Byzantine Art Overview The Byzantine art period is on the longest creatives phases in all of art, spanning over an entire millennium, from 330 AD to 1453 AD. During its quite long tenure, its art was spread far and wide throughout the known world. Most of their art consisted of religious context may it be their frescoes, murals or very architecture. The Eastern Orthodox Church careful patroned and regulated paintings and mosaics to produce the most accurate artistic depictions according tradition Christian theology. Early Byzantine architects commonly used domes and vaults to built their communities’ churches, basilicas, cathedrals. A prime example of such heavenly establishments was the Hagia Sophia, a huge domed church of immense riches. …show more content…
Theophanes created frescoes like, Our Lady of the Don and Christ Pantocrator,that captured Byzantine religious culture at its core, its devotion to Christ. Though he didn’t paint in the Byzantine empire, Theophanes helped cement its creative ideals and style into Moscow, gis artistic HQ, helping inspire a new generation of Russian painters, including the great Andrei Rublev. In turn, Andrei Rublev is regarded as one of the best Russian icon painter of the Middle Ages for his religious art. Rublev, like Theophanes, painted frescoes, however, created many more frescoes that helped further spread an interest in Byzantine art …show more content…
In Rabanus Maurus’ Tree of Jesse, symmetrical balance can be seen as Jesus’ ancestry can be seen on both the right and left of him in the same corresponding shades. In the relief, Archangel Ivory by an unknown artist emphasis and focus is put on the orb in the archangel, Michael’s hand as it is large and placed to the side, with a cross placed on top. In the Russian artist, Prokopy Chirin’s SS. Boris and Gleb, repetition in figures can be seen to the very right and left of the fresco along with the repeated oval symbol seen at the top center of the piece. Heavy contrast can be seen in Andrei Rublev’s Trinity, as the colors of the figure’s clothes all contrast each other. The figures are seen wearing red/blue, green/blue, and orange/blue combinations helping their robes stick out. Lastly, movement can be seen in another one of Rublev’s works, St Paul. From Deisus Tier. In the painting, it appears that Saint Paul is bending forward to read his Bible, due to the stance of his feet, posture, and overall body
During the 15th century, Europe started to have different cultural traditions that impacted the type artwork of artwork that was produced. There are several elements that have evolved during this time. Two artworks will be compared so that we will be able to evaluate how various techniques that are used can be used to portray the meaning of the painting as well as how the audience views the scene as well. One of the paintings that we will compare is a Annunciation panel (from the Merode Triptych), which was painted by Robert Campin in 1426. This painting will be compared to Holy Trinity, which was created by Masaccio in 1425. By comparing these two paintings, we will get a sense of what themes and ideals were valued during this time period.
Theodora’s story starts with a distinctive start. Her father was a bear trainer that worked in the Hippodrome in Constantinople and she grew up in the entertainment spotlight (Craig/Graham/Kagan/Ozment /Turner, 355, 2009). She was a mime and when she was older, she became an actress (Koeller, 1996). So, she not only lived in a circus, she also became a child star. Who would not want her childhood? But, back in that day, an actress was not a highly looked upon career for a women, therefore the term ‘actress’ was interchanged with ‘prostitute’ (Koeller, 1996). So, it might not have been the best...
... middle of paper ... ... Christ acts as the focal point, but the artist also used different subjects from the Old and New Testament to decorate the apse. Unlike the mosaics in the apse of Byzantine churches, the artist employed the technique of classical fresco painting.
The Hagia Sophia is a stunning, spherical-shaped building made of marble and gold (Doc. 4). Justinian built the Hagia Sophia, which means “Holy Wisdom” in Greek, after a church of the same name was destroyed in riots in Constantinople (outside information). Procopius, Justinian’s court historian, described the church as “suspended from heaven by the fabled golden chain” (Doc. 4). Undoubtedly, visitors to the Hagia Sophia are left breathless by its beauty (outside information). Other churches that Justinian built include the Church of St. Salvator in Chora and the Church of the Apostles (Doc. 5). Justinian’s churches were beautiful; however, they were created to be more than just a display. The churches caused people to feel a connection with God, which helped unify the empire under a single faith. The bonding of the Romans under one faith helped strengthen the entire empire. Moreover, the abundance of churches in Constantinople helped make the city the center of religious power (Doc. 5). Evidence of Justinian’s legacy can be found when one realizes that the Byzantine Empire’s revived culture influenced Orthodox Christianity, a major branch of modern
The Hagia Sophia was constructed first and it was meant as the main church of the Byzantine Empire. It is said that they built the Hagia Sophia in only 5 years, while it took nearly a century for the Notre Dame cathedral to be completed. While it did have what some would consider an extremely short construction time, they did have many issues with the dome. It nearly collapsed more than a few times. Once the builders and architects figured a plan to keep it stable, one on looker said, ”it is as if the Dome is suspended from Heaven itself”. The Dome of the rock was constructed for Christians, Jews, and Muslims but was to attract new followers to Malik’s Islamic brotherhood. The project for the construction had many issues, not only with the Dome itself, but also with revolts that would postpone construction for years. Once completed, many followers believed that Jerusalem was the third holiest place in the world due to Muhammed’s journey to Heaven in order to talk to God. The art within the Hagia Sophia was beautiful Mosaics and paintings of the Virgin Mary with Jesus. These were meant to represent how holy the building was. When the Muslims claimed the Hagia Sophia they did not want to destroy it due to beliefs so they renovated the building. They did this by breaking down images of humans and animals due to their belief that no images of figures
This painting with the background and middle ground being mono-chromatic and the foreground and focal point being Christ in the two primary colors of red and blue. Mei is basically informing the viewer where he wanted them to look first. In this painting Christ is looking more aggressive, confronting an elderly women. With Christ right hand seems to be threatening as if it is to discipline her with the whip and the left hand restraining her rather than punishing the women. Dividing the composition diagonally with the strong inference of red. Bringing the doves to the bottom right corner. Looking closely you can see there is many hands within the left corner. Amongst them there is hands counting money and protecting their wares in the middle ground. Moving back to the focal point of Christ you can see that the face-to-face confrontation between Christ and the elderly women. Carefully you can see the realism within the facial features. Detail within the faces such as line and wrinkles suggest the age and creates’ tension between the two people evoking
One similarity between Giotto's and Cimabue's painting are that they show Madonna sitting on a throne with Jesus on her left side. Madonna and Jesus are also in the upper center of the painting surrounded by prophets and angels. The centers of paintings during the time were usually reserved for the Virgin Mary or Christ. (7) In both pieces, the angels and prophets are split equally on both sides of the paintings. Sometimes artists would place the same number of figures on one both sides, so as not to disturb the compositional consistency. This fundamental of symmetry had to be maintained in Byzantine art.
