SURVEY OF WESTERN ART

LECTURE 4

Early Christian and Byzantine Art



The Beginnings and Constantine


We can begin our focus with the declining centuries of the Roman empire, the last century of classical Rome.

In the 2nd c. Emperor Marcus Aurelius predicted that the power of Rome would last forever. 100 years later the Roman empire was in full decline. Currency bled away, there was an enormous tax on the middle class. The empire became so large that by the 3rd century the roads could no longer be maintained. The army was very large, but by the 3rd century it was composed of non-Italians, Persians, Visi-Goths, etc. By the end of the 3rd c., it became too difficult to shield the enormous empire.

Two emperors tried to change this, first Diocletian (pagan) and later Constantine, and for a brief period stability was restored, depending on a rigid state authority. The measures taken by the latter emperors did not prevent the empire from splitting in half.

By the time Constantine became Caesar of the Roman empire, the Empire had split in half:

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Map of Medieval
Europe












The Eastern Empire, or Byzantine Empire became strong and stable in the sixth century under Emperor Justinian:



The Church

The church emerged to fill the void, it grew in time of economic misery. The church declared themselves authority of state. Thus the people sought for something beyond their miserable lives, a quest for a new religion emerged. The focus was no longer on "Man" but now on "God".

Christianity, one of many cults in the first, second, and third centuries prevailed because it offered assurance of an afterlife in paradise and its accessibility for the lower class, and because of its extremely gifted leadership from the beginning, like St. Paul.

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The pagan world was a continuous stream, focusing on manly pleasures, the material, temporal glories. The Christian world unfolded dramatically with a beginning a middle, and an end - the Last Judgment. Everything led up the Last Judgment, focusing on the spiritual, and the eternal. The focus on the Day of Reckoning - Last Judgment swept through the world. More and more people began to turn their eyes away from present world. Needing assurance of salvation. This radically altered the process of Western thought FROM THE MATERIAL TO THE SPIRITUAL. The chief focus moved away from the study of nature, or the study of man to the study of how the human soul might return to God. We see this new spiritual attitude reflected in the arts. We move away from a clear, logical, measurable art, as seen exemplified in the building of the Pantheon in Rome, towards an unsubstantial, symbolic art.


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Hagia Sophia, Constantine
Byzantine Art




  • The pantheon, a temple dedicated to all Gods, projects a certain attitude. It is highly organized, heavy, domed. Extremely balanced, a geometric unity - equal dimensions for the height of the dome and its diameter, easily read plan, the dome isolates and defines the interior space.
  • Thus it is very materialistic architecture - clear, logical, measurable. Rich, heavy, powerful
  • Hagia Sophia, in many ways is similar to the Pantheon, it is large, domed. However, there are basic differences that show how far we have come from pagan classical point of view to Medieval pt of view. In the Pantheon, everything was clear, understandable, in H. Sophia architectural form becomes blurred, softened, mosaics covered upper parts of the wall, the lower parts are richly patterned marble. Where you don't have marble or mosaic, you have windows, hundreds. The dome sits on a row of windows. In early morning and late afternoon, light filters through windows so the dome rests on light. A miniature heaven, unsubstantial quality prevails, symbolic of heaven. Architects hide all supports from view. Where the Pantheon was solid, massive, H. Sophia is insubstantial, shell like. The walls disappear. FROM CLASSICAL MATERIALISM TO CHRISTIAN TRANSCENDENTALISM.



    Early Christian Art

    Before Constantine declared Christianity a state religion, Christians worshiped in secrecy, in private dwellings and sometimes in underground chambers beneath the city of Rome, and other cities, called Catacombs. Roman law protected any tomb, and even during periods of severe persecution, the sites were protected.

    Catacombs were mainly a place of burial for the Christian dead. Many chambers were decorated with frescoes of Christian symbolism to distinguish it from pagan tombs. We have to be careful about style of these works. The are very crude, naive craftsmanship, similar to folk art.

    One such fresco was found in a catacomb on the ceiling dating from the late third, early fourth century A.D.



    The scene of Christ as the good shepherd in surrounded by 4 lunettes containing the story of Jonah. Christ is depicted as a shepherd, the favorite funerary motif derived form Psalm 23, "The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; he maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside still water; he restoreth my soul... Lo, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil," he is the Lord of salvation. Also, in John 10:11, Christ says " I am the Good Shepherd"

    The symbolism declares man's promised salvation in the next world. The four lunettes form a cross, a symbolism of Christ's crucifixion, death, and resurrection.

