Beyond iconic, the pictures are icons in the Byzantine mode — direct links to eternity — which came to Warhol naturally from his upbringing and his never discontinued observance as an Eastern Orthodox Catholic.
Among his dozen other books were "Byzantine Style and Civilization" (1975) and "The Byzantine Theocracy" (1977).
But few incoming influences affected Byzantine style.
When I met him in 1990, we talked about a number of big-picture issues, like the confrontation between Byzantine and Western modes of thinking and the intellectual bankruptcy of "third ways".
Byzantine hymns were classified according to their mode, and the mode changed each week.
The modes of subsistence of the early Byzantine inhabitants of the Balkans are subject to intense discussion.
Synagogues and the Eastern Christian churches, unhampered by such opposition, developed extensive musical repertories based on melodic modes: the Eastern churches used the eight modes of Byzantine music, while synagogue music followed the maqām system of Muslim art music.
Most New Yorkers, conditioned as we are to the modes and key systems of Western European music, know the sound of Byzantine chant more by reputation than by direct acquaintance.
Nevertheless, despite his frequent and destructive raids against the Byzantine frontier provinces and into Asia Minor, and his victories in the field, his mode of warfare was essentially defensive, and he never seriously attempted to challenge Byzantine control of the crucial mountain passes or conclude alliances with other local rulers in an effort to roll back the Byzantine conquests.
Local artists necessarily catered to both, turning out Byzantine-style icons for one, late Gothic devotional paintings for the other and, increasingly, synthesizing the two modes.
