What is Byzantine art?

Byzantine art includes the visual expressions of the Byzantine Empire from about 330 to 1450 NL. As the capital of Byzantia and the Eastern Roman Empire, Constantinople was the center for most of the artistic development of this period. A lot of Byzantine art tried to capture the themes of Christian faith and was used to facilitating worship. Byzantine aesthetics today can be found in the design of churches from this era, religious iconography, paintings and decorative mosaics.

The most famous church of the Byzantine era is probably Hagia Sophia, now a museum in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople). Hagia Sophia, built by Emperor Justinian, stood as the largest church in the world for 1,000 years until the cathedral was built in Seville, Spain. The Church was impressive for its size and was also known for its huge dome standing on four pendants, triangular shapes cut out of the ball that help distribute the weight of the dome. The form of Thagia Sophia was repeated in other churches built throughout the Byzantium.

uThe church was decorated with mosaics, frescoes and paintings to tell Jesus' story into a predominantly illiterate population. These works of art, which were once covered with plaster when the church became a mosque, was uncovered and renewed when President Ataturk decided to transform a religious place into a museum in 1934. Frescoes and mosaics found in Hagia Sophia show many characteristics of Byzantine art.

Byzantine images and icons are often recognized as their relatively two -dimensional representations. The emphasis of artists was not realism, but forms that can be easily identified to carry stories from the Bible and Christian history. In this style of painted characters often look stiff and embarrassing. In some paintings, subjects seem to be weightless, floating Selden Ether.

Byzantine artists usually use deep gold, blues and green. The use of gold expressed fame and wealth knowsRy. Bright colors helped create characters in images and mosaics identifiable from a distance. In secular art, these colors helped to distinguish a number of depicted subjects. For many Byzantine pieces, these colors lasted for centuries and remains lively today.

Byzantine art was largely created by craftsmen who left their works unsigned. As with other professions of that time, the shop of artists was usually family. My father would teach his son the craft of fresco painting and installing a mosaic. This continuity in artistic expression has led to conservatism. For over 1,000 years, Byzantine art has been largely unchanged until the Turks conquered the empire in the 14th century.