Taxis

Greek for "arrangement, order." A rare term for the orderly division of a subject into its various components or attributes. "Eutaxic," also a rare term, means well arranged or well ordered. "Eutaxia" then, is good arrangement.Quote: "Icons stare out with sometimes disconcerting intimacy, questioning our certitude about their incarnation. Their formality (what we can see as proto-modern) is an expression of taxis: the Byzantine belief that 'It was possible for human beings,' as the [art] historian Peter Brown has put it, 'to create little pools of order in this world which would bring to earth a touch of the true, inviolable 'glory' of heaven.'" Michael Kimmelman, "Decay and Glory: Back to Byzantium," New York Times, March 26, 2004, section B, p. 39. See Peter Brown's essay in the art exhibition catalogue, The Glory of Byzantium, for the 1997 Metropolitan Museum of Art show of the same name. Also see art history, Byzantine art, composition, expression, feng shui, icon, iconography, metonymy, modern, and taxonomy.