The Visual Encyclopedia Of Late Roman Art

Late Roman Empire Art only lasted for a short extent of time. During which many changes occurred in art, predominantly changes to sculpture. This change was a moving away from sculpture being meant for a particular person to sculpture being for the people of the Roman Empire.

So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed." (Bede 84) Such concepts had not yet been a set part of any prior pagan beliefs and serve as a prime example of how individuals of the time reacted to the conversion and how the encouraging aspects of Christianity gave them a new sense of hope and purpose in the world.

In the lives of saints, we find biographical material that helps to shed light on the way of life throughout the past two-thousand years. The lives of saints show a pattern of spirituality that teaches each successive generation how to follow Christ, according to each individual culture. Saints are the archetypes of the Christian experience and the Christian life. They are role models, and they are our intercession with God in Heaven. It is important for us, as Christians, to never lose our sense of discipleship, which the saints help with, as they are our older brothers and sisters in Christ and can help us learn from the past.1 The depiction of saints is very important to art, and its impact is not small.

This book is based on Christianity and how the religion was viewed through images. The text has an ere of concepts that ties in the concepts of Christians to the beginning of the start of Christianity. The purpose of this book is to show the readers the difference between how Christian art was represented and how other art was portrayed. I will be giving an overview of what Christianity represents and the art work that it includes.

Pagans are addressed directly once again and summoned to join the banquet of Christ who calls them back to light. The language of “renewal” is noteworthy here, especially because it presupposes the building up and restoration of what is already there. Pagans maintain a sense of dignity and are not equated with the demonic. The image of an invitation to a banquet where food of salvation and a cup of immortality is offered is also different from the images of remedying diseased patients through “cautery and knife.” Where the medical analogy conjures a paternalistic image of forcing out evil from within someone by any means necessay, the invitation to a banquet images a welcoming of the other to come into one’s own space. The image is

The Roman tradition of art, particularly architecture and sculpture is rooted in adopting styles of the past to convey a particular message. The combination of Greek and Etruscan styles, such as in the Temple of Portunus in Rome, ultimately culminate to reference a new meaning and style that is independently roman. Similarly to architecture, the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, chose to liken both is architecture, by using stone and the orders, and his portraiture back to the Greeks. Romans emperors ultimately tend to use style association to portray propaganda for their particular platform, as a form of associative mass media. Two emperors that exemplify this

Material expressions in relation to iconoclasm and religious imagery can be extremely crucial for an individual amongst the Christian church. Some may

This paper will analyze the iconography of two medieval works from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Both of them depict the appearance of the resurrected Jesus Christ to his follower Mary Magdalene (Gospel of John 20:11-17). According to the Bible, three days after Christ died by crucifixion and was buried, he was resurrected. On that day, Mary Magdalene came to his tomb early in the morning, alone, and found the tomb empty. As she was weeping in the garden outside the tomb, she recognized a man she thought was a gardener, and asked him what had become of Jesus’ body. When the man spoke her name, Mary Magdalene recognized that he was Jesus Christ, who had been resurrected. As she reached out to embrace Jesus, he motioned for her to stay back, saying “Do not touch me,” because he had not yet ascended into heaven.

The portrayal of Christ has been developed throughout the centuries, and is very much influenced by the socio-political and cultural environments. The Byzantine Empire has become a great influence on the use of Christian religious art and architecture, which will be continually built upon and developed through history. Though still influenced by the Classical tradition, Christian art will evolve into a new and widespread style under the rule of Justinian and Theodora. Christ as the Good Shepherd in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, shows the development of the portrayal of Christ from a humble shepherd to a royal deity, that reflects the influence of the Byzantine Empire, and his role as a ruler over his people.

The subject of religion has captured the attention of artists for centuries, working its way throughout the years, in and out of various of styles and movements. The artists of this era often found themselves reliant on this subject matter due to Churches being a steady Patron throughout the Renaissance all the way to the Baroque period. Whether it was because of the rich cultural impact to society or the enforcement of strong divine beliefs, depicting biblical narratives have struck an everlasting cord within this medium. Two particular ones, in fact: The Deposition from the Cross (Entombment of Christ) by Jacopo Pontormo and The Entombment of Christ by Michelangelo Caravaggio. Both of which provide an excellent example of how culture and artistic style combined can alter the message of the same iconic scene and still evoke different emotions.

Danielle Joyner entitled, “Fixing the Past: An Examination of Ancient Spolia Incorporated iin the Medieval Eagle Vase and the Herrimann-Ida Cross.” This paper was an exploration of Christian Medieval art pieces that incorporate pieces of antiquity into their makeup. These newly contextualized ancient artifacts, called spolia, can be found in Christian liturgical vessels such as the Eagle Vase and the Herrimann-Ida Cross, which incorporate an ancient porphyry vessel and the lapis lazuli head of a Roman woman respectively. Working with Professor Joyner, I explored the interaction of Medieval and Ancient, reading peer-reviewed articles and primary sources to draw parallels from the physical interactions of the objects with the ideological interactions of the antiquated pagans and the Medieval

This extraordinary work by Carpaccio is a landmark in the history of devotional images. It is, in effect, a meditation on the them of Death and Resurrection. To the right, the Old Testament figure Job sits on a block inscribed in pseudo-Hebrew, while on the left, portrayed as a hermit, is Saint Jerome (ca. 347 -420), who wrote a commentary on the book of Job. Christ’s dead body is displayed on a broken throne, also inscribed in pseudo-Hebrew. A bird—symbol of the soul —flies upwards. The landscape, barren on the

Depiction of cultural and religious beliefs have been an important element in many artworks. The newly formed Early Christian religion, the Roman culture, and the Greek culture are no exception to this occurrence. Though living close in proximity to each other, their views differed vastly, in respect to both religion and culture. Roman and Greek views indulged the “here and now”, while those views of the Early Christians centered on the “hereafter”. It is upon the examination of a few artworks taken from either side, that this contrast becomes extremely apparent.

When Christianity was introduced as a successor to Judaism, Roman Empire’s official religion was still Paganism. As a result Christianity was a mystery religion in Roman Empire before it became an official Religion. In this period we do not see any churches, and people used to gather in a secret place in order to pray. These places were like ordinary homes, but they changed inside, so it could be used for religion purposes. A really good example of it is Dura Europos house church. It has a simple architecture, as we can see they even broke the wall inside the house to make it bigger as to serve gatherings. After Constantine declared Christianity as an official religion, everything changed. In this essay I aim to discuss how Roman art became Christian Art. In other words, I will explain how Romans used their art and style as a formula to create art based on Christianity principals.

     "The arts of the western world have been largely dominated by the artistic standards established by the Greeks of the classical period" (Spreloosel 86). It is from the Greek word theatron, meaning a place for sitting, that we get our word theater. According to James Butler, "The Greeks were the first people to erect special structures to bring audiences and theatrical performers together" (27). "The theaters were normally located near a populated area at the bottom of or cut out of a carefully selected, sloping hillside overlooking a seascape, a plain, or a city" (Butler 30). "They eventually with few exceptions consisted of three distinct parts: theatron