An intro to Ethiopian Art through the 16th century, to set you on a path for your own research.

an important note

When viewing Ethiopian art, it might be helpful to keep in mind the existence of alternative objectives.

In her 1998 paper on Fre Seyon, Marilyn Heldman says:

"The pictorial illusionism of the Greco-Roman classical tradition, with its modeled forms and picture frame that simulates a window looking out into space, is essentially an artificial construct. It was carefully cultivated for ideological reasons at various times and places. … There was no reason to cultivate the classical Greco-Roman tradition in the art of the Ethiopian Church."

In those times and places the political ideal was Ancient Rome, and everything hearkened back to that classical heritage. But for Ethiopia, the ideal was the ancient Jerusalem of David and Solomon and of the emperor Constantine.

In our culture we have inherited those same political ideals which elevate classical Greek and Rome, and so have been trained (both subtly and overtly) to view art through a lens ground by those who heralded their art as the pinnicle. But it’s important to keep in mind that other intentions exist, and are both valid and beautiful.

Art has plenty of room for plurality.

KINGDOM of AKSUM (c. 4th-8th centuries CE)

Aksum was a city and kingdom in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea. A major naval and trading power from about the 1st–7nd centuries CE, most of what we know about it was written by other people. They describe it as one of the four greatest powers in the world, holding sway from the inner Arabian desert, across the Red Sea, to the west to parts of the Sahara.

As an important locus of trade, the kingdom began minting coins in about 270 CE. Not only are these coins evidence of this trade, but not too long thereafter they were also witnesses of the transition to Christianity; converting in the fourth century, Aksum was one of the earliest regions to do so—if not the first.

See below left, a coin with a bust of King Endubis with a disc and crescent in the border above his head. Only a few years later, the coin at right with King Ezanas—who converted the kingdom to Christianity—shows a cross in the same place.

Into this context enter the Garima Gospels.

Rather than one single manuscript, the Garima Gospels are grouping of gospel books, the earliest of which dates from 330–650 CE. (They were radiocarbon tested in 2013.) They contain the earliest intact grouping of all four evangelists and canon tables, as well as the earliest set of compete canon tables based on Greek prototypes. They are also the only extant manuscripts from this time period.

They contain a series of pages types which provide evidence of structural continuity with the earliest days of the church: Eusebius’s letter to Carpianus, the decorated canon tables, and the tholos (in Greek, tiempetto in Latin, both meaning “little temple”), which might have represented the harmony of the four gospels in the same way that separate columns are united under a single roof.

Some later Ethiopian manuscripts continue with a further program of images, about which more later. Whatever page types remain, from the 4th century until the 16th, all Ethiopian gospel books appear to be derived from the same early models.

POST-AKSUMITE (c. 8th/9th–12th centuries CE)

Several circumstances, including Arab expansion into the north of Africa and spread of Islam, give us a historical lacuna in this period. The political center of Ethiopia seems to have shifted away from Aksum to Tigray. Rock-hewn building (more below) had long been a tradition even pre-Aksum, and may have continued to be made throughout, but subsequent stoneworking makes that hard to confirm.

No illuminated manuscripts or icons from the Zagwe time period have been discovered so far; scholars suggest this is due to systematic distruction when Yekunno Amlak established the so-called Solomonic dynasty in 1270, in an attempt to control the narrative.

But this doesn’t signify a lack of art.

Ge’ez uses the same word for all images, whether 2D or 3D—se’el—which is one reason why the Iconoclastic controversy in Byzantium never took hold. The art carved into or painted on the walls within rock-hewn churches can provide for us a throughline between the Kingdom of Aksum and the Solomonic dynasty of the 13th century.

The complex of Lalibela is notable for its 11 rock-hewn (carved from living rock) churches. Take a 3D tour though the structures at the link below.

EARLY SOLOMONIC (1270-1527)

13th century

Churches such as those at Lalibela and Dabra Tsion feature artwork dated to this era, both figural and abstract. In the slides below, you can see only a tiny fraction of the photographs taken of this artwork and put up into Mäzgäbä Səəlat, a database created by leading scholars and continually updated.

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13th–14th century

GOSPEL BOOKS

It’s at this point where we begin to have sufficient extant manuscripts that we can to draw even more structural connections.

The “Eusebian apparatus” mentioned earlier—Eusebius’ letter, canon tables, and tholos—was followed by another regular set of page types: the “crucifixion without the crucified”, which depicts Jesus as literally a lamb of god; the women at the tomb; and the ascension, also sometimes termed “Christ in Majesty”.

Below, you can compare these four different page types across three different manuscripts.

These pages types may have been developed in Palestine in the earliest days of the church, and the “crucifixion without the crucified” in particular eventually faded from Christian art.

Fundamentally, this repetition—almost to the point of regularity—tell us what was deemed important enough to keep even as the gospel books evolved.

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14th–15th century

The extant art of the fourteenth century begins predominately with gospel books, but eventually diversifies to include octateuch (a manuscript consisting of the first eight books of The Old Testament), as well as psalters like this one:

This is BnF ms. Abb. eth. 105, sometimes called “Belen Saggad’s Psalter” for the man who commissioned it. (His portrait is on folio 89v.) It’s a good example of the Ewostatewosite style, an illumination style developed at monastaries established by disciples of Ewostatewos. This manuscript was created in 1476/7 and contains many full-page illuminations, including portraits of Constantine (a highly-respected leader), the Biblical David (who wrote the psalms contained in the psalter), Mary and Child, and more.

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15th–early 16th century

ICONS

In 1441 Emperor Zara Yaqob established a mandatory ritual veneration of Mary, placing her central to salvation as an intercessor between the pray-er and her son. As part of this, he encouraged and sponsored production of Mary-centered icons and iconography. As such, it’s at this point that we see a shift of frequency and manner in the portrayal of Mary and child. And nowhere is this more in evidence than in the proliferation of icons featuring the two.

Icons are items of veneration, and can take the form of anything that can carry an image: paintings and objects are popular forms. Once again, the Gə’əz word “sə’əl” means both 2D and 3D image, therefore sidestepping the iconoclastic troubles of other forms of Christianity.

There are few named painters from this period—it was considered a lack of Christian humility for artists to sign their work—but one such painter is named Fre Sayon, an influential court painter. His single signature among a handful of paintings attributed to him may be an indication of influence from Europe, as is his posing of the figures with Jesus touching his mother’s face.

While only a few are said to be his work, many more extant icons are attributed to followers of his “school” of painting style, like the example above at left. At right, the figures’ rounded faces and sweeping draperies also recall his style: a sign of his impact.

Folded icons were also an important form. The sensul— a particularly Ethiopian object made from one or more sheets of parchment attached together, folded accordion-style, and sandwiched between boards of wood or hide, in effect a hybrid between an illuminated manuscript and a painted icon on wood—is one such form. It first appeared in 15th century Ethiopia, gradually faded in popularity, and flourished again in the 17th.

Linear movement is a feature which arises often in Ethiopian Christianity through multiple forms: the sensul, ceremonial procession, the vertical procession of figures in a Ethiopian prayer scroll, the multiple registers of figures in frontispiece illustrations of some Gospel books and painted icons (such as the ones above), and liturgical fans.

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GUNDA GUNDË

Previous to this, we had chiefly been speaking in terms of time period rather than style. But there is one style name which comes up frequently, and is generally accepted as a term.