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Byzantine art and architecture

• Christ Pantocrator (Sinai)
• Angels from the from the Hosios Loukas mosaics
• Mosaic of Christ as the Good Shepherd, c. 425 – c. 430, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia

Byzantine art includes a wide-variety of medieval art; its subjects were primarily religious and typically non-naturalistic in their representation, while its creators were of little importance. Emerging from the earliest Christian art, which drew extensively from Late Antique art, much early Byzantine art was lost amid the Roman Persecution; the fragmented mosaics of the Dura-Europos church are a unique exception. Such Byzantine mosaics, known for their gold ground style, became a hallmark of Byzantine art, and appeared with both secular and sacred subjects in diverse places, including churches (e.g., the Basilica of San Vitale), the circus (Hippodrome of Constantinople), and the Great Palace of Constantinople. Artistic production was centered in Constantinople and the early 6th-century reign of Justinian I saw systemic developments: sacred art came to dominate and once-popular public marble and bronze monumental sculpture fell out of favor due to pagan associations. Justinian commmisioned the monumental Hagia Sophia church which became highly influential: its immense size, massive dome, and use of pendentives marked a new standard for architecture.

Smaller-scale art flourished throughout the Byzantine period: costly ivory carvings—often as diptychs (Barberini ivory) or triptychs (Harbaville Triptych)—featured imperial commerations or religious scenes and were particularly esteemed, as were metalwork and enamels. Other costly objects included illuminated manuscripts, which were lavishly illustrated for a wide range of texts, and silks, often including the prized imperial purple, both of which became highly popular in Western Europe. The rise of small, portable icon paintings, used for both public and private religious worship, grew increasingly controversial. During two periods of Byzantine Iconoclasm (726–843), possibly influenced by Islamic prohibitions on religious images, icons faced severe suppresion and enourmous amounts of figurative religious art was destroyed. Iconoclasts condemned their use, likening them to pagan idolatry and ascribing recent Umayyad defeats as divine retribution for their use, while iconophile supporters eventually prevailed, maintaining their essential use for veneration, considered distinct from worship, and found legitimacy in Gospel references.

The post-iconoclasm period saw a cultural golden age amid the Macedonian Renaissance, from which an unprecedentedly vast amount of Byzantine artworks survive. Subjects and styles became standardized (such as the cross-in-square churches), and already-existing frontality and symmetry evolved into a dominant artistic aesthetic, observable in both small-scale Pala d'Oro enamel and the well-known large mosaics of Hosios Loukas, Daphni, and Nea Moni monasteries.

• Italo-Byzantine (Cimabue & Giotto)

Komnenian age

• Widespread influence: Madrid, Normany etc.

Final Palaeologan phase

• Istanbul/Peloponnese
• Landscapes?

More from Rodley, Lowden, esp. Cormac

References

Citations

1. James 2003, § paras. 2, 7, 13.
2. Cormack 2018, pp. 11–12.
3. Rodley 1994, p. 2.
4. Rodley 1994, pp. 12–14.
5. James 2003, § paras. 3–4.
6. Rodley 1994, p. 34.
7. Rodley 1994, pp. 32–33, 56–57.
8. Cormack 2018, p. 14.
9. Cormack 2018, pp. 33–40.
10. James 2003, § para. 10.
11. James 2003, § para. 4.
12. Cormack 2018, p. 39.
13. James 2003, § paras. 4–5.
14. Rodley 1994, pp. 101–102.
15. Cormack 2018, p. 2.
16. Lowden 1997, pp. 147–148.
17. Matthews & Platt 1997, p. 185. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMatthewsPlatt1997 (help)
18. Rodley 1994, pp. 115–116.
19. Lowden 1997, pp. 147–151.
20. Rodley 1994, p. 132.
21. Lowden 1997, pp. 187–188.
22. ^ James 2003, § para. 3.
23. Lowden 1997, pp. 188–199.

Sources

• Cormack, Robin (2018) . Byzantine Art (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-877879-0.
• James, Liz (2003) . "Byzantine art". In Brigstocke, Hugh (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Western Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-866203-7.
• Lowden, John (1997). Early Christian & Byzantine Art. London: Phaidon Press. ISBN 978-0-7148-3168-8.
• Rodley, Lyn (1994). Byzantine Art and Architecture: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-35724-1.

• Grove:

• Hans Belting – 
• Ernst Kitzinger

• Mango, Cyril (1986) . The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312‒1453: Sources and Documents. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-13-047027-0.