Art History Chapter 9

Chapter Intro - San Vitale - dedicated by Bishop Maximianus in 547 in honor of Saint Vitalis - the most spectacular building in that northern Italian outpost of the Byzantine Empire - The design features two concentric octagons - the mosaic program underscores the dual political and religious roles of the Byzantine emperor The Christian Roman Empire - Byzantine: The art, territory, history, and culture of the Eastern Christian Empire and its capital of Constantinople - Iconoclasm: The destruction of religious or sacred images. In Byzantium, the period from 726 to 843 when there was an imperial ban on such images. The destroyers of images were known as iconoclasts. Those who opposed such a ban were known as iconophiles Early Byzantine Art - The golden age of Early Byzantine art began with the accession of Justinian in 537, but important Byzantine artworks survive from the century before Justinian’s reign Before Justinian - Saint Michael the Archangel - Right Leaf of a Diptych - The sculptor who carved this largest extant Byzantine ivory panel modeled Saint Michael on a classical winged Victory, but the archangel seems to float in front of the architecture rather than stand in it - The archangel’s flowing drapery, which reveals the body’s shape, the delicately incised wings, and the facial type and coiffure are other indications the artist who carved this ivory was still working in the classical tradition - The sculptor had little concern for the rules of naturalistic representation - De materia medica - encyclopedia of medicinal herbs - Complied by a Greek physician named Dioscorides - Anicia Juliana between Magnanimity and Prudence - Folio 6 Verso of the Vienna Dioscorides - In gratitude for her generosity, the people of Honoratai presented Anicia Juliana, a great art patron, with a book in which she appears enthroned with personifications of Magnanimity and Prudence - Vienna Dioscorides - contains 498 illustrations, almost all images of plants - rendered with a scientific fidelity to nature that stands in stark contrast to contemporaneous Byzantine paintings and mosaics of religious subjects Justinianic Art and Architecture - Justinian as World Conqueror - Barberini Ivory - A masterwork of political art is the ivory plaque - Classical style and motifs lived on in Byzantine art in ivories such as this one - Justinian rides a rearing horse accompanied by personifications of Victory and Earth. Above, Christ blesses the emperor - Hagia Sophia - By ANTHEMIUS OF TRALLES and ISIDORUS OF MILETUS - Constantinople - a domed basilica - Buttressing the great dome are eastern and western half-domes whose thrusts descend, in turn, into smaller half-domes surmounting columned exedrae - Justinian’s reign was the first golden age of Byzantine art and architecture - Hagia Sophia was the most magnificent of the more than 30 churches Justinian built or restored in Constantinople alone - Mosque: The Islamic building for collective worship. From the Arabic word masjid, meaning a “place for bowing down.” - Minarets: A distinctive feature of mosque architecture, a tower from which the faithful are called to worship - Silentiary: An usher responsible for maintaining silence in the Byzantine imperial palace in Constantinople - The feature that distinguishes Hagia Sophia from equally lavishly revetted Roman buildings such as the Pantheon is the special mystical quality of the light flooding the interior - The soaring canopy-like dome that dominates the inside, as well as the outside of the church, rides on a halo of light from windows in the dome’s base - Procopius observed that the dome looked as if it were suspended by “a golden chain from heaven” and that “the space is not illuminated by the sun from the outside, but that the radiance is generated within - Pendentives: A concave, triangular section of a hemisphere, four of which provide the transition from a square area to the circular base of a covering dome. Although pendentives appear to be hanging (pendant) from the dome, they in fact support it - The pendentives created the impression of a dome suspended above, not held up by, walls - Squinch: An architectural device used as a transition from a square to a polygonal or circular base for a dome. It may be composed of lintels, corbels, or arches - Solidi: A Byzantine gold coin - San Vitale - It is not a basilica, rather, it is centrally planned, like Justinian’s churches in Constantinople - San Vitale honored Saint Vitalis, a second-century Ravenna martyr - has a design featuring an off-axis narthex and two concentric octagons - A dome crowns the taller, inner octagon - Choir: The space reserved for the clergy and singers in the church, usually east of the transept but, in some instances, extending into the nave - Choir and Apse of San Vitale with Mosaic of Christ between Two Angels - In the apse vault, a youthful Christ, seated on the orb of the world at the time of his second coming, extends the gold martyr’s wreath to Saint Vitalis - Bishop Ecclesius offers Christ a model of San Vitale - Justinian, Bishop Maximianus, and Attendants - Mosaic on the North Wall of the Apse - San Vitale’s mosaics reveal the new Byzantine aesthetic - Justinian is foremost among the weightless and speechless frontal figures hovering before the viewer, their positions in space uncertain.