“The Passions of Christ: A Journey Through Byzantine Art.” Kypros-Net: “The World of Cyprus”. 18 Oct. 2004 <http://kypros.org/Byzantine/>.
The Byzantine mosaic was an early Christian predecessor whereby it clear cuts the religious tales drawn from the bible. There was a combination of forces between the political and religious authority which gave the emperor power over the architecture and art of Byzantine Empire. The Roman Empire was collapsing due to the interruption by German tribes hence they were not able to teach manners and morals according to the artistic and cultural ways of the mosaics hence they were unable to determine art of the early Christianity while the art of Byzantine
This piece communicates what was valued most at this point in time. Christianity was at the center of life in fourteenth century Europe. So much so that these artist were commissioned to create these highly valued religious pieces most for private purposes ,so the people could have a relic or icon to worship in their homes. Specific artistic conventions had o be followed when creating these pieces. The monarchies ruled through the church. There was huge emphasis on the man and afterlife, To ensure eternal salvation man devoted their lives to spreading and commemorating the word of Christ.
In this painting there is a strong presence of the color element. There is a strong contrast in lighting between the mother and child and the angels worshiping on the outside. The mother and child are painted in a vibrant pinkish rose hue while the surrounding angels are a slightly darker mix of green shades. The painting also offers a good variation of saturation when it comes to the fading yellow brick background. The pallets used
The Christian Church was absolutely instrumental in the art of the Renaissance. It was the driving force behind every inspiration; without the Church, there would have been no art. The Church was the only institution powerful enough to be able to support the commissions of all of the artwork, and it was the only institution, in which people had enough faith and devotion to spend so much of their time and money creating pieces that—although beautiful—were not necessities. The role of religion in art actually began during the Byzantine era. During this time, all artwork was religious in nature, and most of it was done in a consistently similar style so that figures from the Bible could be easily recognized by everyone and so that people had a consistent view of religious matters. Art during this time was largely iconic, meant to inspire the awe of God in the viewer. Along with various versions of the crucifix, one of the most popular images of the Byzantine style was The Pantokrator, an image of Jesus Christ as shown from above. An example of one of these pieces was done in the twelfth century in the abbey church of Monreale in the city of Palermo. Jesus is a monumental figure that takes up much of the space across the apse of the Church. One of his hands forms a mudra as the other holds the scripture. His fully frontal and direct stance along with the glimmering gold background serves to strike awe and fear into the viewer. Clearly this piece was done with the intent to impress the value and mightiness of religion first and attention to the detail and technique of the art second.
Byzantine art had many basic characteristics. The first was expressionistic using color and emotion. Many of the are lacked depth in a two dimensional fashion. The art was symbolic in nature, decorative, detailed. The figures are stiff and ...
During the Early Byzantine Empire, the mosaics themes revolved around Christianity, however, mosaics formed a new aesthetic, which is weightless, frontal figures (Kleiner 239). For example, the Justinian (Fig. 6) (547) mosaic on the north wall of the apse, San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy. Justinian is placed in front of the figures that seem to be floating/weightless. Furthermore, the artworks rejected classical illusionism. In the Middle Byzantine Empire, Basil I created a mosaic about the Mother of God in Hagia Sophia (Fig. 7), Turkey in 867 (Kleiner 247). This mosaic showed the domination of iconophiles. Furthermore, the mosaic involves rich colors such as golden
The Medieval time period was an important era for the growth of culture throughout the entire world. We owe many innovations used in design, architecture and overall style to the works of the many artists that flourished in the middle ages. Each of the four periods of development were unique to one another, yet followed an overlying religious theme that defined the medieval times. The advancements made during that time were able to influence to the 800 years of art that lead up to present day, and still remain visually and architecturally beautiful.