Hello blogging world!
I am currently on Spring Break so am taking something of a "brain break" for a few days before diving back into all the readings my professors have given me. The highlight of my break will be my visit to the Norton Simon I am doing in a few days with my mom and grandma! Not only will we be taking in the spectacular collection there, but will be spending a great deal of time in their special exhibit from the Museé d'Orsay which is on at the moment featuring some of the greatest works in Impressionist art. I will try to write a review of the exhibit when we go but just from what is online, I can tell it is going to be something special. If you have a free afternoon, I HIGHLY suggest you make the drive to Pasadena and visit this special museum. It has (in my opinion) a better collection than the Getty and the manner in which they organize and present the art is highly conducive to an enjoyable experience.
Be warned, you will have to reserve timed tickets to get into this exhibition. They do however allow you access to the rest of the museum as well which is nice. Let me know if you end up going and what your thoughts were!
Here is the link for the exhibit
Norton Simon- Museé d'Orsay exhibit
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Hagia Sophia- A Jewel Through the Ages
One of the many classes I took for my Art History degree was Islamic Art and Architecture. It was a fascinating class where we examined many of the art forms and items not normally studied. I wrote my term paper on the amazing church known as Hagia Sophia. This amazing site remains one of the top items on my bucket list of places to visit around the world. I'm hopeful that one day I will be able to cross it off my list. Hope you enjoy the discoveries I made while researching this church!
Hagia Sophia has a long and varied history. It began as a Byzantine Christian church, was converted to a Muslim mosque when the Ottomans overthrew the Byzantines and set up their empire in Istanbul, and then was once again transformed, this time into a national museum in 1935 that showcased its history as a mosque and church.
We will examine the architecture and history of Hagia Sophia. The building began as a Byzantine Christian church and when the Ottoman empire conquered Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul; they converted this magnificent church into a mosque which became known as the Ayasofya mosque.
Hagia Sophia was built in 532 AD after the church previously standing there had been destroyed due to a revolt by the people of Constantinople. The emperor of the time, Justinian, decided to build a church that would combine the traditional basilica form of a Christian church with a secular Roman dome such as was seen in the Pantheon in Rome. This form of architecture had never been seen before and presented many different challenges to the architects chosen by Justinian to design and oversee the building of the church.
The modern Hagia Sophia that stands today is the third or fourth reconstruction of the original building. This is due to natural disaster such as earthquakes, fire, and general destruction. Justinian used circumstances such as a revolt by the local people to expedite his plans to build the church he desired without having demolish the existing church to access the site he wanted to use.
The great church of Justinian was destined from the very outset of its history to be so wracked and jarred by earthquakes as to demand almost continual buttressing and repair. Indeed, from the accounts of Byzantine writers it has been calculated that twenty-seven severe earthquakes occurred in Constantinople from the beginning of the seventh to the middle of the fifteenth century, while the church itself has been shaken by at least sixteen major shocks since its completion in 537.
Justinian chose Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus to design Hagia Sophia for their mathematical skill and architectural prowess. He commissioned them to design a church that would put all other churches of the time to shame as well as stretch their mathematic and architectural abilities to the limit. Justinian wanted a traditional square church fused with the round dome seen in Roman architecture. There were numerous challenges surrounding this demand. The architects had to figure out a way to have a transitional feature that would allow them to build the circular dome as large as Justinian required. To do this, they created a new type of architectural feature known as a pendentive which is a triangular arch-like element that allows a builder to transition from a square base to a round dome. It was because of this pendentive as well as the four massive buttresses surrounding the church that the dome was capable of being as large as it is (fig 5).
There were two types of church plans that were most often used at this time. One is known as the basilica plan church which was popular in the western part of the world and was shaped similar to a cross. The other was known as the central plan church where there is a central dome and the entire church is much more compact in how it was constructed around that dome (fig 1).
There are experts who say that the Hagia Sophia is a central-plan church and others who say it is basilica-plan church. Based upon review of plans for both types of churches as well as the floor plans for the Hagia Sophia (fig 2,3), it is apparent that the Hagia Sophia is a melding of both the basilica-plan and central-plan style churches. This can be seen in the floor plan of Hagia Sophia (fig 3,4). Hagia Sophia has the length of a basilica-plan church with the centrality of a central-plan church. It may be that Justinian wanted to meld East and West within his church and that is why Hagia Sophia does not fit exactly into either of the church plans.
