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Byzantine Art: Roman Empire
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Byzantine art is the art produced during the Byzantine Empire in Eastern Europe beginning in the 5th century and continuing through the fall of the Empire in the mid-15th century. Art produced in this era has its roots in ancient Greece and Rome. It tends to be highly religious in theme and concept. Read on to learn more.
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Byzantine art, as traditionally defined, refers to the arts originating within the boundaries of the so-called Byzantine Empire, from the date of the foundation of Constantinople in 324 to the date of its conquest by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. In truth, Byzantine art is not so easily encapsulated. Its distribution, artistic influence, and sources of inspiration extend well beyond the territorial boundaries of the Empire. Its roots can be traced in the pagan arts of Greco-Roman antiquity, and its legacy is clearly visible in the arts of the Italian and Northern Renaissance, medieval and modern Russia, and even of places far more remote in time and place, such as we see in the Byzantine revival architecture of London's Westminster Cathedral.
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Mostly religious in function, but preserving the classicism of Greco-Roman art, Byzantine buildings and art objects communicate the purity and certainties of the public face of early Christian art. Focusing on the art of Constantinople between 330 and 1453, this book probes the underlying motives and attitudes of the society which produced such rich and delicate art forms. It examines the stages this art went through as the city progressed from being the Christian center of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its crisis during attack from the new religion of Islam, to its revived medieval splendor and then, after the Latin capture of 1204 and the Byzantine reoccupation after 1261, to its arrival at a period of cultural reconciliation with east and west.
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Despite the Empire's longevity, Byzantine art is typically portrayed as the garish final stage of Roman art or is overshadowed by Gothic art. The Byzantines... made contributions that cannot be overlooked in a study of Medieval Europe, such as perfecting the art of wall mosaics and developing the use of icons, to create some of the most spectacular medieval art in existence today. Furthermore, Byzantine engineers accomplished many feats of engineering, such as the great dome of Hagia Sophia, that for years were only truly understood by the Ottomans who inherited the great church.
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Much of Byzantine art is imbued with something of the abstract quality of icons. The artistic antecedents of the iconic mode can be traced back to Mesopotamia and the hinterlands of Syria and Egypt, where, since the 3rd century AD, the rigid and hieratic (strictly ritualized) art of the ancient Orient was revived in the Jewish and pagan wall paintings of the remote Roman outpost of Dura Europos on the Euphrates and in the Christian frescoes of the early monasteries in Upper Egypt. In the two major cities of these regions, Antioch and Alexandria... the more naturalistic (Hellenistic) phase of Greek art also survived right through the reign of Constantine. In Italy, Roman painting, as practised at Pompeii and in Rome itself, was also influenced by Hellenistic art.
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Aside from architecture itself, the best efforts of Byzantine art were devoted to church decoration and especially to decoration in glass mosaics. It is here that the East Romans succeeded best and that their art, for the given purpose, was entirely adequate. In this art ... their own workmen were sought for in all other countries, and through this art their influence is most apparent and was most felt in Western Europe.
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