#INTO THE ECHO SIDE ART HOW TO#

Having written two books on Byzantine culture-one on multisensory aesthetics, the other on religious iconography-Pentcheva was drawn to the interplay of the senses and the numinous in creating the heightened experience of Hagia Sophia. 'For a building that had such an important aura or presence, to lose its voice is really dramatic,' Pentcheva says. Photo: Courtesy College Histories of Art History of Architecture And the ancient chanting that once reverberated in the domed chamber-a sound that influenced the nature of music throughout the medieval world-has been banished from the basilica, now a museum in the adamantly secular nation of Turkey. Electric lights have replaced the hundreds of candles that once undulated with sound and breath. Yet, today, much of that beauty has been lost to memory. We know only that God dwells there among men, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations.

#INTO THE ECHO SIDE ART HOW TO#

For on earth there is no such splendor or beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. When emissaries of Prince Vladimir of Kiev arrived in the 10th century, they wrote to their liege: 'We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. Hagia Sophia (HAH-yuh soh-FEE-uh) was a massive display of imperial power and majesty for the civilization that endured as one of the most powerful economic, cultural and military forces in Europe for a thousand years. When you speak or chant in that space, your breath is extended and attenuated by surfaces of marble and gold.' 'They have an auditory dimension as well. ' says Stanford art historian Bissera Pentcheva. 'All of these elements are optical: the glitter, the marble. At once a bulwark against the sea and an apotheosis of its marvels, the basilica sparkles like the glints on the restless waters outside its walls as natural light roams the surfaces of marble and gold mosaic.

And at its heart, the magnificent Hagia Sophia. Jutting out at the tip of a peninsula, ancient Constantinople was embraced by the Bosporus on one side and the Marmara Sea on the other. The Byzantine Empire was married to water.

Into the echo side art