The dome of Hagia Sophia is the crowning glory of the church and is what defines this church as one of the greatest churches and architectural masterpieces of all time. The dome is one hundred and seven feet in diameter and only two feet thick. The size of the dome was an architectural feat not matched until Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome was built in 1506. Hagia Sophia’s dome has forty windows placed at the base of the dome which not only release some of the tension coming down but also provide light to the interior of the church and help to create an atmosphere within the church itself of mystery and religious sanctity (fig 8). The building materials used for this church hearkens back to the concrete used by the ancient Romans. They used almost entirely brick and mortar to build the church, including the dome, but the bases are made of stone to provide stability to the church. Hagia Sophia was also designed to look as though it is divided into four levels which look like registers. This not only draws the eye upward, but it also takes some of the stress away from the dome.
Hagia Sophia went through its first transformation in May 3, 1453 when the Ottomans swept into Constantinople and set up their empire in the newly renamed city of Istanbul. The Ottoman emperor Mehmet II (the Conqueror) was the one who brought about the changes to Hagia Sophia and began the alterations that make it the building seen today.
The Ottomans chose to not tear the building down for a number of reasons. The church was already an impressive structure at the time of conquest, even though it had fallen into some disrepair, and therefore it made sense to not waste money in building a whole new mosque rather than utilizing an existing structure. Another reason the Ottomans chose to retain the church is to showcase their power over the population by redoing the church. Hagia Sophia and how it was altered became the starting point and inspiration behind many of the other Ottoman mosques to come.
To change Hagia Sophia from a Christian church to a Muslim mosque, there were many changes that had to be made to both the interior as well as the exterior of the church. Hagia Sophia was not drastically altered at the time of Mehmet II in order to adapt it to a mosque. Little more was done than removing the Christian liturgical ornaments, building a mihrab and minbar towards Mecca, constructing one temporary wooden minaret for calls to prayer, and replacing the cross on the top of the dome with a traditional crescent.
Through the years, Hagia Sophia continued to be altered to suit the needs of the Muslim empire as their principal mosque in the city. Within the church, all of the Byzantine mosaics which made the church famous were whitewashed to cover them since there is no figural art allowed in Muslim holy spaces.(fig 9) Art historians are very lucky that the Ottomans only whitewashed over the mosaics instead of chipping them out so that we are able to view them today partially restored. Another change that was made was to add in large pendants which had Koranic inscriptions on them and hung around the nave under the large central dome. Traditional aspects of a mosque such as four minarets, the mihrab, minbar, were added gradually as the years passed and each Ottoman sultan sought to leave a mark of their patronage on the mosque.
Hagia Sophia remained an active mosque until 1931 when it was closed to the public. It remained closed for four years while repairs and changes were made to reflect its history as both a Christian church and mosque. It was reopened to the public in 1935 as a national museum and has remained as such since then. It has undergone and continues to undergo significant renovations to bring back the grandeur of its time as both a church and a mosque. In 2010, there was an extensive research project undertaken to ascertain and if possible, further preserve and protect the mosaics within Hagia Sophia. Scientists used methods such as infra-red thermography and ground penetrating radar were used to identify places where mosaics were in danger of decay due to environmental elements and also find mosaics still covered by plaster from the time of the Ottomans. Studies such as this one as well as continued efforts by art historians are necessary to help preserve this international treasure for the generations to come.
Emerson, William, and Robert L van Nice. 1950. “Hagia Sophia and the First Minaret Erected After the Conquest of Constantinople”. American Journal of Archaeology. 54, no. 1: 28-40.
Kähler, Heinz. Hagia Sophia. New York: Frederick A. Praeger Inc., Publishers, 1967.
Kinross, Patrick Balfour. Hagia Sophia. New York: Newsweek Book Division, 1972.
MacDonald, William. 1957. “Design and Technology in Hagia Sophia”. Perspecta. 4: 20-27.
