Byzantium

Went to the Royal Academy today for the Byzantium exhibition. I hadn't read up on it and didn't know what to expect but I was blown away. I couldn't believe that such colours and craftsmanship had survived for so many centuries. There was a bit of St Matthew's gospel that gave me the cold shivers. The parchment looked just like skin. A picture of Archangel Michael was so modern in style that it could have been painted in the last twenty years. The minute and perfect lettering and paintings in the illuminated books were exquisitely rendered by scribes and artists who were either extremely short-sighted and worked with their noses nearly on the page, or else used some kind of magnifying glass. As for the silver thread work, each tiny stitch was so neat and perfect that it seemed impossible that it could have been done by hand.

Then there was the jewellery - criss-cross body chains in gold, like luxury bondage gear; huge, heavy, bejewelled bracelets and massive collars in gold and precious stones. And the silver plates, goblets, the pottery... my mind is still reeling. What wonderful times they were for the wealthy and those high in the religious hierarchy, but what rotten times to be poor. One silver plate was patterned with a shepherd boy, two goats and a dog. What did the rich folk think when they looked at him? Did they smile at his simple cuteness? Did they ever feel a pang for a life they had never experienced, sitting on a hillside beneath a tree, drinking water from a stream and picking grapes and olives to eat, washed down with fresh goats' milk while a faithful dog lay panting at their feet? Was it an allegory for Jesus, the Good Shepherd? One's mind can speculate endlessly. How wonderful that these items have survived and that we can see them hundreds of years after they were made. Oh, I forgot to mention the earrings. Earring design hasn't changed much over the centuries and I have seen some of the same designs in Turkish jewellery shops, or in the Asian gold shops in Southall, the ones that look like gold lampshades with dangly bits.

There was a stone doorway from a religious building in, I think, Serbia, that gave me the creeps. A terrific coldness seemed to come off it. Maybe it had been the entrance to a crypt. I couldn't wait to get away from it and gaze at the stern, handsome face of Michael round the corner. What a collection though. I wonder what artefacts of ours people will marvel at eight hundred years from now, if the human race is still here? I can't think of anywhere where beauty is being created on such a large and exquisite scale. Gold and precious stones are too rare and valuable now and nobody would dare to wear such pieces for fear of getting robbed. So perhaps our sculpture will be our best legacy to the future. Antony Gormley's Angel of the North v the Byzantine Archangel Michael?