\ - Theodora and Attendants - Mosaic on the South Wall of the Apse - Justinian’s counterpart on the opposite wall is the powerful Empress Theodora - Neither she nor Justinian ever visited Ravenna - San Vitale’s mosaics are proxies for the absent sovereigns - Paten: A large shallow bowl or plate for the bread used in the Eucharist - Saint Apollinaris Amid Sheep - Apse Mosaic, Sant’Apollinare in Classe - Saint Apollinaris stands beneath Christ’s cross, his arms raised in prayer - Although the scene is set in a landscape, the Byzantine artist rejected the classical illusionism of early mosaics - Monastery: A group of buildings in which monks live together, set apart from the secular community of a town - Refectory: The dining hall of a Christian monastery - Theotokos: Greek, “she who bore God.” The Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus - Mandorla: An almond-shaped nimbus surrounding the figure of Christ or other sacred figure - Transfiguration of Jesus - Apse Mosaic - the artist swept away all traces of landscape for a depthless field of gold - The prophets and disciples cast no shadows even though bathed in divine light - The bodies cast no shadows, even though supernatural light streams over them Manuscript and Icon Painting - Ascension of Christ - Folio 13 Verso of the Rabbula Gospels - The Gospels do not mention the Virgin as a witness of Christ’s Ascension - - Her prominent position in the Rabbula Gospels is an early example of the important role Mary played in medieval art - The Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension are all subjects of full-page paintings in a manuscript known as the Rabbula Gospel - the Theotokos occupies a prominent position, central and directly beneath Christ. It is an early example of the important role the Mother of God played in medieval art Icons: A portrait or image; especially in Byzantine churches, a panel with a painting of sacred personages that are objects of veneration Virgin (Theotokos) and Child between Saints Theodore and George - Encaustic on Wood - Byzantine icons are the heirs to the Roman tradition of portrait painting on small wood panels, but their Christian subjects and function as devotional objects broke sharply from classical models Middle Byzantine Art - In the late eighth and ninth centuries, a powerful reaction against iconoclasm set in - The case in favor of icons had been made forcefully earlier in the eighth century by Saint John of Damascus Architecture and Mosaics - Virgin (Theotokos) and Child Enthroned - Apse Mosaic - After the repeal of iconoclasm, Basil I dedicated a huge new mosaic in the apse of Hagia Sophia depicting the Virgin and Child enthroned - An inscription says it replaced one the iconoclasts destroyed - Drum: the cylindrical wall that supports a dome - Cloisonne: A decorative metalwork technique employing cloisons; also, decorative brickwork in later Byzantine architecture - Greek Cross: A cross with four arms of equal length - Katholikon - Middle Byzantine churches typically are small and high-shouldered, with a central dome on a drum and exterior wall surfaces with decorative patterns, probably reflecting Islamic architecture - Interior of the Church of the Dormition - The Daphni dome rests on an octagon formed by squinches, which play the same role as pendentives in making the transition from a square base to a round dome but create a different visual effect - Middle Byzantine architects aimed for the creation of complex interior spaces with dramatically shifting perspectives - Pantokrator: Greek, “ruler of all.” Christ as ruler and judge. - Christ as Pantokrator - Dome Mosaic in the Church of the Dormition The mosaic of Christ as last judge in the Daphni dome is like a gigantic icon hovering dramatically in space, connecting the awestruck worshiper below with Heaven through Christ - Crucifixion - Mosaic in the North Arm of the East Wall of the Church of the Dormition - The Daphni Crucifixion is a subtle blend of Hellenistic style and the more abstract Byzantine manner. - The Virgin Mary and Saint John point to Christ on the