Art2602 the Western Visual Tradition I Ancient and Medieval Art Quizlet

Beginnings of Byzantine Art and Compages

To Start: Defining the Byzantine Period

The term Byzantine is derived from the Byzantine Empire, which adult from the Roman Empire. In 330 the Roman Emperor Constantine established the city of Byzantion in mod day Turkey as the new capital of the Roman empire and renamed it Constantinople. Byzantion was originally an aboriginal Greek colony, and the derivation of the name remains unknown, merely under the Romans the name was Latinized to Byzantium.

In 1555 the German historian Hieronymus Wolf get-go used the term Byzantine Empire in Corpus Historiæ Byzantinæ, his drove of the era's historical documents. The term became popularized among French scholars in the 17^th century with the publication of the Byzantine du Louvre (1648) and Historia Byzantina (1680), but was not widely adopted by fine art historians until the 19^th century, as the distinctive way of Byzantine architecture and fine art in mosaics, icon painting, frescos, illuminated manuscripts, small scale sculptures and enamel work, was defined.

The Byzantine Empire lasted until 1453 when Constantinople was conquered by the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Byzantine art and compages is unremarkably divided into three historical periods: the Early Byzantine from c. 330-730, the Center Byzantine from c. 843-1204, and Late Byzantine from c. 1261-1453. The political, social, and artistic continuity of the Empire was disrupted past the Iconoclastic Controversy from 730-843 and and so, again, by the Flow of the Latin Occupation from 1204-1261.

The Roman Empire

In the era leading up to the founding of the Byzantine Empire, the Roman Empire was the most powerful economic, political, and cultural force in the world. A polytheistic guild, Roman religion was deeply informed past Greek mythology, equally Greek gods were adopted into the Roman mos maiorum, or "mode of the ancestors," viewing their own founding fathers every bit the source of their identity and worldly power. At the same time, every bit the empire captivated the deities of the peoples they conquered equally a way of supporting civic stability, the monotheism of Christianity, which first appeared in Roman-held Judea in the 1^st century, was seen equally a political and civil threat. The Emperor Nero instituted the commencement persecution of Christians, as he blamed the sect for the Great Fire of Rome in 65, and subsequent emperors followed suit.

In 303 the Roman Emperor Diocletian instituted the Groovy Prosecution, during an era when political leaders, including Constantine, were engaged in a war, driven by competing claims to be Diocletian's successor. Facing a boxing with his rival Maxentius, legend has it that Constantine converted to Christianity considering of a vision. Described by the historian Eusebius, "he saw with his ain eyes in the heavens a trophy of the cross arising from the calorie-free of the sun, conveying the message, In Hoc Signo Vinces (In this sign, you shall conquer)." Marking his soldier's shields with the Chi Rho, a symbol of Christ, Constantine was victorious and, after, became emperor. His 313 Edict of Milan legalized the practice of Christianity, and in 324, he moved to create a new capital in the Due east, Constantinople, in order to integrate those provinces into the empire while simultaneously creating a new heart of art, civilization, and learning.

Early Christian Art

Creating frescoes, mosaics, and panel paintings, Early Christian art drew upon the styles and motifs of Roman art while repurposing them to Christian subjects. Works of art were created primarily in the Christian catacombs of Rome, where early depictions of Christ portrayed him every bit the classical "Skilful Shepherd," a beau in classical dress in a pastoral setting. At the same fourth dimension, meaning was oft conveyed past symbols, and an early on iconography began to develop. As the Edict of Milan was followed by the Emperor Theophilus I's 380 edict establishing Christianity every bit the official religion of the empire, Christian churches were built and decorated with frescoes and mosaics. The classical sculptural tradition was abased, as it was feared that figures in the round were too reminiscent of pagan idols. In the beginning two centuries of the Byzantine Empire, as the historians Horst Woldemar Janson and Anthony F. Janson wrote, there was, "No clear-cut line betwixt Early Christian and Byzantine art. East Roman and West Roman - or, as some scholars adopt to call them, Eastern and Western Christian - traits are hard to separate earlier the sixth century."

Early on Byzantine Art and Emperor Justinian I

The flowering of Byzantine architecture and fine art occurred in the reign of the Emperor Justinian from 527-565, as he embarked on a building campaign in Constantinople and, subsequently, Ravenna, Italy. His most notable monument was the Hagia Sophia (537), its name pregnant "holy wisdom," an immense church with a massive dome and light filled interior. The Hagia Sophia's many windows, colored marble, bright mosaics, and gold highlights became the standard models for subsequent Byzantine architecture.

