Unit IV Review: Early Christian, Byzantine and Early Medieval

37.00 During the years before Constantine, Early Christians were one of a number of semi-secret religious groups practicing their religion in the Roman Empire. When they refused to take part in emperor worship, the Christians were heavily persecuted, a situation reflected in the name of this early phase of Christianity's existence, the Persecution Period. Because of the threat of torture and death, Christians attempted to meet in protected locations, such as the catacombs of Rome (burial areas beneath the streets of the city where the poor were interred). Slide 37 shows the interior of such a catacomb, lined with rectangular niches where the bodies of the deceased were placed. It was in this less than pleasant environment that Early Christians held services in small, often domed, chambers called cubiculae. The cubiculae typically had a small altar in the center of the floor and simple, hurriedly painted scenes on its ceiling.

38.00 This painting of Christ as the Good Shepherd appears on the domed ceiling of a cubicula in the Catacomb of Sts. Pietro and Marcellino (Peter and Mark). The treatment of Christ as a youthful, unbearded figure carrying a lamb on his shoulder is reminiscent of much earlier Greek sculptures of Apollo and Hermes in similar poses. The connection should not be wondered at: Early Christians were, after all, Roman citizens and as such were inculcated in Greco-Roman imagery. It is quite typical, in fact, for Early Christian images to stylistically resemble Roman forms, while differing only in the Christian reinterpretation or reformulation of the subject matter.

39.00 After Constantine's edict legalizing Christian worship, the Early Christians entered the Period of Recognition. Now able to follow their faith above ground, these Christians needed an architectural form suited to large gatherings of people. The solution to their problem was to adopt the old Roman basilica form and adapt it to their needs. The Early Christian basilicas, like Old St. Peter's seen here, were reoriented so that one entered on the West, walked through an atrium-like courtyard, and a portico (the narthex) to arrive at the nave and its flanking side aisles. At the east end of the church was a transept (giving the basilica a cross-shaped or cruciform plan) and an altar under the intersection of the nave and transept. Oftentimes a triumphal arch enframed the space where the altar was located, symbolically alluding to the triumph of Christ over death. The Christian basilica is a characteristic re-shaping of earlier Roman forms for a new purpose.

40.00 In addition to the basilica plan, Early Christians often used small, round, centrally planned structures for small churches and mortuary chapels. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem combines the circular chapel form with a basilica to commemorate the place of Christ's burial.

41.00 Decorating the interiors of the new Christian churches were glittering mosaics. One of the most beautiful, and characteristic, is the Good Shepherd Mosaic in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna. The early Roman illusionistic technique of modeling with light and shadow and creating landscapes with real-appearing space are joined in this scene to a youthful, Apollo-like rendering of Christ. Apollo's association with sheep and rams is due to Greek mythological tales. Christ's association is more symbolic: he is the shepherd of the Christian "flock." Another borrowed element is the purple and gold robe of Christ. It is similar to those worn by the Roman emperors, but here it indicates Christ is "Emperor" of the universe.

42.00 Manuscript painting was another form of art to flourish in Early Christian times. Richly colored books like the Vienna Genesis were painted on vellum (veal skin) and parchment (lamb skin). The Vienna Genesis scene of Slide 42 is of Jacob and the Angel. Its style is lively and energetic, but already we seem to be edging away from the relative illustionism of the Good Shepherd Mosaic.

43.00 Sculpture during this era, like the architecture, is based on modifications of Roman prototypes. It tends to be relatively small in scale so as not to appear to fit the category of "graven images" forbidden in Christian texts.

The Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus is of the "columnar" type, in which vignettes from the Old and New Testaments are arranged in small compartments of space created by flanking columns. There is no rhyme or reason for the order of the scenes, which include Christ Between Saints Peter and Paul (in the central upper panel) , the Sacrifice of Isaac, Adam and Eve, and Daniel in the Lion's Den. The figures often stand in contrapposto poses, like Greek and Early Empire Roman prototypes, but their squatty proportions and large heads belie another influence, the art of Constantine's Late Empire.

