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Byzantine Art and
Architecture
(c. 450 - 1450)
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Etruscan Art
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Post-Byzantine Art
Byzantine Art and Architecture is the art of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. It originated chiefly in Constantinople, the ancient Greek town of Byzantium, which the Roman emperor Constantine chose in AD 330 as his new capital and named after himself. The Byzantine Empire continued for almost 1,000 years after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476. Byzantine art eventually spread throughout most of the Mediterranean world and eastwards to Armenia. Although the conquering Turks destroyed much in Constantinople in the 15th century, sufficient material survives elsewhere to permit an appreciative understanding of Byzantine art.
| Byzantine art and architecture arose in part as a response to
the needs of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Unlike the Western Church, in
which the popular veneration of the relics of saints continued unabated from
early Christian times throughout the later Middle Ages, the Eastern Church
preferred a more contemplative form of popular worship focused on the veneration
of icons.
These were portraits of religious figures, often depicted frontally and rendered in a highly stylized manner. Although any type of pictorial representation -- a wall painting or a mosaic, for instance -- could serve as an icon, it generally took the form of a small painted panel.
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Much of Byzantine art is imbued with something of the abstract quality of icons. The artistic antecedents of the iconic mode can be traced back to Mesopotamia and the hinterlands of Syria and Egypt, where, since the 3rd century AD, the rigid and hieratic (strictly ritualized) art of the ancient Orient was revived in the Jewish and pagan wall paintings of the remote Roman outpost of Dura Europos on the Euphrates and in the Christian frescoes of the early monasteries in Upper Egypt. In the two major cities of these regions, Antioch and Alexandria, however, the more naturalistic (Hellenistic) phase of Greek art also survived right through the reign of Constantine. In Italy, Roman painting, as practised at Pompeii and in Rome itself, was also influenced by Hellenistic art. |
Byzantine art never entirely lost its Hellenistic heritage but continued to draw upon it as a source of inspiration and renewal. In this process, however, the Classical idiom was drastically modified in order to express the transcendental character of the Orthodox faith. Early Christian art of the 3rd and 4th centuries had simply taken over the style and forms of Classical paganism. The most typical form of Classical art was the free-standing statue, which emphasized a tangible physical presence. With the triumph of Christianity, artists sought to evoke the spiritual character of sacred figures rather than their bodily substance. Painters and mosaicists often avoided any modelling of the figures in order to eliminate any suggestion of a tangible human form, and the production of statuary was almost completely abandoned after the 5th century. Sculpture was largely confined to ivory plaques (called diptychs) carved in low relief, which minimized sculptural effects.
Mosaics were the favoured medium for the interior adornment of Byzantine churches. Consisting of small cubes, or tesserae, made of coloured glass or glass overlaid with gold leaf, and spread over the walls and vaults of interiors, mosaics produced a luminous effect, well suited to expressing the mystic character of Orthodox Christianity. At the same time their rich, jewel-like surfaces were also in keeping with the magnificence of the imperial court, presided over by the emperor, the de facto head of the Orthodox Church.
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Architecture
In the early Byzantine period, as wide a diversity of styles is seen in
ecclesiastical architecture as in art. Two major types of churches, however, can
be distinguished: the basilica type, with a nave flanked by colonnades
terminating in a semicircular apse and covered by a timber roof; and the
stone-vaulted centralized church, with its separate components gathered under a
central dome. The second type—the stone-vaulted centralized church—was
dominant throughout the Byzantine period.
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Italy and San Marino 1994 (Joint Issue): St. Marc Cathedral in Venice (Italy), an extraordinary example of Byzantine architecture in the non-Byzantine part of Europe. The stamp was issued at the occasion of the cathedral's 900th anniversary. The stamp design and the "inverted print" of the double set is extraordinarily good, symbolizing both the state of San Marino "embedded" in the state of Italy, and St. Marc Cathedral "mirroring" itself in the canals of Venice, no matter whether the set is seen from the upside or the downside.
Cyprus 1967. St. Andrew's Church.
USSR 1978. "Our Saviour's Church" in Nerl, dated 1165. A beautiful example of the original stone-vaulted Byzantine architecture, as it is still seen throughout the Eastern world, and also occasionally in the Western. It stands there, "growing like a mushroom right out of the blue". I have seen them so often, and every single time their beauty take me by surprise :-)
St. George -- The Byzantine Martyr
Saint George was born in Cappadocia (in eastern Asia Minor) and died about 303
as a Christian Martyr. His life is obscured by legend, but his martyrdom
at Lydda, Palestine, is generally considered a matter of historical fact,
testified to by two early Syrian church inscriptions and by a canon of Pope
Gelasius I, dated 494, in which St. George is mentioned as one whose name was
held in reverence. The most popular of the legends that have grown
up around him relates his encounter with the dragon. A pagan town in Libya was
victimized by a dragon (representing the devil), which the inhabitants first
attempted to calm down by offerings of sheep, and then by the sacrifice of
various members of their community. The daughter of the king
(representing the Church) was chosen by lot and was taken out to await the
coming of the monster, but George arrived, killed the dragon, and converted the
community to Christianity. Saint George has been adapted world wide
as the saint fighting the evil and defending the good, in the end slaying
the dragon (representing the evil). The stamps on these pages all show the
traditional legend, featured by both the Orthodox world, the Roman Catholic
world, and the Muslim world.
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Russia 1997. St. George (part of a souvenir sheet), issued 1997 at the occasion of Moscow's 850th Anniversary.
Russia 1992. Definitive stamp showing St. George slaying the dragon.
Russia 1914. SG # 161. War Charity. St. George slaying the dragon.
There are hundreds of stamps depicting St. George issued world wide. In 2003 his 17th centenary was celebrated by the Vatican.
Sources and links:
Microsoft Encarta 2002.
E.H. Gombrich: "Story of the Art", (Danish Edition, ISBN 87-01-79921-5).
See also
Crosses in Arts -- From Byzantium to the Third Reich (on this site)
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Etruscan Art
Forward to Post-Byzantine Art
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| Revised 24-jul-2006. Ann Mette Heindorff Copyright © 1999-2007. All Rights Reserved |