To design the Hagia Sophia, burnt downward in a previous anarchism, Justinian I employed two well-known mathematicians, Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles. Isidore taught stereometry, or solid geometry, and physics and was known for compiling the first drove of the works of Archimedes, a classical Greek engineer and scientist. A mathematician, Anthemius wrote a pioneering study on solid geometric forms and their relationships while arranging surfaces to focus lite on a single bespeak. The ii men drew upon their noesis of geometrical principles to engineer the Hagia Sophia's large dome equally they pioneered the employ of pendentives. The triangular supports at the corners of the dome's square base redistributed the weight, making it possible to build the largest dome in the globe until the St. Peter's Basilica dome, which besides employed pendentives, was completed in Rome in 1590.

Hiring 10,000 artisans to build and decorate the Hagia Sophia, Justinian I besides established innumerable workshops in icon painting, ivory carving, enamel metalwork, mosaics and fresco painting in Constantinople. Equally fine art historians H.Westward. Janson and Anthony F. Janson wrote, during his reign, "Constantinople became the creative equally well equally political capital of the empire....The monuments he sponsored have a grandeur that justifies the merits that his era was a golden age." As the Empire was at its most geographically expansive during Justinian's reign, Byzantine art and architecture influenced modern mean solar day Turkey, Hellenic republic, the Adriatic regions of Italia, the Center East, Spain, Northern Africa, and Eastern Europe. While other structures, particularly his Chrysotriklinos, the imperial palace reception room, were equally influential, that building, similar other early structures in Constantinople, was afterward destroyed. Equally a effect, the best examples of Early Byzantine innovation tin can be seen in Ravenna, Italia.

Ravenna, Italia

Justinian I appointed his protégé Maximianus, a lowly and somewhat unpopular deacon, as Archbishop of Ravenna, where he acted as a kind of implicit regent for the Emperor inside Italy. In 547, Maximianus completed the structure of San Vitale, a cardinal-program church building using a Greek cross within a foursquare that became a model for subsequent architecture. The shallow dome, placed upon a drum, used terra cotta forms for the start time as structure fabric, while the interior's exquisite mosaics and sacred objects, including the Throne of Maximianan (mid-xi^th century) defined the Byzantine style.

Having survived almost intact since its induction, the interior of the Church of San Vitale created an consequence of intricate splendor, with every inch richly decorated. Big mosaics depicting the Emperor and Empress established Byzantine limerick and figurative techniques, every bit the realistic depictions of classical art were abandoned in favor of an emphasis upon iconographic formality. The tall, thin, and motionless figures with almond shaped faces and wide eyes, posed frontally, against a gold background became the instantly recognizable definition of Byzantine fine art.

Acheiropoieta and Icons

Early Byzantine artists pioneered icon painting, small panels depicting Christ, the Madonna, and other religious figures. Objects of both personal and public veneration, they adult from classical Greek and Roman portrait panels and were informed by the Christian tradition of Acheiropoieta. Acheiropoieta, pregnant, "made without hands," was an paradigm believed to have been miraculously created. According to tradition, St. Luke the Evangelist, one of the original twelve apostles, painted the paradigm of the Madonna and Child Jesus when they miraculously appeared to him. The Monastery of the Panaghia Hodegetria in Constantinople was congenital to firm a now-lost icon believed to be St. Luke'south painting. As art historian Robin Cormack noted, it became "perhaps the most prominent cult object in Byzantium." These miraculous images influenced the development of iconographic types, as St. Luke's icon became known as Hodegetria, meaning "She Who Points the Manner," as the Madonna pointed to the Child Jesus.

Acheiropoieta were oftentimes credited with contemporary miracles. The Prototype of Edessa was believed to have come to the divine assistance of the urban center of Edessa in its 593 defense against the Persians. The central image of Christ'southward head, known equally the Mandylion in the Byzantine tradition, recalled the image of Christ's face imprinted on a material while he walked to the place of his crucifixion. Worshippers believed they were in the presence of the divine, as art historian Elena Boerck wrote, "Icons, unlike idols, have their own agency. They're interactive images, in which the divine is nowadays." However, every bit the worship of icons became a ascendant feature of Byzantine life, a fierce and destructive theological contend adult.

