Byzantine Art: An Artistic Bridge From Antiquity to the Middle Ages - Research Paper

Introduction

The Byzantine art is the art that developed in the Byzantine Empire from the fourth century, which was extended from the sixth century by the Eastern Roman Empire, being the city of Constantinople, the capital of the Roman Empire, the centermost important artistic of this period. In its first moments, the Byzantine Empire was considered as the natural continuator of the Roman Empire being a transmitter of artistic forms that strongly influenced the medieval western culture (Bayet, 2014). It is an art subordinate to the power of the emperor, and when he adopts the Christian religion, to the power of religion as well. This art manifests the presence of three influences: that of incipient Christianity, that of Greek rationalism and that of Islam.

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The location of Byzantine art varies throughout the current European continent, starting from Constantinople capital of the Eastern Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire, until reaching its expansion towards important places for the time such as Ravenna, located in Italy, part of Russia, on the other hand, also occupies a large portion of the territory of Armenia. It should be noted that Byzantine art also traced its route in Greece, leaving a great influence on the artistic style of this country. The main character with which Byzantine art fulfilled was that it was an artistic movement in which he represented a great use of varied colors expressed in his paintings, sculptures and religious constructions (Maguire 2019). It was influenced by Eastern and Greco-Roman culture, highlighting mainly Syria and Asia, with a final result of the combination of these two cultures. It maintained as main subject the use of illustrations and religious ideologies.

One feature of the Byzantine painting is that the characters depicted were observed drawn with a long shape and the arms making some movement or carrying some element.

The clothing that these human figures wore was perceived as parallel and straight folds; there were few times vertical folds could be found. It was essential that the cloak was worn by the characters in the painting always be observed with movement and collected on his left arm. For the rest of the body, a body language was perceived that represented majesty, honesty and, on the other hand, tranquility. In the case of the eyes, it could be noticed that they had a fixed gaze to the right of the spectator or in front, with the eyes open and large; on the feet, they could be fixed small and with a pointed end (Eastmond 2017). Touching the theme of the decorations that were made to the works belonging to Byzantine art consisted of garments of important value, likewise there were numerous jewels, pearls, garlands (crowns made with organic materials, such as branches, flowers or leaves), another part could be contemplated the use of plants being the palm tree the most common among all.

The tableware gained a considerable amount of quality when in the period of the Palaeologus (starting from 1261 to 1391) they saw the need to change the way craftsmanship was made, since there were problems with the persistent wars, thus affecting the society and religion of the area. The dishes went from being created with gold and silver base to clay. Icons and religious meanings embodied in the elaborate Byzantine ceramics were noted with the purpose of decorating and giving religious and symbolic importance, one of the most common examples being the constant use of the drawing of a dove, which is an animal directly related to Christianity, as well as the ducks that were used in Egypt (Daniilia et al., 2008). There were few times that the human figure was taken as an example to illustrate in the ceramics, but in spite of this when they met, they made a formal or even grotesque stance, emphasizing that the Byzantine church's ideas did not accept the use of a naturalistic position of man. The Byzantine pottery was divided into two different parts, the first was the pottery made from a mixture which contained white glasses, and in some cases, these glasses were decorated with artistic expressions. In the second type is the typical pottery made from red clay, with which they decorated with drawings drawn on the surface with colors in the form of two superimposed layers.

Mosaics art was very widespread in the Byzantine Empire, especially in the golden age, the reign of Emperor Justinian (526 to 565). The mosaic was the highest expression of Byzantine art. They were created from small pieces of colored stones, placed on fresh cement on a wall and thus forming a drawing (Daniilia et al., 2008). The mosaic images were made up of artists who used the small, colorful pieces of stone stuck to the wall. Religious and emperor images were the main themes.

Widely diffused during the reign of Justinian, the mosaics represented front and upright people, to create a certain spirituality. The perspective and the volume were not valued in the Byzantine mosaic. The main color used was gold, due to its association with one of the greatest material goods, gold. These mosaics are characteristic for having abundant color and light, exercising didactic and above all symbolic functions (Wietzmann, 2014). The technique used is that of opus tesselatum and is practically based on mixing colored glasses with stones. This type of mosaics can be seen in many domes and interior walls. On the walls, space is symbolically divided into three parts: lower for the terrestrial representations, medium for the transition representations and superior for the sky.