    Most of the scenes in early times rely heavily on the old Testament. Slowly we begin to see New Testament. You have to realize that the new testament was not canonized or accepted until the 2nd c.

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    Detail of Jonah, Thrown Into the Sea
    Catacomb of Saints Peter and Marcellinus, Rome 4th Century





    The story of Jonah is very symbolic and related to Christ's life. Jonah was cast from a ship, into a belly of a whale. Jonah spent three days and three nights in the whale's belly. This action is a symbolic foreshadow of Christ's entombment. Jonah was released from the whale and thrown on shore, sitting beneath a vine, the vine a symbol of Christ's resurrection. The vine is the wine which symbolizes Christ's blood.

    Also, Jonah was cast out because he disobeyed God, but he was saved, showing no sin is too great to ask forgiveness, revealing a merciful God.

    The orantes, or figures of prayer represent the souls of the deceased in supplication, hope for salvation. We feel a program of subject matter in this early art. There is an established set, or a sequence of related themes or stories chosen and arranged together in order to a more comprehensive theme - here through prayer, and the mercy of God, salvation is possible.

    While we are inundated with symbolism which only will become more complicated as this stylistic period continues, we see the beginnings of the disintegration of realism. There are still some clear borrowings from the classical past, it will take time to come out of the material world, to create a transcendental, or other-world. We shall see the evolution take place as we progress with the study of medieval art. The problem the early Christian artist has is how to remold Classical style for the thoughts of Christians.

    The same funerary motifs and liturgical practices as we saw in painting are also repeated over the surfaces of the sculptured coffins called sarcophagi (plural) sarcophagus (singular).

    Compared to painting and architecture, sculpture played a secondary role in Early Christian art. Because Christians wanted to avoid the taint of pagan idolatry, sculpture developed from the very start in an anti-monumental direction: away from the spatial depth and massive scale of Graeco-Roman sculpture toward shallow, small-scale forms and lace-like surface decoration. Sculpture in the round was particularly vulnerable to the charge of idol worship, since it encouraged association with the gods of the pagan world. Thus, except for portrait busts or small figures of the Good Shepherd, Christians encouraged sculpture only on sarcophagi.

    As we saw the physical world, the realism of Roman sculpture begin to disappear in the Column of Trajan, and almost completely in the Arch of Constantine, Early Christian art continues to de-emphasize the material, for the spiritual.

    The earliest works of Christian sculptor are marble sarcophagi, which were produced form the middle of the third century on for the more important members of the Church.
    The Good Shepherd Sarcophagus, Late 4th Century


    Architecture

    CONSTANTINE AND THE BASILICA

    Architecture in the first three centuries of the Christian era was not monumental, Christians primarily worshiped in houses.

    The clear signs of the emperor's favor caused the Church to prosper both in numbers and in the social standing, thus church organization became important. The church became organized into dioceses ruled by Bishops, modelled in detail of the civil government at the time.

    The liturgy also continued to develop; from being a simple matter of scripture and a fellowship supper, to a solemn ceremonial procedure, not unlike many court proceedings.

    Thus a new church was required to meet the desire for size and splendor.

    Now the Emperor and Church were faced with the problem of erecting large Christian churches which did not exist before. Before there were only small chapels. Now with Christianity the state religion a large scale monumental structure was needed to house large congregations, for Christians worshipped inside. Two major types of churches were created: THE BASILICA AND THE CENTRALIZED CHURCH. The basilica was fully developed in the Early Christian period, while the centralized church was fully developed in the Byzantine period.

    Constantine extended his patronage widely, concentrating his building activity in Rome. The choice of materials were lavish expenditures on decoration, expected to convey a sense of unearthly splendor and to demonstrate the emperor's piety and generosity."


    PAGAN BASILICA

    The word basilica means "kings hall"

    The basilica was - and this is a point to be emphasized - a general building type that served numerous functions in the Roman world as a gathering place for law courts, business transactions, stock and money exchanges, audience halls for civic affairs, and so forth.

    There was no one basilica form, and surely the building that Constantine

    Christian Basilica

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    Plan of Old Saint Peters
    And Close Up Reconstruction
    Rome, 324 A.D.



