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Late antiquity art and byzantine
Late antiquity art and byzantine
Late antiquity art and byzantine
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The Byzantium Civilization started cause of overcrowding in the eight century B.C. that led Greek city-states to send out colonies throughout the Mediterranean basin. In the year of 667 B.C.; Byzas, from the Greek city of Megra, founded Byzantium Civilization at the mouth of the Black Sea. Alexander the Great dominated Byzantium as he built an empire around it stretching from Greece to India. Byzantium was the Christianized eastern part of the Roman Empire. Constantine the Great was a vital figure in the early stages of this civilization. He established toleration for Christianity throughout the Roman Empire and legally transferred his capital from Rome to Constantinople, which is the site of the Greek City of Byzantium. Roman law and political institutions ruled the people there and they spoke Latin and Greek languages. Merchants at this city were able to grow rich cause of its strategic location between the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Constantine liked to import Greek-Roman art from throughout the empire.
Byzantium art focused on human figures. The most prominent figures that were created were Christ, the Virgin Mary, the saints, and the apostles. The emperor was believed to be divinely sanctioned by god. Human figures were portrayed in sculptures in two different styles. One style expressed power, authority, and grandeur. The other style expresses adoration, sympathy, prayer, and distress.
The Attarouthi Treasures consist of fifteen objects: ten chalices, three censers, a wine strainer, and a dove. The artifacts were found buried in the vicinity of the ancient town Attarouthi. This town was a stopping point on the trade routes. The chalices were used to hold wine during the Liturgy. Upright frontal figures decorated most of the chalices with Christ appearing as a beardless young man. The dove represents the Holy Christ that descended over Christ when Saint John baptized him. Crosses and bust-length figures of Christ decorate the censers.
The emperor Maurice Tiberius had a medallion that when put together with twelve gold coins and three other medallions that were identical formed a griddle. Griddles of this type were worn as belts or slashes and sometimes even necklaces. Traditionally the Roman emperor would give medallions and coins as gifts to high-ranking officials or nobles.
The Processional Cross is decorated on both sides with silver-gilt medallions. On the front of the cross, Christ has his right hand raised in blessing and is flanked by Mary on the left side with John the Baptist on the right.
which cover his waist and some of his torso. He is holding a very tall, slender cross in his left hand, while looking with a diffused look to the right. Also, to the left of him (to the right from the viewer’s perspective) there is a sheep lying upon a rock.
While Rome was being ramp sacked from Germanic and other barbaric groups, the imperial power shifted to the eastern part of the Roman Empire, where the center city was Byzantium (Craig/Graham/Kagan/Ozment /Turner, 354, 2009). Between 324 and 330 BCE, Constantine the Great became emperor and rebuilt the city and renamed it after himself (Craig/Graham/Kagan/Ozment /Turner, 354, 2009). After Constantine died, power shifted to Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora in 527 BCE (Craig/Graham/Kagan/Ozment /Turner, 354, 2009).
and the Dove of the Holy Spirit rests on Christ's halo. In front of the
Roman Emperor Constantine I founded the Byzantine Empire in 330 CE as a continuation of the Roman Empire in the east. The characteristics of the empire led to the modern definition of “Byzantine,” which means “strangely complicated.” This was true, as in the Byzantine Empire was very chaotic, complex, and strange at times, but it was very massive and influential worldwide. The empire heavily influenced modern religion, laws, and engineering making it worthwhile learning about the empire.
In the sixth century B.C, the land that we now call Iran was the center of the largest empire in the world. The kings of Ancient Persia( such as Cyrus the Great) were the leaders of a great civilization that made amazing advances in laws, goverment and communication. Founded in 550 B.C by King Cyrus the Great, the Persian Empire spanned from Egypt in the west to Turkey in the north, and through Mesopotamia to the Indus River in the east. Unlike most empires at that time, the Persian kings were benovelent rulers, and allowed a diverse variety of diffrent people with diffrent ethnic backgrounds. The Persian empire was split into three diffrent empires with three diffrent time periods but the first empire was called the Achaemenid Empire. It began with King Cyrus the Great and ended with King Darius III.
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.
