Painting Byzantium chrysography Church of Cyprus church of St Chypre clear paper facing color concave mold Constantinople convex Crusader curvature Cypria Cypriot Cyprus's Department of Antiquities Dikman dome and apse Dominique de Menil Doula Dumbarton Oaks Papers Ethafoam Famagusta figure fourteenth century glue Greek Herakleidios History of Cyprus Holy inner dome inpainting inscription intervention layer island Kalogrea Kurt Weitzmann Kykkotissa Lagoudera Latin Church Lefkara linear Lusignan Lysi Lysi's Menil Collection Menil Foundation Monagri monastery monuments Moutoullas naos narthex Neophytos Nicholas Nicosia orante Virgin Orthodox outer dome paint surface Painted Churches painter Palaiologan Panagia panels Pantokrator Perachorio Petsopoulos Plate Prepared Throne removed restored dome detail Saint saw cuts Sinai Stylianou and Stylianou surviving Syrian templates Themonianos Theodore Apseudes third Asinou style thirteenth century Thirteenth-Century Icon Painting Trikomo twelfth wall paintings Walter Hopps τοῦ