6. The Art of Byzantium (286AD-1453)
A short history:
The Byzantine Empire can be divided into three periods: early, middle, and late (historians make a habit of this). The early empire started with Emperor Constantine, when he chose Byzantium (present day Istanbul) to be his new seat of power. He renamed it Constantinople, and his successors ruled there from then on. The early period saw two major crises. One was caused by the new Islamic faith and its followers, leading to endless wars over the “holy land”:
This map shows the Byzantine Empire at the height of its power:
This map shows Byzantium a hundred years later, in 650, when the Arab Caliphate split it in two.
The second crisis was Iconoclasm, coming in two waves, from 730-87 and then 814-42 AD. Both these instances were instigated by Byzantine emperors, whose subjects revolted. Emperor Leo made his decision after witnessing an earthquake, which he interpreted as God’s anger at icons. In both cases, an empress ended the problem by stating religious paintings could be “venerated, but not worshiped”. It’s hard to say how much art was destroyed. These two Iconoclasms mark the end of the Early Period.
The Middle Period of the empire lasted from 842 to 1204 when Constantinople was sacked by invading European crusaders. The Late Period lasted from 1204 to 1453, when the Ottoman Turks defeated them, seizing Constantinople, and renaming it Istanbul.
Art of Byzantium
Byzantine art consisted mainly of churches and cathedrals, and religious works used to decorate them: portraits of saints, often mosaics, sometimes grouped together, painted in a style as rigid as that of the ancient Egyptians, all with the same flowing robes, seeming to float in a heavenly gold background. This was made with gold leaf pasted to the walls, with transparent glass pieces glued on top:
But this wasn’t all they did. Jewelers developed a new technique for combining glass enamel with precious metals, a method they called cloisonné, and it allowed for rich, shiny colors in jewelry:
Greatest works of the time:
While many works of early Christians in Rome have already been covered, there are some famous buildings:
This is actually the third cathedral ordered by emperors in Constantinople, the first two being destroyed by fires. This cathedral, one of the biggest of all time, was designed by Isidore and Anthemius. The dome they built collapsed during an earthquake shortly thereafter, but was rebuilt lighter and stronger by Isidore the Younger. It has since survived several disasters, fire, earthquakes, always being repaired even stronger. The minarets, the four towers on each corner, were added by the Ottoman Turks after taking the city in 1453. They also redecorated, replacing Christian art with Islamic writings.
These churches all share a cross-in-square design, as shown here:
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