Mainstone, Rowland. J. Hagia Sophia: Architecture, Structure, and Liturgy of Justinian’s Great Church. New York: Thames and Hudson Inc., 1988. 11-12
Moropoulou, Antonia, Asterios Bakolas, Maria Karoglou, Ekaterini T Delegou, Kyriakos C Labropoulos, and Nikolaos S Katsiotis. “Diagnostics and Protection of Hagia Sophia Mosaics”. Journal of Cultural Heritage. (January 2013)
Ousterhout, Robert. 2006. “Hagia Sophia”. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 65, no. 3: 435-437.
Ozkul, Tulay Aksu, and Eiichi Kuribayashi. 2007. “Structural Characteristics of Hagia Sophia: I—A Finite Element Formulation for Static Analysis”. Building and Environment. 42, no. 3: 1212-1218.
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| Hagia Sophia, Exterior View |
We will examine the architecture and history of Hagia Sophia. The building began as a Byzantine Christian church and when the Ottoman empire conquered Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul; they converted this magnificent church into a mosque which became known as the Ayasofya mosque.
Hagia Sophia was built in 532 AD after the church previously standing there had been destroyed due to a revolt by the people of Constantinople. The emperor of the time, Justinian, decided to build a church that would combine the traditional basilica form of a Christian church with a secular Roman dome such as was seen in the Pantheon in Rome. This form of architecture had never been seen before and presented many different challenges to the architects chosen by Justinian to design and oversee the building of the church.
The modern Hagia Sophia that stands today is the third or fourth reconstruction of the original building. This is due to natural disaster such as earthquakes, fire, and general destruction. Justinian used circumstances such as a revolt by the local people to expedite his plans to build the church he desired without having demolish the existing church to access the site he wanted to use.
The great church of Justinian was destined from the very outset of its history to be so wracked and jarred by earthquakes as to demand almost continual buttressing and repair. Indeed, from the accounts of Byzantine writers it has been calculated that twenty-seven severe earthquakes occurred in Constantinople from the beginning of the seventh to the middle of the fifteenth century, while the church itself has been shaken by at least sixteen major shocks since its completion in 537.
Justinian chose Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus to design Hagia Sophia for their mathematical skill and architectural prowess. He commissioned them to design a church that would put all other churches of the time to shame as well as stretch their mathematic and architectural abilities to the limit. Justinian wanted a traditional square church fused with the round dome seen in Roman architecture. There were numerous challenges surrounding this demand. The architects had to figure out a way to have a transitional feature that would allow them to build the circular dome as large as Justinian required. To do this, they created a new type of architectural feature known as a pendentive which is a triangular arch-like element that allows a builder to transition from a square base to a round dome. It was because of this pendentive as well as the four massive buttresses surrounding the church that the dome was capable of being as large as it is (fig 5).
There were two types of church plans that were most often used at this time. One is known as the basilica plan church which was popular in the western part of the world and was shaped similar to a cross. The other was known as the central plan church where there is a central dome and the entire church is much more compact in how it was constructed around that dome (fig 1).
There are experts who say that the Hagia Sophia is a central-plan church and others who say it is basilica-plan church. Based upon review of plans for both types of churches as well as the floor plans for the Hagia Sophia (fig 2,3), it is apparent that the Hagia Sophia is a melding of both the basilica-plan and central-plan style churches. This can be seen in the floor plan of Hagia Sophia (fig 3,4). Hagia Sophia has the length of a basilica-plan church with the centrality of a central-plan church. It may be that Justinian wanted to meld East and West within his church and that is why Hagia Sophia does not fit exactly into either of the church plans.
The dome of Hagia Sophia is the crowning glory of the church and is what defines this church as one of the greatest churches and architectural masterpieces of all time. The dome is one hundred and seven feet in diameter and only two feet thick. The size of the dome was an architectural feat not matched until Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome was built in 1506. Hagia Sophia’s dome has forty windows placed at the base of the dome which not only release some of the tension coming down but also provide light to the interior of the church and help to create an atmosphere within the church itself of mystery and religious sanctity (fig 8). The building materials used for this church hearkens back to the concrete used by the ancient Romans. They used almost entirely brick and mortar to build the church, including the dome, but the bases are made of stone to provide stability to the church. Hagia Sophia was also designed to look as though it is divided into four levels which look like registers. This not only draws the eye upward, but it also takes some of the stress away from the dome.
 |
| Hagia Sophia, Interior of Dome |
Hagia Sophia went through its first transformation in May 3, 1453 when the Ottomans swept into Constantinople and set up their empire in the newly renamed city of Istanbul. The Ottoman emperor Mehmet II (the Conqueror) was the one who brought about the changes to Hagia Sophia and began the alterations that make it the building seen today.