Iconoclastic Controversy

Past the 8^thursday century, the Byzantine Empire was under pressure and frequently at war, and in this tense climate the controversy over the spiritual validity of icons erupted. Motivated past the conventionalities that contempo events, including armed forces defeats and a volcanic eruption in the Aegean Sea in 726, were God's punishment for what he chosen, "a arts and crafts of idolatry," the Emperor Leo Three officially prohibited religious images in 730 and launched a movement called Iconoclasm, meaning "breaking of icons." Long standing theological debates over the divine and human nature of Christ and a ability struggle between the majestic state and the church stoked the controversy. The Iconoclasts felt that no icon could portray both Christ's divine and human nature, and to convey only one aspect of Christ was a heresy. Those who supported icons argued that, unlike idols which depicted a fake god, the images simply depicted the incarnate Christ and that the images derived their authority from Acheiropoieta. Past inserting himself into the debate, the Emperor substituted regal decree for religious say-so, undercutting the influence and power of the church. Subsequently, the land violently supressed monastic clergy and destroyed icons.

th century), portrayed Byzantine Empress Theodora and her son Michael III as the Hodegetria, a Madonna and Child icon presiding over the restoration of icons." data-initial-src="/images20/photo/photo_byzantine_art_8.jpg" width="235" height="300" src="https://www.theartstory.org/images20/photo/photo_byzantine_art_8.jpg">

The era came to an end with a change in imperial power. Post-obit the death of her husband, the Emperor Theophilus, in 842, the Empress Theodora took the throne and, as she was passionately devoted to the veneration of icons, summoned a quango that restored icon worship and deposed the iconoclastic clergy. The occasion was celebrated at the Banquet of Orthodoxy in 843, and icons were carried in triumphal procession back to the various churches from which they had been taken. Withal, the Iconoclastic Controversy had a notable touch on the later evolution of art, as the councils that restored the worship of icons also formulated a codified arrangement of symbols and iconographic types that were also followed in mosaics and fresco painting.

Middle Byzantine 867-1204

The Eye Byzantine era is often called the Macedonian Renaissance, as Basil I the Macedonian, crowned in 867, reopened the universities and promoted literature and art, renewing an interest in classical Greek scholarship and aesthetics. Greek was established as the official linguistic communication of the Empire, and libraries and scholars compiled all-encompassing collections of classical texts. The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Photios was not just the leading theologian but has been described past the historian Adrian Forescue as "the greatest scholar of his time." His Bibliotheca was an important compilation of near three hundred works by classical authors, and he played a leading role in seeing Byzantine civilisation as rooted in Greek culture. The result was, as Janson and Janson wrote, "an almost antiquarian enthusiasm for the traditions of classical art," displayed in works like the illuminated manuscript, the Paris Psalter (c. 900) a book of Biblical psalms that included full page illustrations from the life of King David and that employed a more realistic treatment of both the figures and the landscape.

Throughout Europe, Byzantine culture and art was seen as the height of artful refinement, and, as a effect, many rulers, fifty-fifty those politically antagonistic to the Empire, employed Byzantine artists. In Sicily, which had been conquered past the Normans, Roger 2, the first Norman Male monarch, recruited Byzantine artists and, equally a result, the Norman architecture that developed in Sicily and Great Uk, following the Norman Conquest in 1066, greatly influenced Gothic architecture. Hundreds of Byzantine artists were also employed at the Basilica of San Marco in Venice when construction began in 1063. In Russia, Vladimir of Kiev converted to the Orthodox Church upon his marriage to a Byzantine princess. He employed artists from Constantinople at the St. Sophia'southward Cathedral he built in Kiev in 1307. Notable examples of Macedonian Renaissance art were likewise created in Greece, while the influx of Byzantine artists influenced art throughout Western Europe as shown past the Italian creative person Berlinghiero of Lucca's Hodegetria (c. 1230).

The Latin Occupation 1204-1261

Famed for its wealth and artistic treasures, Constantinople was cruelly sacked and the Empire conquered in 1204 by the Cause Ground forces and Venetian forces under the Fourth Cause. The brutal assault upon a Christian metropolis and its inhabitants was unprecedented, and historians view it as a turning indicate in medieval history, creating a lasting schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches, severely weakening the Byzantine Empire and contributing to its later demise when conquered past the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Many notable artworks and sacred objects were looted, destroyed, or lost. Some works, like the Roman bronze works of the Hippodrome, were carried off to Venice where they are yet on display, while other works, including sacred objects and altars equally well as classical bronze statues, were melted down, and the Library of Constantinople was destroyed. Though the Latins were driven out by 1261, Byzantium never recovered its sometime glory or power.

