The hand of the master: craftsmanship, ivory, and society in Byzantium (9th-11th centuries) (review)

Reviews »8 1 strange to find numerous individual entries for the metrical romances, summarising plots and detailing verse forms. Entries on Shakespeare's plays follow a formula:first,a plot summary for new readers which it is the business of such guides to offer; then some brief unexceptional evaluative judgement, a comment on a particular feature, such as its use of music, and, more exceptionable, one interpretative remark. Ben Jonson and other 'dramatists other than Shakespeare', together with individual piay entries, in m y sampling, make livelier reading. Chaucer scholars too can be pleased with the attractive impression given by the Chaucer entry. It is written by someone at ease with poetry. Not the same is true for Wyatt or Donne, sad to report. The most compelling entries are, one fears', on more recent writers. But there are exceptions in the earlier period, one being the entries on Elizabethan and Jacobean acting and theatre history, which are pithy and up to date. Though Ousby's 'Editor's Note' promises entries only for postGlobe buildings, in fact earlier theatres, the Rose for instance, are included. One is reminded of the mansion which was so vast that even the owner did know how many rooms, or windows, it had. Ann Blake School of English La Trobe University Cutler, Anthony, The hand of the master: craftsmanship, ivory, and society in Byzantium (9th-llth centuries), N e w Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1994; pp. xvi, 293; 8 colour, 247 b/w plates; R R P not notified. Distinguishing carefully, where many have not, between ivory and bone has enabled Anthony Cutier to define the corpus of carved Middle Byzantine ivories as limited almost exclusively to plaques, most of which functioned as icons, and some boxes, again decorated with religious scenes. Secular subjects were more likely to be carved from bone, the most obvious exception being the Veroli casket in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The use of ivories on book covers appears to have been exclusively a Western practice. This study, based on direct handling of the ivories, concentrates on the availability and nature of the ivory, and the way the tusk was cut and the panel carved and finished. Angle cutting to give the appearance of high relief ('Kerbschnitt') and complete undercutting to leave elements attached only by other parts of the design or by struts, are critical to his analysis of 282 Reviews style. Oblique-angle and detail photographs give some idea of the threedimensional and tactile qualities of the plaques for those handling them as devotional objects. The backs and edges are also photographed when they can be informative. Under Cuder's guidance a wealth of variety becomes apparent within the loving repetition of forms and a very few themes, illustrating the choices nevertheless available to the craftsman in both iconography and technique. Damage to the ivories is noted as it can often be linked to the vascular system of the ivory, the techniques of carving, and drill holes. By combining traditional stylistic analysis with that of the hand at work, Cutler concludes that the largest knowable organisation for production was the individual craftsman, probably working in his home. All the ivories that he judges 'Byzantine' be attributes to Constantinople. Of these he is able to identify a few as by the one hand and considerably more as being of one period, a large number of them from the second half of the tenth century. Rather than trying to trace a sequential development he notes clusters, often with several styles practised concurrently, and all within about two centuries. The Morellian approach is applied to techniques as well as style in areas like blocking out and carving, added colour (when original) and lettering. The results largely supersede earlier attempts to categorise Byzantine ivories into groups by style, with associated workshops, notably the five groups postulated by A. Goidschmidt and K. Weitzmann, Die byzantinischen Elfenbeinskulpturen des X.-XIH. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols., Berlin, 1930-1934, repr. 1979, with which Weitzmann himself and others had subsequently expressed some dissatisfaction. Some problems have not yet been solved or answers given only tentatively. There is the question of how the plaques were displayed. Some have the ground...