Art Technology: Bridging the Gap between Church Architecture and Wall Paintings in the Middle and Late Byzantine World

This chapter addresses the disjunction between architecture and painted decoration in studies of Byzantine religious buildings, the latter traditionally understood as a secondary component to the former. Approaching the wall paintings in the Byzantine church from the perspective of its painters offers a much-needed integrative approach that this study explores. Looking into neglected instances in the painters’ work methods and reconstructing some concerns of their trade allows us to understand how these were related to buildings and affected the very process of church-making. Particular know-how of Byzantine painters and their art technology reveal a great deal about artistic culture, understanding, and practices—collaborative rather than individual—standing behind the church building as a whole. Plastering served as one such technological prowess, linking masons, painters, and other craftsmen. Painters could work on the interior as well as on the exterior of churches, and they were often asked to use painting to evoke other media. This chapter shows how the organic unity of wall paintings with the church building—going hand in hand with how painters adapted images to actual structures, their varying layouts, and diverse contexts—distinguished artistic traditions “made in Byzantium” while connecting communities across the Byzantine and medieval worlds.