44.00 The Good Shepherd Sarcophagus (like the previous example) has short, stubby figures in a crowded, dense composition reminiscent of Constantine's frieze. Although the contrapposto and Cupid-like figures cavorting in the grape vines of the background are reminders of earlier classical antecedents, the symbolism of the grapes as references to wine (the blood of Christ) is a new, exclusively Christian twist.

45.00 Early Christian art was produced in the Western Roman Empire from the time of the birth of Christ until approximately 500 A.D., when this part of the empire was overrun by barbarians from the north. The Eastern Empire, founded by Constantine when he established his capital at Constantinople (now Istanbul), was to endure far longer. The style of the Eastern Empire (called Byzantine) begins with the re-naming of the capital and continues in some parts of Europe and Russia well into the 15th century A.D. Architecturally, the Byzantine style is distinguished by an emphasis on centrally planned, domed structures such as San Vitale (seen in Slides 45 and 46). San Vitale is located in Ravenna, a major Byzantine outpost in Italy. It is a particularly good example of the style's mystical, surging spaces: chapels seem carved out of the radiating aisle, and the plan is a complex octagon-within-an-octagon shape. This church dates to the first great flowering of Byzantine art, the First Golden Age, when the Emperor Justinian ruled from Constantinople.

46.00 See the caption of Slide 45 for more information.

47.00 The architectural masterpiece of the First Golden Age of Byzantine Art (the time of the Emperor Justinian) is Hagia Sophia, the Church of the Holy Wisdom, in Constantinople. It, like San Vitale, was a domed structure, but here the dome is far higher and wider, rising more than 180' off the floor. Its height, as well as the openness of the plan, were enabled by the use of pendentives. Hagia Sophia is the first large church in which this technique was used; it involves suspending the dome on four supporting arches. Notice the ring of windows at the base of the great dome; lighting played an important role in Byzantine architecture, enhancing the mystical spirituality of the interior spaces. In this case, the dome seems suspended on a band of clear illumination.

48.00 Justinian was one of the great art patrons of early times. As Emperor of the Byzantine world, he put his unique stamp on most of the art produced during the First Golden Age. Here, Justinian appears in a mosaic near the altar of San Vitale in Ravenna. He and his 12 assistants (members of his army and his clergy) face forward like long, lean mannequins. Their faces, with large eyes, sweeping eyebrows, small chins and tiny mouths, seem stamped from the same mold. Each figure occupies a narrow slice of space and stands out against an abstract gold background. Only the central placement of Justinian, his purple imperial toga, his halo, and his feet (which seem to trample those of adjacent figures) suggest his superior status. This is a fine example of the abstract nature of Byzantine art...and of the godly pretensions of the period's rulers (the halo and the 12 assistants are not mere coincidences, but allude to Justinian as Christ's representative on earth!).

49.00 Across the altar from the Justinian mosaic in San Vitale, stands Justinian's wife, Theodora. She is as regal and static in her pose as the Emperor. Theodora is also associated with an important Christian figure, in her case with the Virgin Mary; she sports a halo and the hem of her robe bears the image of the Three Wise Men. Incidentally, Theodora is carrying a chalice suitable for wine and her husband carries a golden container with sacred bread. The two thus appear to be vicariously participating in the celebration of mass, the very ceremony that would occur at the real altar separating their mosaic images.

50.00 Sculpture of the First Golden Age is represented by the Sarcophagus of Archbishop Theodore. Covered with symbolic figures, the meaning of the sarcophagus is unintelligible except to the initiated. The Chi-Rho monogram refers to the first two letters of Christ's name in Greek, the alpha and omega alludes to Christ's words, "I am the beginning and the end" and the laurel wreath around the cross symbolizes Christ's victory over death. The Byzantine, as seen here, is indeed an abstract and esoteric art style. But the nature of Byzantine art eventually did change. After a vehement controversy between Iconoclasts (image-breakers who felt imagery was idolatrous) and Iconophiles (who felt that art enhanced worship), the Byzantine world entered its Second Golden Age, and here we see a revival of more recognizable, and sometimes even classicizing, imagery.