Immediately below the head of that man is the olive colored body of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ head is dropped back and his body is limp, being held up by two men. The only article of clothing Jesus has on is small, white wrap that covers his genital area. A male figure, dressed in a mainly dark blue wrap, holds the torso of Jesus. His left arm is grabbing Jesus and his head and dark brown hair peak out behind Jesus’ shoulder. This man is standing, barefoot, on a ladder that rests sideways on the middle beam of the cross.
The Book Cover for the Lindau Gospels is rectangular in shape, it features a cross in the center with a depiction of Christ being crucified on it. This is the area of the work that your eyes are immediately drawn to. This work uses hierarchy of scale, the act of making important figures much larger than other figures, when depicting Christ to show that he is important. Implementing this technique also draws all of your attention to the largest figure, Christ. The body of Christ is depicted realistically and youthfully. His body fills the majority of empty space in the lower part of the cross but, the cross is slightly bigger than Christ. However, Christ’s face lacks a great amount of detail and he is shown with a solemn facial expression with his eyes shut. Around his head is a halo made of metalwork and jewels. In the upper part of the cross, the portion that the body of Christ does not fill, there is a short inscription and two small figures that are conformed into a circular shape. The small figures are depictions of the sun and the moon.
order. Two decades later the area would fall under Constantine. With his death in 337 CE, his
In the picture we can see that the clergy and Justinian passing from left to right some objects. A censer, the gospel book, the cross, and last but not least the bowl for the bread of Eucharist. This action gives the identity to the image as the so-called Little Entrance. Having this knowledge lets us mark the beginning of the Byzantine liturgy of the Eucharist.
Early Christian art during the period of Roman persecution was highly circumspect, and innocuous objects—the fish and the dove—were used to symbolize Christ and the Holy Spirit. Later Christian art, however, became replete with iconographic symbols. In particular, many of the saints became associated with specific objects—Saint Peter with two keys, for instance, or Saint Catherine with a broken wheel.
Yet this colour was not used for Mary, which I found to be s significant to her importance. Also, the artist doesn’t focus only on one aspect, i.e. the passing of the Madonna but focuses on the biblical writings to portray a passing from this life into heaven. One can interpret through the painting that Mary went up to heaven- body and soul. Neri di Bicci’s painting of The Assumption of the Virgin has a painting within a painting, the crucifixion of Christ, a traditional Catholic symbol. The Apostles that surround Mary’s sarcophagus do not discover her body, but flowers allowing one to come to the conclusion that not only her spirit but her whole body ascended into heaven. The Apostles are around her sarcophagus and seem divided in their understanding as to what happened to Mary. Five Apostles are looking down, perplexed that Mary’s body isn’t in its Sarcophagus. While seven, Apostles look upward in acknowledgement for her assumption. The artist used gold leaf for the Apostles halos to signify their holiness. Saint Thomas, is keeling upon the sarcophagus and doubts that Mary is ascending into heaven and asks for
John looks down towards the Christ Child, and he together with the child and Mary form a triangular composition on the left side of the frame with the Christ Child as the focus. St. John is the patron saint of Florence, referencing Sellaio’s Florentine origin. He holds his hands together similar to the Christ Child, in reference to praying for his wellbeing. He also smiles reverently, matching Christ and Mary to establish the happiness brought by Christ’s birth.
He then traveled the world until he arrived in Rome. He was sleeping in an alley one day when a thief came along and stole his belongings. Unfortunately, this included the belt with the cup. The thief held the cup for a while but he never knew the true power of the cup. A soldier finally arrested him with the cup. The soldier took the cup but thought that it would be of no interest to the King, so he kept it for himself. He felt a sense of belonging to it as well. The soldier kept it for a good amount of time. It protected him in some of his battles, although he never knew the power it held. It was not until a bar fight when he lost the cup after it was stripped from his possession. It rolled out of the bar into the street where a potter’s apprentice’s dog found it. The dog brought it to the apprentice, Aaron. Aaron took the cup as a challenge, so he decided to improve the look of the cup. He gave the cup an outer layer and then carved a fish into the side. His mentor, Elias, then found the cup and thought it was a decent piece of work. He told Aaron that he had potential and decided he could teach Aaron a few things. Elias then threw the cup into a shipment of other pottery traveling to
Byzantine mosaics developed depicted subjects with shimmering skin and shinning halos which brought up an effect of an accomplished gold leaf and smalti. The Roman mosaics featured domestic scenes, animal sacrifices and geometric patterns which led to the creation or display of Christian imagery in terms of depicting Christ.