cross as if to a devotional object - Christ between Constantine IX Monomachus and the Empress Zoe - Zoe, who was the wife of three emperors, here appears with the enthroned Christ and her third husband - Constantine IX’s portrait may have replaced successive portraits of Zoe’s previous two husbands - Doges: Duke; a ruler of the Republic of Venice, Italy - Martyrium: A shrine to a Christian martyr - Interior of Saint Mark’s - Modeled on a church in Constantinople, Saint Mark’s has a central dome over the crossing, four other domes over the arms of the Greek cross, and 40,000 square feet of Byzantine-style mosaics - Muqarnas: Stucco decorations of Islamic buildings in which stalactite-like forms break a structure’s solidity - Pantokrator, Theotokos and Child, Angels, and Saints - Apse Mosaic in the Cathedral - In centrally planned Byzantine churches, the image of the Pantokrator usually appears in the main dome, but Monreale’s cathedral is a longitudinal basilica - The semi dome of the apse is its only vault Ivory Carving and Painting - Triptych: A three-paneled painting, ivory plaque, or altarpiece - Ivory triptychs were very popular—among those who could afford such luxurious items —and they of en replaced icons for use in personal prayer - Deësis: Greek, “supplication.” An image of Christ flanked by the figures of the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist, who intercede on behalf of humankind - Christ Enthroned with Saints - Aka Harbaville Triptych - In this small three-part shrine with hinged wings used for private devotion, the ivory carver depicted the figures with looser classical stances, in contrast to the frontal poses of most Byzantine figures - Lamentation - Wall Painting - - - - Working in the Balkans in an alternate Byzantine mode, this painter staged the emotional scene of the Lamentation in a hilly landscape below a blue sky and peopled it with fully modeled figures David Composing the Psalms - Folio 1 Verso of the Paris Psalter - During the Macedonian Renaissance, Byzantine artists revived the classical style - This painter portrayed David as if a Greek hero, accompanied by personifications of Melody, Echo, and Bethlehem. Templon: The columnar screen separating the sanctuary from the main body of a Byzantine church Vladimir Virgin - The most renowned Middle Byzantine icon produced in Russia - only traces of the original surface remain - reveals the stylized abstraction resulting from centuries of working and reworking the conventional image - displays all the characteristic traits of the Byzantine icon of the Virgin and Child: the Virgin’s long, straight nose and small mouth; the golden rays in the infant’s drapery Virgin of Compassion Icon (Vladimir Virgin) - In this icon, the artist depicted Mary as the Virgin of Compassion, who presses her cheek against her son’s as she contemplates his future - The reverse side shows the instruments of Christ’s passion Late Byzantine Art - The Seljuk Turks conquered most of Anatolia. The Byzantine Orthodox Church broke finally with the Church of Rome. And the Crusades brought the Latins into Byzantine lands on their way to fight for the Christian cross against the Saracens (Muslims) in the Holy Land Painting - Parekklesion: The side chapel in a Byzantine church - Anastasis - Fresco in the Apse of the Parekklesion of the Church of Christ in Chora - In this Late Byzantine funerary chapel, Christ, a white apparition surrounded by a luminous mandorla, raises Adam and Eve from their tombs as John the Baptist and Kings David and Solomon look on - he figures float in a spiritual atmosphere, spaceless and without material mass or shadow-casting volume - This same smoothness and lightness also characterize the modeling of the figures and the subtly nuanced coloration - Iconostasis: Greek, “icon stand.” In Byzantine churches, a screen or a partition, with doors and many tiers of icons, separating the sanctuary from the main body of the church - - - Christ as Savior of Souls - Icon from Saint Clement, Ohrid - Notable for the lavish use of finely etched silver foil, this icon typifies Byzantine stylistic complexity - Christ’s fully modeled head and neck contrast with the schematic linear folds of his garment Annunciation - Reverse of Two-Sided Icon from the Church of the Virgin Peribleptos - Late Byzantine icons often have two painted sides because they were carried in processions - On this icon the Virgin Mary appears on the front and this Annunciation scene on the back Three Angels - By Andrei Rublyev - This exceptionally large icon featuring subtle line and vivid colors is one of the masterworks of Russian painting - It depicts the three angels who appeared to Abraham, prefiguring the Trinity