Turkey is a predominantly Islamic country, but that wasn’t always the case. For more than 1,000 years during the Byzantine Empire, Eastern Orthodox Christianity thrived. That empire ceased to exist in 1453, but it left a legacy, in the form of elaborately decorated churches
An exhibit up all summer at Bellarmine Museum of Art in Fairfield recalls those days, in a series of eight large-scale photographs of 900-year-old churches in Istanbul and Cappadocia. Turkish photographer Ahmet Ertug, who specializes in architectural interiors and has photographed the insides of some of the world’s most expansive and glorious halls, gives these relatively modest interiors a sad majesty, as crumbling relics of a long-gone world.
The Church of Christ of Chora in Istanbul shows images the relatively little-known saints Procopius of Scythopolis and Sabas the General and, in another photograph, Christ Pantokrator, a common image in Eastern Orthodox art.
The most fascinating images were taken in the town of Göreme, where churches were carved out of the sides of mountains, the result of a volcanic eruption 2,000 years ago that made the rocks in the region unusually soft and carvable.
The churches are decaying, but the paintings on the walls and ceilings retain their beauty. The journey to Bethlehem, the dream of Joseph, the marriage at Cana, the Nativity, the virgin and child, John the Baptist, the transfiguration of Christ. The images are packed together, as if wasting an inch of space was a cardinal sin.
“VAULTS OF HEAVEN: VISIONS OF BYZANTIUM” will be at the Bellarmine Museum of Art, on the campus of Fairfield University, 200 Barlow Road in Fairfield, until Sept. 16. fairfield.edu.
