In a lateral chapel of the katholikon of the Monastery of Hosios Loukas, in Boeotia, a Byzantine fresco is preserved that depicts Christ at the moment he approaches John the Forerunner on the banks of the Jordan, shortly before the Baptism. The composition, known as the Meeting of Christ with the Forerunner, dates to the third quarter of the 11th century and adorns the upper zone of the southwestern chapel, exactly above the representation of the Baptism. The craftsman remains anonymous, a thing usual for the greater part of the monumental painting of that period, yet the hand that drew the figure knew well the models of Constantinopolitan art; here we shall pause exclusively at the figure of Christ, as it is rendered in the centre of the composition, standing, with the scroll of the Law in the one hand and the blessing raised in the other.
The Figure of Christ in the Byzantine Fresco of Hosios Loukas
Christ stands upright upon a green ground, against the background of a deep dark blue that absorbs every detail of the space around him. The himation, in dark shades of grey and blue, falls in folds that the painter renders with lines almost graphic, accented in places with ochre, so that the volume of the body beneath the fabric may be declared.
With the right hand raised in blessing and the left, which holds the white scroll of the Law, resting upon the breast, the figure advances slowly towards the Forerunner; its feet, shod with sandals, barely touch the green earth. Beside the composition, written in uncial Byzantine letters, a brief inscription renders passages from the evangelical dialogue of the Baptism, while on the upper right the abbreviation of the name of Christ is discerned.
Detail of the Hosios Loukas Fresco: The Face and the Blessing in a Composition of High Art
In the detail of the face, the long hair falls wavy to the shoulders, framing a visage elongated, with hollowed eyes and tightened lips beneath a moustache and a bifurcated beard. The gaze, turned slightly sideways, does not seek the viewer; it appears fixed somewhere beyond the scene. The halo behind him, in deep red with a golden cross dotted by round stones, lends the figure a visual gravity that balances with the delicacy of the fingers of the right hand, half-open in a gesture of blessing.
The attrition of time, visible in the scratches and the small holes of the mortar, does not negate the clarity of the composition, nor the precision with which the movement of the body and the expression of the face were rendered—elements that testify to the maturity of the Middle Byzantine painting tradition at the end of the 11th century.
(Translated from the Greek text by K. Pappas.)
