Between Emperor Constantine I's Edict in 313, recognizing Christianity as the official religion, and the fall of Rome at the hands of the Visigoths in 476, arrangements were made to divide the the Roman Empire into a Western half (ruled from Rome) and an Eastern half (ruled from Byzantium). Thus, while Western Christendom fell into the cultural abyss of the barbarian Dark Ages, its religious, secular and artistic values were maintained by its new Eastern capital in Byzantium (later renamed Constantinople after Constantine). Along with the transfer of Imperial authority to Byzantium went thousands of Roman and Greek painters and craftsmen, who proceeded to create a new set of Eastern Christian images and icons, known as Byzantine Art. Exclusively concerned with Christian art, though derived (in particular) from techniques and forms of Greek and Egyptian art, this style spread to all corners of the Byzantine empire, where Orthodox Christianity flourished. Particular centres of early Christian art included Ravenna in Italy, and Kiev, Novgorod and Moscow in Russia.
General Characteristics
The style that characterized Byzantine art was almost entirely concerned with religious expression; specifically with the translation of church theology into artistic terms. Byzantine Architecture and painting (little sculpture was produced during the Byzantine era) remained uniform and anonymous and developed within a rigid tradition. The result was a sophistication of style rarely equalled in Western art.
Byzantine medieval art began with mosaics decorating the walls and domes of churches, as well fresco wall-paintings. So beautiful was the effect of these mosaics that the form was taken up in Italy, especially in Rome and Ravenna. A less public art form in Constantinople, was the icon (from the Greek word 'eikon' meaning 'image') - the holy image panel-paintings which were developed in the monasteries of the eastern church, using encaustic wax paint on portable wooden panels. [See: Icons and Icon Painting.] The greatest collection of this type of early Biblical art is in the monastery of St Catherine in Sinai, founded in the 6th century by the Emperor Justinian. And see also, the Byzantine-influenced Garima Gospels (390-660) - world's most ancient illuminated gospel manuscript - from Ethiopia.
RECOVERY OF MEDIEVAL ART
For details of arts under
Charlemagne and the Ottos,
see: Carolingian Art (750-900)
and Ottonian Art (900-1050)
ROMANESQUE ERA
Romanesque Art (1000-1200)
For Italian-Byzantine styles,
Romanesque Painting in Italy.
For more abstract, linear styles,
Romanesque Painting in France.
For signs of Islamic influence,
Romanesque Painting in Spain.
During the period 1050-1200, tensions grew up between the Eastern Roman Empire and the slowly re-emerging city of Rome, whose Popes had managed (by careful diplomatic manoeuvering) to retain their authority as the centre of Western Christendom. At the same time, Italian city states like Venice were becoming rich on international trade. As a result, in 1204, Constantinople fell under the influence of Venetians.
This duly led to a cultural exodus of renowned artists from the city back to Rome - the reverse of what had happened 800 years previously - and the beginnings of the proto-Renaissance period, exemplified by Giotto di Bondone's Scrovegni Chapel frescoes. However, even as it declined, Byzantine influence continued to make itself felt in the 13th and 14th centuries, notably in the Sienese School of painting and the International Gothic style (1375-1450), notably in International Gothic illuminations, like the Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, by the Limbourg Brothers. See also Byzantine-inspired panel-paintings and altarpieces including Duccio's Stroganoff Madonna (1300) and Maesta Altarpiece (1311).
Byzantine illuminated manuscript: Tree of Jesse
Tree of Jesse, illuminated page from Rabanus Maurus's De laudibus sanctae crucis, Anchin, mid-12th century; in the Municipal Library of Douai, France.
Bibliotheque Municipale de Douai, France—Giraudon/Art Resource, New York
“SS. Boris and Gleb,” icon by a follower of Prokopy Chirin, Stroganov school, 17th century; in the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Novosti Press Agency
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