Byzantium

In our culture, 'byzantine', stands for complication and intrigue, but it is simplicity and honesty that shine out from some of these works and call across the ages. A wall tile of St Nicholas shows an old man with sunken cheeks. He is ascetic but he is tired as well, gazing out at us from the tenth century he looks beaten by the struggle to be holy. Then, from 1507, Gentile Bellini's 'Cardinal Bessarion and Two Members of the Scuola della Carita in Prayer with the Bessarion Reliquary'. The cardinal's face, soft yet stern, possibly corrupt and utterly self possessed, forces its way out of the scene of adoration. (Michael Hodges)