The Ottomans chose to not tear the building down for a number of reasons. The church was already an impressive structure at the time of conquest, even though it had fallen into some disrepair, and therefore it made sense to not waste money in building a whole new mosque rather than utilizing an existing structure. Another reason the Ottomans chose to retain the church is to showcase their power over the population by redoing the church. Hagia Sophia and how it was altered became the starting point and inspiration behind many of the other Ottoman mosques to come.
To change Hagia Sophia from a Christian church to a Muslim mosque, there were many changes that had to be made to both the interior as well as the exterior of the church. Hagia Sophia was not drastically altered at the time of Mehmet II in order to adapt it to a mosque. Little more was done than removing the Christian liturgical ornaments, building a mihrab and minbar towards Mecca, constructing one temporary wooden minaret for calls to prayer, and replacing the cross on the top of the dome with a traditional crescent.
Through the years, Hagia Sophia continued to be altered to suit the needs of the Muslim empire as their principal mosque in the city. Within the church, all of the Byzantine mosaics which made the church famous were whitewashed to cover them since there is no figural art allowed in Muslim holy spaces.(fig 9) Art historians are very lucky that the Ottomans only whitewashed over the mosaics instead of chipping them out so that we are able to view them today partially restored. Another change that was made was to add in large pendants which had Koranic inscriptions on them and hung around the nave under the large central dome. Traditional aspects of a mosque such as four minarets, the mihrab, minbar, were added gradually as the years passed and each Ottoman sultan sought to leave a mark of their patronage on the mosque.
Hagia Sophia remained an active mosque until 1931 when it was closed to the public. It remained closed for four years while repairs and changes were made to reflect its history as both a Christian church and mosque. It was reopened to the public in 1935 as a national museum and has remained as such since then. It has undergone and continues to undergo significant renovations to bring back the grandeur of its time as both a church and a mosque. In 2010, there was an extensive research project undertaken to ascertain and if possible, further preserve and protect the mosaics within Hagia Sophia. Scientists used methods such as infra-red thermography and ground penetrating radar were used to identify places where mosaics were in danger of decay due to environmental elements and also find mosaics still covered by plaster from the time of the Ottomans. Studies such as this one as well as continued efforts by art historians are necessary to help preserve this international treasure for the generations to come.
Bibliography:
Downey, Glanville. 1950. “Justinian as a Builder”. The Art Bulletin. 32, no. 4: 262-266.
Emerson, William, and Robert L van Nice. 1950. “Hagia Sophia and the First Minaret Erected After the Conquest of Constantinople”. American Journal of Archaeology. 54, no. 1: 28-40.
Kähler, Heinz. Hagia Sophia. New York: Frederick A. Praeger Inc., Publishers, 1967.
Kinross, Patrick Balfour. Hagia Sophia. New York: Newsweek Book Division, 1972.
MacDonald, William. 1957. “Design and Technology in Hagia Sophia”. Perspecta. 4: 20-27.
Mainstone, Rowland. J. Hagia Sophia: Architecture, Structure, and Liturgy of Justinian’s Great Church. New York: Thames and Hudson Inc., 1988. 11-12
Moropoulou, Antonia, Asterios Bakolas, Maria Karoglou, Ekaterini T Delegou, Kyriakos C Labropoulos, and Nikolaos S Katsiotis. “Diagnostics and Protection of Hagia Sophia Mosaics”. Journal of Cultural Heritage. (January 2013)
Ousterhout, Robert. 2006. “Hagia Sophia”. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 65, no. 3: 435-437.
Ozkul, Tulay Aksu, and Eiichi Kuribayashi. 2007. “Structural Characteristics of Hagia Sophia: I—A Finite Element Formulation for Static Analysis”. Building and Environment. 42, no. 3: 1212-1218.
Swift, Emerson H. 1935. “The Latins at Hagia Sophia”. American Journal of Archaeology. 39, no. 4: 458-474.
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| Hagia Sophia, Cutaway Elevation |
.jpg/247px-HagiaSophia_DomeVerticalPano_(pixinn.net).jpg) | |||||
| Hagia Sophia, Interior of Dome |
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