Nectar and Illusion: Nature in Byzantine Art and Literature by Henry Maguire (review)

Twenty-five years ago now, Henry Maguire’s Earth and Ocean appeared, and in its introduction particularly, the author defended his methodological premises from those who had earlier criticized the approach of his first book, Art and Eloquence (1981). He set out in both these early books the reasons for his emphasis on literary parallels for artistic production and meaning. In his model, explanatory power is generated through the creative friction in the convergence of text and image. Comparing descriptions and attitudes in both forms of expression makes it possible for him to make strong claims for identifying essential characteristics in this vast—geographically and chronologically—world of Late Antiquity and Byzantium.

Few scholars, certainly not art historians, have been able to top Maguire’s command of the material and textual evidence in the Byzantine historical record, and he continues to display that mastery in Nectar and Illusion. Some may have hoped for a continuation of the innovative practice shown so compellingly in Other Icons (written with Eunice Dauterman Maguire and published in 2006). But the return to methods and understandings of the books from earlier in his career shows that Maguire sees the common culture of Late Antiquity and Byzantium still most clearly in the binary oppositions of visual–verbal.

Of course, Maguire is a practiced and skilled practitioner, and readers familiar with his work will recognize and appreciate the strengths of his method and style: clear, concise prose, well-chosen and convincing demonstrations through primary sources, apparatus largely unburdened by notes of dissent or divergence of thinking. These qualities are unusual in academic writing now, and Maguire is widely read and cited both inside and outside the field for these reasons. But they also mask issues that need addressing. The field of art history in the Late Antique and Byzantine periods is much more diverse and open than this new book might indicate, and readers familiar with his earlier work will recognize strong continuities, perhaps, and not see developments in the field that might add complexities and nuance.

In this book Maguire is careful to define his ground: he is concerned with attitudes and representations that are found in high-end or elite texts and art for how they indicate changing perceptions of nature as reflected in those verbal and visual media. He is also clear about the exclusions, and so other aspects of nature, like agriculture, forest management, and seafaring, as well as scientific explanations of the natural world, are not part of the world that Maguire is constructing here. Instead, the book deals with religious art almost entirely, and theological and rhetorical writings form the body of textual comparisons. This decision on the part of the author is understandable, because that excluded mass of evidence would introduce a challenging expansiveness to his arguments; but it is difficult to reconcile with his claims to broad conclusions. In this world, nature has “charms” and attractions, but it is subordinate to other, more important concerns by Byzantines (often, Maguire slips in the definite article before Byzantines and thus effectively makes total his claims for this entire society). Nature becomes, then, a stage set or a projection screen against which real ideas are rehearsed and declared.

The primary tension discussed in the early chapters is between churchmen and so-called worship of creation, which is implicitly in operation because of the vehemence of some of these writers against it. The argument posits a new position of opposition to nature in the early church, where those earthly forces threatened a decorous and defined worship of Christ. These antagonisms led to later acts of iconoclasm in churches of the Middle East, where portions of floor mosaics were altered to eliminate parts of or whole figures in church programs. Maguire unpacks this material with full command of his sources, more impressive for the easy confidence in his argument. His position is clear: in the first place...