Caves of God ― The Monastic Environment of Byzantine Cappadocia

Cappadocia, a province in central Turkey, offers the traveler a startling rockscapewhose cones, pleats, and folds conceal hundreds of monasteries and churches carved from the soft,porous "tuff" and used by Christian communities over nearly two millennia for shelter, burial, andsanctuary. This region in the Turkish hinterland is recognized as one of the centers of Byzantinemural painting. However, numerous hermitages, monasteries, and independent chapels dating from theseventh century onward reveal it also as one of the most concentrated areas of Easternmonasticism.This book serves a double purpose: it provides a thorough and lucid introduction to therockcut churches and monasteries and their painted decorations, while it critically examines currentscholarship on the monastic environment of Byzantine Cappadocia--particularly in regard to thearchitecture, which has been generally neglected by art historians.Scooped out rather thanconstructed, this anonymous architecture has its own unique appeal. Kostof writes: "The Cappadociancarver-architect was not inhibited... by statics or the nature of materials. His structure stood, amonolith, before he started to work on it. And he could cut into this monolith quickly,effortlessly. It might take a single man about a month to carve out a large room of two to threethousand cubic feet. Loads and thrusts were negligible. One was free to try any structural symbolwith little concern for structural safety. Cupolas could bubble from flat ceilings, or be placedover square bays by means of the most cavalier transition elemenis. No shape need be perfect:extemporaneous geometry is everywhere the rule. Wall lines sag, one half of an arch doesn't quitematch the other, carefree deviations, here and there, mark the general outline of thebuilding."Following an account of the region, its environmental, political, and religious history,the author discusses in detail the building types and painting programs in the context of theircreation--answering such questions as what was the nature of monasticism in Cappadocia, and who werethe builders, the artists, their patrons? The author was born and educated in Turkey, and hispersonal knowledge of the monuments is a convincing factor in his handling of chronological andstylistic uncertainties. Throughout, Kostof's mind's eye never leaves the total environment,observing the inseparability of landscape, buildings, paintings, and the ritual that informsthem.