51.00 In the Second Golden Age of Byzantine art, a rash of churches created emulated the glory of Hagia Sophia. The most spectacular of these was San Marco (St. Mark's) in Venice. Venice was a prosperous port city fully capable of raising a spectacular rival to Hagia Sophia. Although later work in the Romanesque and Gothic periods has somewhat altered the outward appearance of the church, the interior (with its sparkling golden mosaics and dome on pendentives) fully reveals its Byzantine beauty.

52.00 A mosaic dealing with scenes from Genesis ornaments the entrance portico to San Marco (St. Mark's). Stylistically, the figures seem to return to the Roman Late Empire: short stocky forms, contrapposto poses, and even a Christian reinterpretation of a pagan motif. The soul of Adam, as it is breathed into him by God, is imaged in the ancient Greek way, as a naked, butterfly-winged child. This mosaic shows the resurgence of interest in classical forms that occurred after the Iconoclastic Controversy (see additional information about the Controversy in the caption for Slide 50).

53.00 One aspect of the renewed interest in classical Greco-Roman art found in the Second Golden Age was an increasing emphasis on human pathos. Greek Humanism might be seen as a leveling force on Byzantine spiritual abstraction. The Daphne Crucifixion's elongated figures, typical facial features, and gold background are stylistically pure Byzantine. The sense of tender, restrained grief expressed by the Virgin and St. John, on the other hand, is truly classical.

54.00 A similar Greek humanistic tenderness is seen in the icon of the Virgin and Child. An icon was a holy image which served as the focus of individual worship. Such objects were not made prior to the Second Golden Age, but they have become perhaps the best known, and loved, of Byzantine art forms. Technically, they are wood panels that have been completely covered with gold leaf. Paint is then applied over the gold, except in the background or where gold "highlights" are desired.

55.00 In the Second Golden Age, sculptors as well as mosaicists and painters participated in the revival of a more classical style. The Harbaville Triptych, a portable ivory altar, shows Christ and his apostles as naturalistic, classically-draped and classically- proportioned figures. The abstraction of the Sarcophagus of Archbishop Theodore of the First Golden Age (Slide 50) has been overturned.

56.00 In the West, after the fall of Rome, Europe entered a period that once was called the

"Dark Ages." Now a less-loaded term is usually used, the Early Medieval Period. The Early Medieval Period is traditionally subdivided into three major phases: the Migration phase (from approximately 400 to 800 A.D)., the Carolingian Phase (from 800-870 A.D.), and the Ottonian Phase (from about 950-1000 A.D.). The first of these phases is the time of wandering nomadic peoples like the Goths, Lombards, and Franks, the marauding Vikings from the northern part of Europe, and the Anglo-Saxons of England. The latter were responsible for a magnificent ship burial of an East Anglian king at Sutton Hoo. The gold and enamel purse cover seen in Slide 56 demonstrates the wanderers' love of gold and their skill with metals as well. Its designs are meandering interlaced tendrils mingled with stylized Gilgamesh-like motifs. Predator and prey motifs derived from Near Eastern art also appear. The convoluted, linear arabesques typify "the Northern Interlace Style," a term oftentimes used for the entire Migration phase.

57.00 Viking art, too, picks up the curviliear movements of the Interlace Style, as can be seen in this wooden ship prow ornament . Meant to freighten enemy seamen, this toothy dragon-like creature exudes the physical vigor, adventurousness, and violence we've come to associate with the Viking culture. Curiously, the same agitated, twisting form of ornamentation found on the ship prow sculpture continues in Viking art after the Vikings' conversion to Christianity about 1000 A.D. (as can be seen in the next slide).

58.00 The stone of Harold Bluetooth was a monument erected by a Christian Viking in memory of his father, Gorm, and his mother. It bears a unique crucifixion scene in which the figure of Christ is almost indistinguishable from the extraordinary proliferation of writhing vine-like forms. The Northern Interlace Style was alive and well long into the 11th century A.D. in Viking country! This union of Christian subject matter and the formerly pagan decorative interlace patterns is also found in the British Isles during the Migration Phase, as can be seen in the next few slides.

