Future

The Art of Worship

Rome falls and with it a way of life for its people. The west fell to the barbarians and the east to the new Roman Empire. Under the emperor Constantine III a new societal structure is established on Christianity. Moving the capitol of Constantinople in 330 on the site of the Greek city of Byzantium the empire shifts its eyes to the east. During the centuries that the empire spanned mingled cultures produced magnificent artwork. Byzantine artistry is among the most noted in history due to the circumstances that created it. The Byzantine culture spanned eleven centuries and covered lands diverse in nature. Art was a form of worship for the Byzantines, an expression of heavenly images that seeped down into nations under its reign.

Subject matter of frescos and canvases were for the majority scriptural based. The Eastern Church was known for its icons of faith within and outside the buildings. Artisans crafted depictions of the Christ, saints, and Old Testament prophets. Churches from the Byzantine period show the tremendous amount of attention that was given to each house of worship. Under the previous Roman regime pagan worship brought about many notable artifacts and treasures of the art world; this new Byzantine artwork seemed to spread to all territories and bring a resulting peace among the peoples. In the second period, 961 A.D, Crete was re-conquered and the people slowly became involved with the church. They had been under Arab rule for more than a century and were forcibly converted to Islam. St. Nikon with a group of clerics and monks built many churches there on the island soon after its liberation. Usually the artists did not sign their work, therefore leaving most of the preserved images somewhat a mystery. Christ and his disciples fill the majority of the themes. After the Forth Crusade Crete fell to Venetian rule for 460 years until it was taken by the Turks in 1669. Most of the preserved paintings of the churches are dated to the Venetian period. It has been proven “that although Crete was subject to Venice during the Renaissance period and came under the influence of the Italian religious and secular art, the island’s religious paintings always adhered to the Byzantine tradition” (Kalokyris 23).

Mesopotamia is known for its contributions in architecture. Greek architecture met that of the East in the Byzantine Empire creating spectacular structures never before possible. The Golden age, the age of Justinian, brought the construction of the Hagia Sophia. The Hagia Sophia “would remain the largest dome ever built until the Sinan built the Selimye Mosque in the Sixteenth century” (Hooker 1). Arches and cascading structures spanned the metropolitan city of Constantinople. The facades towered within its fortified walls and above its bustling streets. Justinian also was responsible for constructing the San Vitale that is “decorated with a uniquely Byzantine mosaic style…a style that fuses both Roman mosaic realism and other worldly, almost abstract use of simple forms and dramatic colors” (Hooker 2-3). Two types of construction were seen in the empire: Masonry characteristic of Syria-Palestine, much of Asia Minor as well as the border regions of Armenia and Georgia, and Brick and rubble, typical of Constantinople, the western coast of Asia Minor, the Balkans and Italy. Foundational structures were not too sound with most of them being mostly lime with sand. Marble was not used on wide scales, but only for details within churches and columns in town squares. Claude Schaeffner remarks that “ on the floor of St. Sophia at Constantinople, marbles of all hues, alabasters, jaspers, porphyries and serpentines, create the impression of a garden strewn with purple flowers” (26). Many cities were fortified with strong walls and gates crafted to display the wealth of the government to the trade merchants. Basilicas were first developed in this age. They “could have either three or five aisles usually separated by colonnades; a transept…and a clerestory or a gallery” (Mango 61). The importance of the basilica in this time was centered on the ethereal emphasis that reigned over all the land. Sweeping up to the heavens, taking up many blocks of city space, and intricately designed, these buildings became a symbol of inspiration to the people.

Russia was heavily influenced by the Byzantine Empire. Richard Hooker says that “in many ways Russian and Slavic culture is the continuance of Byzantine culture and many Byzantine cultural practices and beliefs are still practiced today” (7). Slavic connection was made around 988 when The Great Prince of Kiev, Vladimir, converted to Byzantine Christianity. This event happened in the midst of the Second Golden Age of the empire under the Macedonian dynasty which began under the rule of Basil I (Schaeffner 51). Vladimir takes all the customs of the new faith including literature, painting, mosaics, and architecture. At the fall of Constantinople, Moscow declares itself the third Rome; with their rulers taking the Russian title of Caesar, Czar (96). As with typical icon imagery Russian paintings were not concerned with depth but color and simplicity of surroundings so that the focus may be on the intended figure. David Rice remarks that “most of the painters worked as itinerant artists, having no particular centre, and many of them, (are thought), were Slavs; the characteristics of what may be called the Macedonian school…were developed in the main as the direct result of the Slav nationality of the painters” (103).

Before the edict of Milan in 313 A.D., places of Christian worship were plentiful but hidden due to persecution. An entirely new shrine distinguishable in style from other religions was needed. Tombs and places of martyrdom acquired sanctity and attracted the devotion of large numbers of pilgrims. Basilicas came in many different forms but interiorly they had the same basic layout. In Constantinople, St. Irene, like many structures there, were destroyed and re-built after fires and earthquakes. Osbert Lancaster writes that “S. Irene, incidentally, is the only church in Constantinople…never at any time to have been a mosque” (85). The key focus was an open floor plan that allowed for a clear path to the altar area. Later Byzantine ages show churches with an abundance of windows the new idea set on light replacing enclosing darkness. Irish poet, William Butler Yeats wrote in his poem “Byzantium”: “After great cathedral gong; A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains All that man is, All mere complexities, The fury and the mire of human veins” (1).

At the ending of the Byzantine empire “craftsmen were still employed in virtually every corner of the civilized world; only in this way can we explain the mosaics of Kiev, of Venice and of Sicily, the wall paintings of the Balkans, of Russia and of Cyprus” (Rice 9). Unique pieced between the ages, Constantinople impacted the time before the middle ages. The stage was set for the new developments that would arise in the world. Islam took the initiative in the East and added to the legacy of artistic influence. Preserved for the generations to view, the art of an empire showed that “for the Byzantines, painting or decorating a building was always a form of worship” (Schaeffner 8).