Paul A. Underwood
The Kariye Djami: Volume I: Historical Introduction and Description of the Mosaics and Frescoes; Volume II: The Mosaics; Volume III: The Frescoes.
Bollingen Foundation/Pantheon Books, 1966. Bollingen Series LXX. xiv/321 pages.
Three-volume set. Each volume, measuring approximtely 10" x 13", is bound in purple cloth, with stamped gilt lettering to spines and pictorial design depicting church blind stamped on front cover. Books are like new. Price-clipped dust jackets are in fine condition. Slipcase, measuring approximately 10.25" x 13.75", displays very light shelfwear.
"Long considered the finest example of the last flowering of Byzantine art, the Kariye Djami, before its conversion into a mosque after the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, was called the Church of the Monastery of the Chora. Although scholars had known its early fourteenth-century treasures of mosaic art while they were in deplorable state and only dimly visible, it was not until 1948, shortly after the mosque had been secularized, that the Byzantine Institute of the United States, with the sanction and friendly assistance of the Turkish Department of Antiquities and the Commission for the Preservation of Ancient Monuments, began the exacting work of cleaning and restoring. For the last nine years of this work the director has been Paul A. Underwood, Professor of Byzantine Architecture and Archaeology, Harvard University - Dumbarton Oaks. -- The mosaics and frescoes of the Kariye Djami have been described by the Byzantine scholar Alexander Van Millingen as "a remarkable revival in the history of Byzantine art. They are characterized by comparative freedom from tradition, by closer approximation to reality and nature, by a charm and a sympathetic quality, and by a scheme of color that indicate the coming of a new age and spirit."