59.00 England, Scotland, and Ireland were the locations of small, rural, isolated monastic communities during the Migration Phase....communities that diligently strove to keep the Gospel alive in this time of violent barbarian raids. Talented manucript "illuminators" from these rugged places produced incredibly intricate, hypnotic holy images intended to be as beautiful as the books' words were precious. The Cross Page from the Lindesfarne Gospel is a gem of Hiberno-Saxon workmanship (Hiberno refers to the Celtic Irish who contributed to this tradition. Saxon refers to the English), with delicately outlined blue and gold tendrils setting off the green and red Christian cross centered on the page.

60.00 The Initial Page from the Book of Kells is as ornately "interlaced" as the Lindesfarne page. Swirling forms, intricate detail, subtle coloration and the inspired imaginations of the artists make these objects among the most appealing of the Early Medieval period.

61.00 The fragmented Europe that lay in the wake of Rome's collapse was resurrected by an energetic new force on the scene. His name was Charlemagne and, in the year 800, he had himself crowned by the Pope in Rome as the Emperor of a new Holy Roman Empire. Charlemagne had long admired Justinian and Constantine; his goal was to be an emperor in their mold, and to build a political entity modeled on that of the ancient Roman Empire. When Charlemagne had traveled to Rome on an earlier occasion, he had seen the church of San Vitale, built during the reign of Justinian. Charlemagne commissioned a Palace Chapel at his capital in Aachen emulating San Vitale's octagon-within-an-octagon plan. However, it should be noted that Charlemagne's version is much clearer in design and sturdier in appearance (see Slides 61 and 62).

62.00 This is the interior of Charlemagne's Palace Chapel at Aachen, one of the first large scale stone structures to be erected in Europe since the fall of Rome. Lacking the intricate interplay of chapels and side aisles of San Vitale, the interior of the Palatine Chapel appears masculine and worldly beside its more mystical prototype.

63.00 Some of Charlemagne's greatest gifts to posterity were vast libraries of manuscripts. Instructing the manuscript makers of his time to produce copies of ancient works as well as new books, the Emperor instigated a boom in manuscript illumination. The example seen here is a page from the Coronation Gospel of Charlemagne showing St. Matthew writing his Gospel. It is done in a style strongly reminscent of Roman paintings: the figure and his drapery are modeled with light and shadow, there is a convincing relationship between the figure and his chair, and the frame of the depiction is ornamented with Greek acanthus leaves. The latter are the same leaves that decorated Greco-Roman Corinthian columns.

64.00 A similar scene of St. Matthew appears in another manuscript, the Ebbo Gospels (the Book of Archbishop Ebbo of Reims). This version, though, is done in an entirely different, agitated, "interlace"-derived style that reveals roots going back to the Celtic monks and "barbarian" peoples of the Migration Phase. The Carolingian Phase truly reveals its dualistic origins in its manuscripts.

65.00 After the death of Charlemagne, his kingdom was divided among his grandsons, only to disintegrate at the hands of Vikings and Magyars. A re-consolidation occurred, however, in the middle of the 10th century, thanks to a new line of German emperors known as the Ottonians. The Ottonian period saw a new wave of influence from the Greek East (Otto II married a Byzantine princess), which resulted in one of the first monumental sculptures of the crucified Christ, the Gero Crucifix. The pathos of the event equals or exceeds that of the Daphne Crucifixion mosaic (Slide 53) from the Second Golden Age of Byzantine art. The face (heavily etched with pain), the bulging arc of the abdomen, and the tension in the tightly stretched arms all convey Christ's torment with unequalled expression.

66.00 The Expulsion from Paradise scene from the bronze doors of St. Michael's at Hildesheim is, like the Gero Crucifix, extremely expressive. God rises to his full height as he wrathfully responds to the first sin. Adam and Eve's reaction to God's accusation is typically human: they pass the buck (Adam points to Eve, and Eve to the serpent) !

67.00 That the Ottonian rulers saw themselves as the rightful successors to Charlemagne and the great Roman emperors is suggested in this manuscript page from the Gospel Book of Otto III. Otto, wearing the purple toga emblematic of emperors, is enthroned between clergymen and soldiers, just like Justinian in San Vitale's mosaic (to compare the two see Slide 48).