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    The most revered Christian church in the West was St. Peter's basilica, built over the grave or tomb of the apostle St. Peter. This is the basic basilican type. We see that from the elevation and ground plan the basilica was a vast composition consisting of: all coming together in a monumental structure. Stood on a podium and staircase borrowed from Roman basilica. St. Peter's

    The visitor approached it from the east by means of a flight of steps leading into a large, enclosed courtyard called and atrium. The atrium was where the unbaptized could assemble, since they were not allowed in the church. Also, the atrium moved the church away from the street. This atrium is borrowed from a Roman house, where a colonnaded court served as the central public rooms.

    The visitor then saw ahead of him a plain portico set in front of the five doorways leading into the church itself.

    Where the atrium and the church connect, is a passage perpendicular to the church called the narthex. This is the entrance hall of the church. The entire complex is approached through a propylaea or entrance gate. The entire complex is approached through a propylaea or entrance gate. All the borrowings for the Christian basilica are from Roman architecture, its temples, basilicas, and houses.



    CHURCH DECORATION, MOSAICS

    The decoration of the Early Christian basilica constitutes the major artistic achievement of the period. The vast wall surfaces above the nave colonnade, the triumphal arch over the entrance to the sanctuary, and the half dome of the apse provided ample area for the development of narrative themes and ornate representations. Some of these decorations were paintings in fresco, but many were executed in mosaic.

    They all differed from the paintings of the catacombs in that they were created under the patronage of either of the imperial family or of the upper hierarchy of the church.

    The financial resources were greater, the scale was larger, and the major artisans of the period were employed.

    Mosaics were used extensively throughout the antique world. Mad of small cubes of colored stone or glass (tesserae), they were usually fitted together of the floors of atria or the rooms of the villas to create intricate designs or pictures. One of the major achievements of the Early Christian mosaicists, although they did not invent the method, was to perfect and extensively use mosaics on the vertical walls and curved vaulted surfaces of their buildings.

    With the aid of the interior decoration the Early Christian architect is attempting at creating a space which reflects the New Jerusalem in heaven.

    THE APSE MOSAIC

    The apse is considered the holiest place in the basilica. It is symbolic of the heavens, where Christ and his saints forever govern. The decoration of the apse was carefully considered because it functioned as a stage setting for the liturgical drama of the Mass below.

    The apse is usually reserved for representations of Christ, as teacher, philosopher or most frequently, as king or heavenly sovereign. One of the earliest apse paintings in Rome is the one at Santa Pudenziana, dating about 400 a.d.



    This mosaic is important for its iconography. It is the earliest surviving decorated Christian apse which takes us back to the period of classical revival in Rome. This mosaic was heavily restored during the Renaissance and the nineteenth c., but the Christ in the center is not changed, thus, in terms of style we have to look at Christ for analysis.

    There is a high degree of classicism in the proportions, modeling, ease and movement, linearity has not yet quite taken hold. Thus we see a union of the old naturalism and the symbolism taking hold in the fifth century.

    The subject is Christ teaching the apostles in front of heavenly Jerusalem.

    The landscape behind him may directly be related to a reproduction of the Holy Sepulchre - Church built over Christ's tomb in Jerusalem. The cross is symbolic of the true cross erected on Golgatha (hill that Christ was crucified).

    The four evangelists (gospel writers) are in their animal symbolic form. The iconography can be traced back to the old testament source when Ezekial saw a vision in heaven of the four beasts spreading the word of the gospel. Also found in the book of Revelations. Matthew is the winged angel, Mark is the Lion, Luke is the Ox or bull, and John is the Eagle. Until the fourth c. the relationship between animal symbols and those who they represented were not fixed. Hence, the image stands as Christ, the king, presiding over the mass of the Apocalypse - we know it is the apocalypse because of the presence of the beasts.

    Peter and Paul are being crowned by female figures who symbolize the church of the Jews behind Peter on the right, and the church of the Gentiles, behind Paul, originally there were 12 apostles, only ten can now be seen, due to restorations.

    Again we see naturalism mixing with great symbolism of the Early Christian period. This naturalism will fade, the emphasis will become purely spiritual, other worldly, purposely making no or little reference to our natural world.



