DEVELOPMENT AND INTERPRETATION OF THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE MOCKING OF CHRIST IN BYZANTINE ART

Within the iconography of the Mocking of Christ, you will repeatedly find a dance motif in Byzantine miniatures from the 11th century onwards which lacks any biblical basis. In monumental painting the dancers in the Mocking of Christ first appeared in the churches endowed by King Milutin and painted by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios at the beginning of the 14th century. The question of why the dance motif appears within the iconography of the Mocking of Christ has lately been discussed with the help of selected examples. The present article, for the first time, systematically explains the development of this scene since its beginnings and interprets the dance motif as an imperial gesture of homage that is reversed into its opposite.