ABSTRACT

Two images of the crucifixion, both from the mid-ninth-century Khludov Psalter (Moscow, Hist. Mus. Gr. 129D), are different in a number of respects. The first, which happened to be the one on display in the Byzantium 330-1453 exhibition, perhaps the most famous Byzantine miniature in the world, visually equates the torments and death of Christ on the cross with the defacement of Christ on an icon (Fig. 17.1). Word and image are precisely matched: the crucifixion responds to the Psalm verse that it accompanies: ‘They gave me also gall for my food, and made me drink vinegar for my thirst’ (Psalm 68:22). The relationship between the New Testament scene and the contemporary reference to iconoclasts whitewashing an icon of Christ is cemented by the adjacent inscription: ‘and they mixed water and lime on his face’.1 What is shown (the visual) and what is told (the verbal) are carefully coordinated.