Late Byzantium 1261-1453

Following the Latin Conquest, the Late Byzantine era began to renovate and restore Orthodox churches. Still, every bit the Conquest had decimated the economy and left much of the city in ruins, artists employed more than economical materials, and miniature mosaic icons became popular. In icon painting, the suffering of the population during the Conquest led to an emphasis upon images of compassion, as shown in sufferings of Christ. Artistic vitality shifted to Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece, where regional variations of icon painting developed. Russia became a leading middle with the Novgorod Schoolhouse of Icon Painting, led past principal painters Theophanes the Greek and Andrei Rublev. Byzantine art too influenced contemporaneous fine art in the West, particularly the Sienese Schoolhouse of Painting and the International Gothic Style, as well as painters like Duccio in his Stroganoff Madonna (1300).

Byzantine Fine art and Architecture: Concepts, Styles, and Trends

Architectural Innovations

Known for its central plan buildings with domed roofs, Byzantine compages employed a number of innovations, including the squinch and the pendentive. The squinch used an curvation at the corners to transform a foursquare base into an octagonal shape, while the pendentive employed a corner triangular support that curved up into the dome. The original architectural design of many Byzantine churches was a Greek cross, having four artillery of equal length, placed within a square. Later on, peripheral structures, like a side chapel or 2d narthex, were added to the more traditional church footprint. In the eleven^th century, the quincunx building pattern, which used the four corners and a fifth element elevated above information technology, became prominent as seen in The Holy Apostles in Thessaloniki, Athens, Greece. In addition to the central dome, Byzantine churches began adding smaller domes effectually it.

Poikilia

Byzantine architecture was informed by Poikilia, a Greek term, meaning "marked with various colors," or "variegated," that in Greek aesthetic philosophy was developed to propose how a complex and various assemblage of elements created a polysensory experience. Byzantine interiors, and the placement of objects and elements within an interior, were designed to create ever changing and animated interior equally low-cal revealed the variations in surfaces and colors. Variegated elements were also accomplished past other techniques such every bit the employment of bands or areas of gold and elaborately carved stone surfaces.

For instance the basket capitals in the Hagia Sophia were and so intricately carved, the stone seemed to dematerialize in calorie-free and shadow. Decorative bands replaced moldings and cornices, in effect rounding the interior angles so that images seemed to flow from one surface to another. Photios described this surface effect in ane of his homilies: "It is every bit if one had entered heaven itself with no one barring the way from whatever side, and was illuminated past the beauty in changing forms...shining all around like so many stars, so is 1 utterly amazed. [...] It seems that everything is in ecstatic move, and the church building itself is circling around."

Iconographic Types and Iconostasis

Byzantine art developed iconographic types that were employed in icons, mosaics, and frescoes and influenced Western depictions of sacred subjects. The early Pantocrator, significant "anointed," portrayed Christ in majesty, his right paw raised in a gesture of teaching and led to the development of the Deësis, meaning "prayer," showing Christ as Pantocrator with St. John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary, and, sometimes, additional saints, on either side of him. The Hodegetria developed into the later iconographic types of the Eleusa, meaning tenderness, which showed the Madonna and the Kid Jesus in a moment of affectionate tenderness, and the Pelagonitissa, or playing child, icon. Other iconographic types included the Man of Sorrows, which focused on depicting Christ'southward suffering, and the Anastasis, which showed Christ rescuing Adam and Eve from hell. These types became widely influential and were employed in Western art as well, though some like the Anastasis simply depicted in the Byzantine Orthodox tradition.

Iconostasis, meaning "altar stand," was a term used to refer to a wall equanimous of icons that separated worshippers from the altar. In the Middle Byzantine period, the Iconostasis evolved from the Early on Byzantine templon, a metal screen that sometimes was hung with icons, to a wooden wall composed of panels of icons. Containing three doors that had a hierarchal purpose, reserved for deacons or church building notables, the wall extended from floor to ceiling, though leaving a space at the top and so that worshippers could hear the liturgy around the altar. Some of the most noted Iconostases were developed in the Late Byzantine catamenia in the Slavic countries, equally shown in Theophanes the Greek'southward Iconostasis (1405) in the Cathedral of the Proclamation in Moscow. A codified organization governed the placement of the icons bundled according to their religious importance.

