Early Christian Art |
RENAISSANCE |
The period of the Roman Empire encompassed the life of Jesus of Nazareth and the subsequent rise of the early Christian church.
Early Christian art in Rome consisted mainly of wall paintings (frescoes) and wall & floor mosaics in underground catacombs, where early Christians were buried.
In 323, Roman Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium (in present-day Turkey) and called the new capital Constantinople.
When it fell to the Muslims in 1453, it was renamed Istanbul.
Click Here to see Orante figure and Christ as the Good Shepher
In the Byzantine Empire, Christians often used the Roman central-plan temple for churches like San Vitale, in Ravenna, Italy, built 527-47 by the Byzantine (Christian) emperor Justinian and his Empress Theodora. The whole interior of San Vitale was sheathed in marble of all colors and brilliant mosaics, made of jeweled and gold tesserae.
**Emperor Justinian and His Attendants, mosaic, San Vitale, 527-47 AD
--mosaic: image composed of tesserae: small pieces of stone, metal, and/or jewels
--located in apse of church, near altar
--divine right to rule
--Eucharistic bread
--individualization of faces from earlier Roman art
--but typical Byzantine style is “hieratic”: stiff, formal, frontal, unmoving, little emotion
shown, flattened bodies, elongated proportions, fairly symmetrical, “dangling” feet,abstracted clothing, no shadows, shallow background
**Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus, Church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), 532-37 AD
Constantinople (converted to a mosque in 1453 AD, when Byzantine Empire fell, then to a
museum in 1935)—commissioned by Emperor Justinian
--combines Roman basilica form with central-plan section in the middle
--“nave”: long central hall of building
--arches, barrel vaults, domes
--“buttressing”—support system to help keep dome from collapsing walls
--system of “pendentives”—to span difference between round dome & square support
--pendentives rest on “piers”—massive rectangular stone structures that support pendentives
and help buttress building
“Light comes from the Good and…light is the visual image of God.”
(Pseudo-Dionysos, mystical philosopher of the time)
“[The dome looks as if] it is hung by a golden chain from Heaven, [and] held up by angels.”
“icon”: Greek word for “image”—icons symbolize the figures they represent; sometimes are taken as intermediaries between a worshipper and God
“Thou shalt not make…any graven image or likeness of anything…in heaven above, or…in the earth beneath, or…in the water under the earth.
Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor serve them.”
(Exodus 20:4,5)
