LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Byzantine Art: Centuries
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Churches on Torcello, in Venice, are remnants of the Byzantine "cities of silence". which were tantamount to museums in the declining Byzantine culture of the ninth century. Buildings of brick, the most typical material of Byzantine architecture, rise up from the grey waters of the lagoon, the brick interspersed with thin layers of stone or decorated with marble-lined openings. The cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, founded in 639 and rebuilt in 1008, has a 9th-century portal and a crypt with an 11th-century architrave and bell tower, all of which are constructed of marble. Inside, there are columns with 11th-century capitals and a huge mosaic. The Last Judgment (late 11th to 12th century), on the west wall.
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The development of Byzantine painting may ... be seen in manuscript illumination. Among notable examples of Byzantine illumination are a lavishly illustrated 9th-century copy of the Homilies of Gregory Nazianzus and two works believed to date from a 10th-century revival of classicism, the Joshua Rotulus (or Roll) and the Paris Psalter.
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Treasures on loan from private collections of Fort Worth and Houston, plus highlights from the Menil‚s own Byzantine holdings. An intimate, single-gallery exhibition, featuring panel paintings (icons on wood) and ecclesisastical objects, and ancient coins, curated by Menil chief curator Bertrand Davezac, a renowned expert in the field of Byzantine art. Among the objects on display include a rare silver plate known as a paten from the 6th century, and a 7th century incense burner newly acquired by the Menil.
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Something of the abstract quality of the icons entered into much of Byzantine art. The artistic antecedents of the iconic mode can be traced back to Mesopotamia and the hinterlands of Syria and Egypt, where, since the 3d century
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