Jewish, Early Christian, Byzantine and Islamic Art

Religion has played a huge role in the history of the world of architecture. We can get a deeper look in the minds and attitudes of people when we look at their beliefs – specifically their religion. But even though religion played a huge role in the approach to architecture, the pursuit of beauty and power can also explain to us the approaches and the outlooks of those who built or designed buildings from the ancient world.

Early Christian and Byzantine art started after Jesusí death in the first century ranging and ending to the fourth century AD. The art produced during this period was secretive because Christianity was not a formal religion but as a cult; the Romans and rest of Europe persecuted Christians so the artist disguised their work with symbols and hints of Christian aspects. Christianity was the first cult to not involve rituals of sacrifice of animals and refused to worship an Emperor causing the Roman Empire to make Christianity illegal. Byzantine art excelled in the Justinian period in the east during 520-540 AD. The art was produced in Ravenna, Byzantine, Venice, Sicily, Greece, and Russia. The

The Christian Church was absolutely instrumental in the art of the Renaissance. It was the driving force behind every inspiration; without the Church, there would have been no art. The Church was the only institution powerful enough to be able to support the commissions of all of the artwork, and it was the only institution, in which people had enough faith and devotion to spend so much of their time and money creating pieces that—although beautiful—were not necessities. The role of religion in art actually began during the Byzantine era. During this time, all artwork was religious in nature, and most of it was done in a consistently similar style so that figures from the Bible could be easily recognized by everyone and so that people

In order to understand the influence that classical Roman art and architecture had on Christian art and architecture, we need to compare and contrast the Constantinian periods. During the pre-Constantinian period, the Christian churches resembled Roman architecture as services were performed in typical homes. To accommodate the congregation, adjacent walls were torn down to combine two rooms for religious practices to take place. The exterior of the homes were unchanged.

Ever since man began building structures and settling land, art has manifested itself in our architectural creations. Whether it be to celebrate or worship a God or Gods, a grand sculpture to bury a powerful leader or remember them by, or to show a culture’s dedication to specific values, our architectural constructions have led to some of the finest art this Earth has ever seen. The Taj Mahal and Palace of Versailles are two great examples of such art. By examining each of these individually, and then comparing and contrasting them, it will become clear that no matter how different looking these buildings may be, they still serve the same purpose to the civilizations that erected them.

The Etruscans developed a brilliant civilization, and left large footprints in the Italian peninsula, especially in the culture of the Romans. The Etruscan influence was felt in its period of greatest expansion, between the third and fourth centuries CE. The Etruscans gave great importance to the religious and funerary aspects. That is why his art will be closely linked to these two aspects of their customs. These influences are seen, both in architecture and sculpture and painting.

With centuries between the two works of art known as Justinian and his Attendants and the Augustus of Primaporta¸ there is a notation of change in the citizens of the empire that encompassed around the Mediterranean Sea. From the rise and fall of the Roman Empire to the growth and fabrication of Byzantine, the art was the form of propaganda used by the elites to send a strong, clear message of power and undeniable righteousness. Augustus the General and Justinian made almost 500 years apart, completely different in style and empires, both wanted to create the same hype around their beliefs. They were the chosen ones, the leaders who had connections to the secular world. They were the representations on earth, in human form, of God or Gods themselves.

was wracked by religious and political conflict. And Leo III issued a ban on religious

During the time of colonization, one of the main goals of the Europeans was to spread the Christian faith throughout the indigenous peoples. Although they had many means of doing this, a major component of their religious influence was the implementation of art and sermons regarding this art. The Christian art of the Europeans consisted of paintings, drawings, and other illustrations that depicted the four major components of death, judgement, heaven, and hell. Two of these ideas, death and hell, used the five senses to instigate fear within the indigenous peoples, while the ideas of judgement and heaven focused on inspiring further insight into the matter. The former of the two, death and hell, were more graphic, depicting scenes of torture, frightening ideas of death, the insinuation of never having contact with God again, and the overall idea of an incessant afterlife of torture and discontent. The scenes of judgement, on the other hand, normally depicted a civilian willingly professing his or her sins to a priest while

I have learned how art during the Middle Ages went through several changes and then became the foundation of the early Renaissance period. Byzantine Art was the title bestowed upon the type of art techniques used in very early Middle Ages Art. The title given to this type of art is derived from the capitol of the Roman Empire, Byzantium. I consider Early Medieval Art as a reflection of the variances amongst the western growth of the Catholic religion and the eastern development of the Byzantium Empire. Through research, I found most of the people producing art were participants of religious communities such as monasteries. I believe in the era covering medieval art, images began to be uniform and to connect more closely to Biblical text. It seems as though Early Medieval Art was primarily restricted to the creation of Pietistic productions, known as religious

There are many famous Rome arts out there today. Such as Relief from the Ara Pacis Augustae,Pair of Centaurs Fighting Cats of Prey from Hadrian's Villa, mosaic ,Augustus of Primaporta, 1st century C.E., etc. To be honest until I learned

In the course of this class we have covered six major periods and examined many different types of historic pieces of art and architecture. Religious architecture played a significant role when looking at each culture and their key monuments and artifacts. When specifically looking at religious buildings we can see that they reflect the function and the belief system of the culture, it also speaks directly to the accessibility of religion to the culture’s population. Not only the buildings culture is reflected in the architectural design, but also to accessibility, limitations, or privilege over others that some citizens had when accessing their place of worship, their sacred artifacts, and even their rituals.

Despite external threats, it would retain its leading cultural role for the next few centuries. Indeed, during the fifth century BCE, Athens witnessed a creative resurgence which would not only dominate future Roman art, but when rediscovered by Renaissance Europe 2,000 years later, would constitute an absolute artistic standard for another four centuries. All this despite the fact that most Greek paintings and sculptures have been destroyed. There are not many classical statues or sculptures that are in one piece or survive today. A lot of the stone statues were easily broken. Earlier statues of people had looked awkward and fake, but by the classical period they looked natural, almost at ease. They even had realistic looking facial expressions. The classical period was a very destructive period because of the art. During the Greek and the Roman times the Romans destroyed a lot of the Greeks arts work to establish control. After the Romans destroyed the Greeks arts they celebrated their military victories. The Romans did not care about the Greeks art, it was not in their priority or concern the only concern they had was the survival and their military

Looking at the sculpture, we can immediately see the similarities between these two time-periods. The carefully sculpted muscles, the nude presentation, and the contrapposto are all representative of the Classical period, indicating that the artists during the Renaissance period had an interest in creating a more natural look (Harris and Zucker, n.d.). However, Donatello’s use of bronze as the medium is where this sculpture differs from the traditional stone that the Ancient Greeks and Romans chose to work with. Also, while the Classical period is known for using idealistic proportions, the Renaissance artists lean toward more natural proportions.

The civilization of Ancient Rome ruled much of Europe for over a thousand years. During this period, the Roman arts flourished. Greek art had the greatest influence on the Romans. Roman artists often focused on the gods, goddesses, philosophers, and important politicians. Many artists expressed this admiration in sculptures, paintings, architecture, and pottery. Roman art was based on a family’s legacy and the history of Rome unlike the Greek focus of myths. Roman art used real life people and objects specifically portraits, murals, and pictorials. In 79 A.D., the Roman city of Pompeii suffered a devastating volcano explosion of Mount Vesuvius destroying countless Roman art pieces. Years later, a limited number of pieces were recovered.