    BYZANTINE ART - 1ST GOLDEN AGE



    During the fifth century A.D., the western part of the Roman Empire was overrun by Germanic tribes from northern Europe. The Ostrogoths occupied the Italian city of Ravenna, until it was recaptured during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in 540. Under Justinian, the eastern Empire rose to political and artistic prominence. Justinian secured the territories bordering the Mediterranean Sea. his armies drove the Goths out of Italy; they forced the Vandals to surrender North Africa; and they pushed Persian invaders into the hinterlands of Asia Minor.

    It is Justinian's grandiose building programs that concern us. The highly original structures that his architects created for the Christian church in Constantinople in the East, and Ravenna in the West.

    The interior of San Vitale is glowing with yellow light, resulting from the lavish use of gold in its mosaic decoration. The subjects of the mosaics are Christian, and stylistically they are among the best examples of Byzantine mural decoration.

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    SLIDE: APSE MOSAIC OF SAN VITALE, ENTHRONED CHRIST, 547 A.D.





    The large apse mosaic depicts a young, beardless Christ. His halo contains an image of the cross.

    Imperial art contributes the most in establishing the iconographical makeup of the piece. For example, Christ as King (no loner the good shepherd), enthroned, surrounded by angels (retinue), he is wearing formal court ceremonial costumes, the purple robes, this structure is similar to imperial or court iconography adapted for Christian use.

    Christ is crowing San Vitale, or Saint Vitalus, on the right Bishop Ecclesius holds up a model of the church.

    Although there are still traces of Hellenistic and Roman naturalism, for example in the landscaped terrain and suggestions of shading in the figures and draperies, the representation is more conceptual than natural. The draperies do not convey a sense of organic bodily movement in space, and the figures are frontal. The absence of perspective is evident in Christ's seated pose, he is not logically supported by the globe and hovers as if in midair. The illusionistic qualities are diminished, the more iconic tendencies toward flat patterns is encountered.

    Symbolically, Christ is seated on the sphere of the world, as its universal sovereign. The sphere is symbolic of hes universal power.

    Beneath Christ's feet, not seen in this slide, are the four rivers, which are symbolic of the four evangelists who irrigated the world with God's world.

    On the two side walls of the apse are mosaics representing the court of Justinian and his empress Theodora.



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    Hagia Sophia
    Exterioir View






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    The undisputed masterpiece and most perfected church of Justinian's reign is the Church of Hagia Sophia, in Constantinople. It was dedicated to Christ in the personification of Hagia (holy) Sophia (wisdom).

    Justinian commissioned two Greeks Anthemius and Isidore to build a new kind of church centered on a great dome. It church was completed in just six years. The dome rose 184 feet above the pavement, and with half-domes on either side covered an area of 100 feet by 250 feet.

    The building dates slightly later than San Vitale, in Ravenna. However, architects in Constantinople were faced with a challenge that was not a factor in the design of San Vitale. The challenge was how to accommodate a large congregation, hence a large space, usually solved by a basilical plan, and still keep the centralized spiritual structure developed in Ravenna? Ravenna's congregation had been small so they could keep a small domed space.

    The architects solved the problem by combining a basilica plan with a centralized dome plan.

    This problem was solved through the use of the pendentive system, which allowed the dome to be laid out on a square basilica plan, using the pendentives as a transition from square to circle. The pendentive is a spherical triangular section of masonry that makes a structural transition from a square plan to a circular one. The enormous lateral thrusts of the domes is supported by great buttresses, which from the outside make the church look like a great pile of masonry. But the interior is light and airy

    The plan unfolds itself from the center. The central core consists of a ribbed dome resting on pendentives that are formed by four arches carried on piers. The north and south arches are embedded in the walls of the nave and rise above the roof of the galleries and aisles to buttress the central core. Two half-domes open up the basilical hall, and take some of the thrust of the central dome. On the diagonal axis, four semi-domes complete the central core, adding additional support.

    Light floods the interior, through the 40 clerestory windows of the central dome, vaults float, and the dome seems suspended from heaven. Every aspect of the design works toward the elimination of the physical reality of the building, a majestic weightlessness is achieved. The architects create this spiritual quality by hiding the mass of the walls beneath opulent mosaics and marble, and putting the main buttresses on the exterior. Again the exterior is sacrificed, is weighty and earthy, while the interior is brilliant and spiritual, and other worldly.

    The Byzantine style continued in both eastern and western Christendom for several centuries following the age of Justinian.