LA BANCA DATI “CAPPADOCIA – ARTE EHABITAT RUPESTRE”: ARCHIVIO E SISTEMA DI RICERCA PER LA CONOSCENZA DELLA PITTURA BIZANTINA IN CAPPADOCIA con M. Andaloro in Fotografare come ‘specchio’. L’Università della Tuscia nella Caria e nella Cappadocia bizantina

Abstract

Articulated in four paragraphs, the contribution intends to: - Underline the undisputed importance of photographic and visual documentation in the field of figurative arts, in line with the point of view promoted by the Conference in which we participated (see Photographing Byzantium: title and theme). - To reflect on why the image (photographic and, in general, visual) of the image (of the work of art) is the necessary and irreplaceable tool for "doing" art history, finding a satisfactory solution in the definition of the photographic image as a "mirror" and as a "vicarious" image. "Mirror" because the photo captures and returns the figurative work in the aspect of the visible, reflecting, therefore, that visible of the original which is inexpressible, unavailable to the word since the visible, as we know, cannot be compared to the linguistic narrative register. A 'vicarious image' in that, since the photograph is the most faithful and enduring document of the figurative work, it becomes an essential and even active memory of it, even in the extreme case represented by the loss of the original (cf. Between Image and Word). - To narrate our experience gained over a long period of time in the field surveys. That is, to present the path of photographic and, more extensively, visual documentation that we have outlined in parallel with the study of the Byzantine pictorial heritage in the territory of Caria (from 1996 to 2005) and in Cappadocia (from 2006 to the present) while conducting the surveys within the Research and Restoration Mission of the University of Tuscia in Turkey. That is, to illustrate how the choices made in proceeding along that photographic and visual path (graphic tables, mapping on a photographic basis, 3D surveys, etc.) do not respond to a canonical order, but are dictated point by point by the instances that pose the paintings and their most problematic and specific aspects, now within the church of Kuçuk Tavşan Adası, in Caria, now in the many excavated churches of Cappadocia. And to conclude that it derives from this type of approach, based on the reciprocal correspondence between the plan of the study for a better knowledge of the paintings and that of their documentation, if we can speak of a "plural and integrated system" for the photographic and visual documentation conceived, designed, and realized within the framework of the Mission to Turkey and which is partly visible in the data base "Cappadocia - Rock Art and Habitat" (see The Plural and Integrated System of Visual Documentation for the Byzantine Monuments of Caria and Cappadocia). - To present the database "Cappadocia - Rock Art and Habitat" which is an essential part of the "Virtual Museum of Cappadocia" (http://www.museovirtualecappadocia.it/) designed and implemented in 2015 with the CNR within the Mission to Cappadocia of the University of Tuscia within the PRIN project 2010-2011 Rock Art and Habitat in Cappadocia (Turkey) and Central-Southern Italy. Rock, excavated architecture, painting: between knowledge, conservation, valorisation. The database collects and archives materials and data of different nature (documents, photos, plans, maps, scientific investigations, etc.) and makes them available online allowing access to knowledge about the murals and monuments investigated (109 monuments). For each monument included in the database we provide information about: place, architectural structure, function, rock hewn liturgical and civil furnishing, decoration. With regard to the churches, special attention is paid to pictorial decoration. Iconographic themes, chronology, techniques of execution and constituent materials are accurately recorded for each monument.