The Byzantine Empire And Its Artistic Expression

The Byzantine Empire and its Artistic Expression

Introduction

The starting point of Byzantine art begins from the moment this city became the capital of the Roman Empire by order of Constantine, the year 324. Its history after the fall of the Empire of the West and its continuing work of the Roman imperial tradition is expressed in this new political and cultural order that we know as the Byzantine Empire, the economy, foreign policy and the Church were the main pillars. From the religious point of view, the Church will develop a fundamental role as a unifying element at all levels.

Developing

Art created the sumptuous spaces where to develop the liturgy;exalted the superhuman greatness of the emperor and the dignitaries of the Church;illustrated through images the divine nature, and elaborated beautiful objects in line with the ritual. Byzantine art was, on the contrary, a priority art, whose function was to raise the mind towards the plane of the divine. Through the contemplation and the experience of the magnificent, of the physical verification of artistic greatness and beauty, man guessed the omnipotence of God;The icon, the image of God, those of the saints and that of the emperor, were the center of the decoration of murals, the tables and the ivory.

The evolution of Byzantine art during the period of Justinian, second important stage, is reflected in the different styles of the mosaics;These vary from the austerity of the transfiguration of Christ, in the apse of the monastic church of Santa Catalina on Mount Sinai (Egypt), to the courtship of martyrs (mid -sixth century) of the Basilica of San Apolinar Nuevo, in Ravenna (Italy), who remember the processions of bidder figures of the ancient art of the East.

In the year 547, one of the most extensive mosaics of Justiniano’s Golden Age was concluded in the church of San Vital.  Its different figurative styles appear by adaptation to thematic intentions and not by simple stylistic diversity.

conclusion

The reason for being of Byzantine architecture does not lies in its opposition to Roman or Greek art, it is not abroad, but the interior: in Byzantine architecture the intention is more accentuated in marbles, mosaics and paintings. Its origin is remote to the appearance of Sasanid Persian temples and palaces, and as well as in the West the primitive Christian architecture, evolved towards the fusion of its forms with the spirit and modalities of the Germanic peoples, the Christian architecture of the East, the Byzantine, a similar process followed and had enormous influence on art and constructive ingenuity of Christianity.