Novgorod Schoolhouse of Icon Painting

The Novgorod School of Icon Painting, founded by the Byzantine artist, Theophanes the Greek, became the leading school of the Belatedly Byzantine era, its influence lasting beyond the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453. Theophanes' piece of work was known for its dynamic vigor due to his brushwork and his inclusion of more than dramatic scenes in icons, which were usually merely depicted in large-scale works. He is believed to accept taught Andrei Rublev who became the most renowned icon painter of the era, famous for his power to convey complex religious thought and feeling in subtly colored and emotionally evocative scenes. In the next generation, the leading icon painter Dionysius experimented with remainder between horizontal and vertical lines to create a more dramatic effect. Influenced by Early Renaissance Italian artists who had arrived in Moscow, his mode, known for pure color and elongated figures, is sometimes referred to equally "Muscovite mannerism," equally seen in his icon series for the Cathedral of the Dormition (1481) in Moscow.

Carved Ivory

In the Byzantine era, the sculptural tradition of Rome and Greece was essentially abandoned, as the Byzantine church felt that sculpture in the round would evoke pagan idols; nevertheless, Byzantine artists pioneered relief sculpture in ivory, usually presented in small portable objects and mutual objects. An early on example is the Throne of Maximianan (too called, the Throne of Maximianus), fabricated in Constantinople for the Archbishop Maximianus of Ravenna for the dedication of San Vitale. The work depicted Biblical stories and figures, surrounded past decorative panels, carved in different depths so that the almost three-dimensional treatment in some panels contrasted against the more shallow two-dimensional treatment of others.

In the Middle Byzantine catamenia, ivory etching was known for its elegant and frail detail, every bit seen in the Harbaville Triptych (mid-11^th century). Reflecting the Macedonian Renaissance's renewed interest in classical art, artists depicted figures with more naturally flowing draperies and contrapposto poses. Byzantine ivory carvings were highly valued in the West, and, every bit, a effect, the works exerted an artistic influence. The Italian creative person Cimabue'south Madonna Enthroned (1280-ninety), a work prefiguring the Italian Early on Renaissance's apply of depth and space, is predominantly informed by Byzantine conventions.

Subsequently Developments - After Byzantine Art and Architecture

During its almost one g year bridge, the Byzantine era influenced Islamic compages, the art and compages of the Carolingian Renaissance, Norman architecture, Gothic architecture, and the International Gothic style. When the Turkish Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople in 1453, renaming it Istanbul, the Byzantine Empire came to an finish. Nonetheless the Byzantine fashion continued to exist employed in Greece and in Eastern Europe and Russia, where a "Russo-Byzantine" manner developed in architecture.

In the mid-1800s, Russia underwent a Byzantine Revival, besides chosen the Neo-Byzantine, which was established every bit the official mode for churches by Alexander Ii of Russia, who reigned from 1885-1891. The style continued to be used until Globe War I, and, following the Russian Revolution of 1917, a number of architects immigrated to the Balkans where churches in the Byzantine Revival style continued to be made until after World War II. The veneration of icons, and the painting of them, is all the same a notable feature of the Orthodox faith, equally Orthodox households have a space dedicated to icons, and churches, renowned for their images, draw worshippers from near and far.

Byzantine icons accept continued to exert an influence, being employed for more traditional religious imagery, such as Luigi Crosio'due south late 19th-century rendering of Lady of Refuge, a popular image among Catholics, but also reframed within modern art in works such as Natalia Goncharova's The Evangelists (1911) and other Russian Futurists of the time. In particular, Russian Suprematist painter Kazimir Malevich famously exhibited his radically abstruse Black Square (1915) in the corner of the room, a space traditionally reserved for religious icons and referred to as the "cerise corner." As Russian writer Tatyana Tolstaya wrote of this radical human activity, "Instead of red, black (zero colour); instead of a confront, a hollow recess (aught lines); instead of an icon - that is, instead of a window into the heavens, into the light, into eternal life - gloom, a cellar, a trapdoor into the underworld, eternal darkness." In subverting the traditional Byzantine icon, Malevich hoped to annotate on the bleak state of modernity.

Contemporary Interpretations of the Fashion

Gimmicky artists working in Byzantine styles and subjects include the Russian Saying Sheshukov, the Romanian Ioan Pope, the American architect Andrew Gould, iconographer Peter Pearson, the Canadian sculptor Jonathan Pageau, and the Ukrainian Angelika Artemenko. The Archimandrite, or priest-monk, Zenon Theodor was acclaimed for his 2008 paintings in St. Nicholas Cathedral, in Vienna, Austria, while Greek artist Fikos combines Byzantine murals and icons with his involvement in street art, comic book strips, and graffiti in what he calls "Contemporary Byzantine Painting." In America, the Brooklyn-based Alfonse Borysewicz has been called "one of the about important religious artists since the French Catholic Georges Rouault" by art historian Gregory Wolfe.

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Source: https://www.theartstory.org/movement/byzantine-art/history-and-concepts/