The Byzantine painting was summed up in the religious context and suffered interference from the iconoclasts, a group that condemned the worship of religious images. Marked by the religious theme, the main paintings were of images of Christ and the Virgin. The Byzantine painting did not go beyond the religious context, suffering interference from the iconoclastic movement, a controversy over the use of paintings or carvings in religious life (Cormack 2018). Realistic human representations were considered a violation of the commandment not to worship images. Thus, to end the cult of human figures, the emperor prohibited the reproduction and ordered the destruction of artistic works that existed under these conditions.

Christ Pantocrator is a painting where Christ is depicted with a halo, Bible in the left hand and the other hand as a sign of blessing when he is inside a mandorla and around are the four evangelists represented as animals are called Christ Tetramorph. Each evangelist represents an element: Saint Luke is the bull and represents the earth, Saint Mark is the lion and fire, Saint Matthew is the angel and the air, Saint John the eagle and water (Bayet, 2014). In the apse of the churches were painted scenes of the Old Testament called iconostasis since it was a pedagogical art. Byzantine art was also expressed in their architecture.

One of the main features that characterized the Byzantine architecture was that for the elaboration of the religious installations the brick was used, obtaining excellent results and thus replacing the stone. It should be noted that when replacing brick with stone, it began to be the first feature that was responsible for distinguishing Byzantine architecture with Roman architecture, the latter being the exploiter of stone for the manufacture of its structures.

Second stage: The elaboration of the churches begins to take an important role during this stage that they begin to realize the types of plant churches whose structure came to be flatly and horizontally (Maguire 2019). In the same way, one could notice a parallel projection is perpendicular to the horizontal projecting plane with uses of a Greek cross wrapped over domes with a present corrugated cornice at its outer base. We can find as an example of this type of structure from the architecture of the Byzantine churches the cathedral of Athens, on the other hand, we can also name the church of the monastery of Daphni located eleven kilometers away northwest of the center of Athens (Eastmond 2017). Another model that can be mentioned of this new type of church building is the missing Nea of Constantinople, built by the Byzantine emperor Basilio I about the year 881.

This second stage coincided with iconoclasm, which came to destroy various Byzantine buildings at the beginning of this era. Currently, one of the few churches with Byzantine architecture that have been found is the Basilica of St. Sophia in Thessaloniki, the central city of Greece. On the other hand, there is also the church of the Assumption of Nicea in Asia Minor, which survived until the twentieth century and was destroyed in 1920 because of the fighting of the Greco-Turkish war, despite these unfortunate events (Cormack 2018). Photographs of the religious temple have been found. Concerning the time of the Macedonian dynasty which ruled the Byzantine Empire from the ninth century until the eleventh century, Byzantine art reached its maximum expansion on the east and other important areas of Europe and Asia. It is worth noting that during this time there was talk that the missing "Theotokos Panachrantos" or also known as the church of the Immaculate Mother of God located in the main city of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, which was built by Emperor Basil I and used as an example for structures with a cross-shaped plant inscribed in a circle.

One of the churches that have the theory that was developed using the prototype of the church of the Immaculate Mother of God was the monastery of Ossios Loukas (located in Greece and built at the beginning of the year 1000) (Wietzmann 2014). On the other hand, it is also found the monastery of Nea Moni (located on the island of Chios, located on the Aegean Sea which was a great project supported by Constantine IX) and finally the monastery of Dafni (located in Attica, now the territory of Athens, Greece).

Byzantine art is one of the most important episodes of universal art, as it has influences from Greek and early Christian art, as well as great oriental influences of Persians and Muslims. It is an art to the power of the emperor, and as he adopts the Christian religion, art is at the service of the Church, considering the emperor as the representative of God on Earth. There is a monumental architecture manifested in its churches, splendid mosaics, and impressive sculptures.

Works Cited

Bayet, Charles. Byzantine Art. Parkstone International, 2014.

Cormack, Robin. Byzantine art. Oxford University Press, 2018.

Daniilia, Sister, et al. "From Byzantine to post-Byzantine art: the painting technique of St Stephen's wall paintings at Meteora, Greece." Journal of Archaeological Science 35.9 (2008): 2474-2485.

Eastmond, Antony. Art and identity in thirteenth-century Byzantium: Hagia Sophia and the empire of Trebizond. Routledge, 2017.

Maguire, Henry. Art and eloquence in Byzantium. Vol. 5253. Princeton University Press, 2019.

Weitzmann, Kurt. Greek mythology in Byzantine art. Vol. 523. Princeton University Press, 2014.