This edited collection tackles the multilayered meanings and complex relationships of type and archetype within pagan, Jewish, and Christian traditions, extending the discussion beyond issues of formalism and representation and underscoring new methods of analysis. Building on a panel organized at the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies in Belgrade, Serbia (August 2016), the volume “reassess[es] methodologies that address type and archetype, as its ultimate source, by contextualizing questions of typology within the scope of Judeo-Christian primary textual sources and evidence emerging from selected art and architectural examples in the Mediterranean region” (3). The book underscores how the relationship between type and archetype can be realized, visualized, and contextualized, arguing for the value of pairing the two concepts within architecture and image theories.
The volume features an introduction, eight main chapters authored by an international team of scholars, and a concluding chapter that highlights themes, terms, and critical aspects related to the contributions. The latter is a particularly valuable inclusion. The individual chapters tackle case studies in different media and historical contexts in order to “understand individual examples of a type within a given category and to provide insight into historical, geographical, and cultural specificities of typology in the visual art and architecture” (13). The first chapter addresses the representation of imperial women in the diverse cultural, social, and religious landscapes of the central Balkans relative to the archetype of the divine heiress. Both type and archetype informed the ideological image of the empress. “The archetype could be traced all the way back to the enthroned goddesses of the prehistoric world. Via imperial attributes of the Greco-Roman goddesses it was mutually intertwined with the image of the Theotokos, with both known inherited aspects—maternal and virginal” (41). Ch. 2 examines the Constantinopolitan Hodegetria icon, its rituals, and its replicas, moving beyond traditional visual and iconographic paradigms. The analysis underscores the value of thinking capaciously about names, dedications, locations, and devotional practices in considerations about the relationships between the original and its “copies.” These first two chapters could be particularly useful teaching tools within medieval image theory courses.
Ch. 3 draws attention to spatial settings and visual connections within religious structures. It investigates the associations and typological relationships between icons and relics in the spatial setting of the church of Christ Pantokrator at Dečani Monastery. The case study focuses on the display of the holy remains of King Stefan Dečanski inside the church, before the iconostasis, and relative to the icon of Christ and the altar beyond, drawing a connection with the archetypal body of Christ. Ch. 4 looks at the symbolic and conceptual meanings of architectural imagery (“figural compositions where an architectural structure provides a visually prominent and regularized element” [101]) in Late Roman and early Byzantine art. The focus is on arches, the pedimented front, and the combination of the two. Ch. 5 investigates the layered meanings of the representation of the Jewish Temple in the fourteenth-century Sarajevo Haggadah, questioning whether the image offers a type or archetype. It would be worth exploring further how the concepts of representation and abstraction compare with recent work on these topics within the western medieval tradition.
The final three chapters focus on ecclesiastical architecture, revealing how the “type remains inseparable from its conceptual and formal aspects” (234). Ch. 6 examines the notion of “type” in Byzantine architecture by taking as a case study the mid-eleventh-century church of Nea Moni on Chios. According to local tradition, it emulates the mausoleum of Constantine the Great in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, but it also references the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Its conceptual similarities reveal the importance of considering form and meaning in Byzantine architecture. Ch. 7 looks at five-domed churches in the Middle and Late Byzantine periods from the perspective of the beholder. Their design and decoration ought to be considered together within the spatial setting of the church as such structures “reflect the prototype of a dome, domical vault, or a heavenly canopy” (208). Finally, Ch. 8 discusses the multivalent feature of the canopy in Byzantine architecture relative to Vitruvius’s concept of the “primitive hut” and its later adaptations within Judeo-Christian contexts, reconsidering the study of Byzantine architectural typology beyond two-dimensional representations and bridging the study of ancient and early modern architectural theories. Indeed, a key point is that architectural analyses ought to engage with the three-dimensional spatial aspects of buildings, not just their layout and elevation, in order to put forth more nuanced considerations of architectural types.
By focusing attention on historically contextualized case studies that explore concepts of types and archetypes, this volume successfully investigates typology as a scholarly tool used in the study of visual arts and architecture of the late antique and Byzantine contexts. It also draws attention to the relationship between the material and immaterial aspects of the type-and-archetype constructs, which are, in the end, inseparable within holistic art historical and architectural analyses. Other valuable considerations highlighted in this publication include questions of meaning, referentiality, and temporality within art and architecture; modes of transfer between archetype and type; issues of scale, flexibility, creativity, and availability of resources; and issues of terminology. Within the thematic framework on this volume, the editors conclude that: “The type is a model, a pattern; archetype its essence, the foremost, original type. Prototype is a generic and generative, sensible model; stereotype its fixed but oversimplified version; antitype its future, dynamic counterpart” (234).
This edited volume is beautifully designed and produced with good-quality color images integrated throughout the texts, glossy paper, and footnotes. Several figures feature in multiple chapters with slightly different captions (Fig. 5.1 and Fig. 6.11) or differ in quality (Fig. 5.2 and Fig. 6.12). Also, all of the chapters could have benefitted from the inclusion of subheadings (like Chs. 1, 4, and 5) to guide the reading process and ensure consistency of presentation across the volume. But besides these small quibbles, this is a valuable publication not only for its careful methodological and theoretical considerations of types and archetypes within late antique and Byzantine art, architecture, and visual culture, but also for bringing attention to excellent scholarship that touches on east European topics and contexts.
