The Hagia Sophia
The outside of Hagia Sophia is a shapeless mass of domes and half-domes, to-day still further confused by Turkish additions. All the efforts of the architects were concentrated on the…
From: Unknown To: 1913 C.E.
From Medieval Architecture, its origins and development, with lists of monuments and bibliographies by Arthur Kingsley Porter, 1909
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
Esthetically considered the exterior of this great church must be admitted a failure—if it be just to set down as a failure what the builders never attempted. The outside of Hagia Sophia is a shapeless mass of domes and half-domes, to-day still further confused by Turkish additions. All the efforts of the architects were concentrated on the interior; here the noble construction was enhanced by all the skill of the decorative artist.
At Hagia Sophia every inch of the wall surface of the interior was ablaze with color of that indescribable richness and splendor that is peculiar to Byzantine art. The domes and vaults were glorious with the most splendid of Byzantine mosaics; the walls were paneled with marbles of many colors. It is difficult to understand why this same marble veneering, so offensive to us in Roman work, although used with unprecedented lavishness in Hagia Sophia, is yet here full of undeniable charm.
The explanation must be sought in two facts: in the underlying Hellenic feeling and sense for beauty, which saved the Byzantine artists from the vulgarity of Roman design, and in the accident that Hagia Sophia, like many other Byzantine buildings, for all the excellent technique, was built largely of pilfered Roman materials. As a consequence of the latter circumstance, the marble available for paneling and other decoration was a miscellaneous lot, and no attempt was made to arrange it in any regular pattern, but the slabs of various colors and dimensions were crowded in wherever and however, they happened to fit.
The panels, although of good size in themselves are small in comparison with the vast scale of the church. Since they are not arranged in definite recurring patterns, it results that the strong color of each individual piece does not strike the eye, but becomes fused with the different colors of its neighbors. Thus the whole combines to give that mellow richness of color which is the glory of Byzantine art.
Hagia Sophia is the culmination, as it is the most typical manifestation of Byzantine architecture. And Hagia Sophia must rank among the supreme achievements of human architectural genius, side by side with the Parthenon, the Taj Mahal, the great Gothic cathedrals. Once inside its doors the eye is led irresistibly from niche to half-dome, from half-dome to the soaring central vault, almost as in a mountain range we look from the lesser peaks, rising one behind the other, to some commanding Matterhorn.
The appeal is as instantaneous and compelling, as in the more strictly unified Pantheon. But in the Pantheon, when the eye is once satiated with the mere size of the dome, there is nothing left to give pleasure; and it is strange how quickly we become accustomed to the scale of any building, however vast, so that after remaining in it, say for an hour, we forget the great dimensions. In Hagia Sophia, on the other hand, the all-pervading unity of the dome encloses a host of subdivisions, each of the greatest architectural charm in itself, and each full of beautiful details worthy of the closest study.
Writers of the VI century hardly knew which to admire the more, the main design of Hagia Sophia or the exquisite detail with which it was adorned. And that doubt, notwithstanding the Turkish whitewash, we still feel to-day. If the Parthenon, with its delicate color, its exquisite refinement and perfection symbolizes the spring time of ancient art, Hagia Sophia, less dainty, more soiled, yet withal scarcely less beautiful, in its riot of rich colors, symbolizes the autumn.
It was with a justifiable pride that Justinian exclaimed, when, on the memorable twenty-sixth of December, 537, he gazed for the first time on the soaring pendentives of the great dome: "I have surpassed thee, O Solomon!" In truth, he had surpassed a greater than Solomon.
This exclamation of Justinian is significant of the character of Byzantine architecture. Hagia Sophia was as much the work of the vanity of the emperor as of the genius of Anthemios. Byzantine art is in no sense popular; it is not the spontaneous manifestation of an art-loving people; it in no way speaks from the heart. On the contrary, it is aristocratic, princely. It expresses the vanity of an autocracy tyrannical and selfish, frequently at open strife with its subjects. Yet, almost alone of all the arts fostered under such circumstances, it rose to true greatness.
Porter, Arthur Kingsley, Medieval architecture, its origins and development, with lists of monuments and bibliographies, The Baker and Taylor Company, 1909
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