SET 1 - History of Art: ID-2241: Exam 4

Early Christian and

Name?

Date?

Period?

Facts?

Santa Pudenziana

Rome

410-417: Proliferation Period

Early Christian

• Dedicate to Pudenziana 

  • A 2nd-century Christian girl who was killed because of her refusal to worship pagan Gods

• Basilica Plan church

• Apse Mosaic: "Christ Enthroned" 

  • mosiac

  • new figure for Christ

    • Emporer, teacher

    • Holds book, teachings will come through the church

  • Halo

  • Surrounded by architecture to represent his time on earth

  • influenece: Second style of Roman Wall Painting: Architectural 

  • Overlapping 

  • Planimetric separation

• Altar placed below the mosaic 

  • Eucharist: Christian ritual

  • Commemoration of the “Last Supper”

  • Miraculous transformation of bread/wine into Christ 

• Disciples: Roman senators

-Background: Jerusalem (Rome as "new Jerusalem")

-Symbols of the 4 evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John)

Name?

Date?

Period?

Facts?

Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna

425

Early Christian

The plan is in cruciform 

• Central Plan 

• Ambulatory

• Exterior

  • body unadorned, no decoration

  • avoids Greco/Roman orders

  • Brick: symbol of the human body

  • soil: ashes to ashes

  • earthly, we return to the earth

• Interior

  • Mosaic - light reflections

  • immaterial 

  • symbolic of the soul or spirit

• -Stark contrast with inside

Name?

Date?

Period?

Facts?

Mausoleum of Galla Placidia - “Good Shepherd” Mosaic, Ravenna

425 

Early Christian

• Interacting with sheep now 

• Sheep representing what he is here to protect

• Holding a cross 

• Christ has a a Halo

• Christ is in human form

• 3 sheep on both sides in a triangle

• influenced by 2the nd Roman Wall Painting style: Architectural

• Perspective systems

• Overlapping + planimetric separation

• Stark contrast with the outside

• Cast Shadows - “earthliness human form of Christ “

Name?

Date?

Period?

Facts?

San Vitale, Ravenna

547

Byzantine

• Dedicated to San Vitalis: martyred 2nd c.

• Killed because of Christian practice during the persecution period

• Central plan church

• Ambulatory (walking place of church), gallery

  • Look down from the gallery above

• Apse mosaic: "Second Coming"

• Interior: mosaics (soul)

  • Central dome

  • Circular shapes around altar

  • High dome

  • Almost completely covered in glass and backed with gold 

  • light reflections

  • Windows bring in light to create refelctions reflections

  • soul/spirit

• -Exterior: brick

  • human body

Name?

Date?

Period?

Facts?

"Second Coming" -  San Vitale, Ravenna

547

Byzantine

• -Christ b/t two angels

• -St. Vitalis and Bishop Ecclesius on the sides of Christ

• Bishop is holding San Vitale 

  • Presenting the church to Christ in the second coming

• Christ returns to judge and to rule

• Christ is holding a Crown: earthly rule

• Christ is holding a book: New Testament doctrine

• Sitting on an orb

  • The Earth is a circular planet

  • round earth belief 

• Shifting away from narrative, human, earthly, stories to spiritual concepts

• Hieratic imagery

• Flat perspective: "not earthly"

  • No perspective systems

  • Little to no overlapping

• Golden sky: symbolic of heaven

• No shadows: symbolic of souls/spirits

• *Slanted feet: floating, non-corporeal

Name?

Date?

Period?

Facts?

"St. Apollinaris Amid Sheep" - Sant' Apollinare in Classe

549

Byzantine

• Basilica Plan Church

• Aspe

• Nave

• Apollinaris

  • Orant figure

  • as Christ-like

  • Good shepherd figura

  • has a halo

• 12 sheep - 12 disciples

• Hieratic imagery

• Flat perspective: "not earthly"

• Little overlapping

• No shadows: symbolic of souls/spirits

• Slanted feet: floating, non-corporeal

• Hand floating in the Golden sky

  • Trying to anthropomize God the Creator

  • Stretching towards the earth

  • lines with Apollinaris and the altar 

Hagia Sophia, Constantinople

537 

Byzantine

• Justinian period was trying to combine the Eastern Empire and the Western Empire 

• Reconcile and integrate the Central Plan church and the basilica plan church

• Architect: Isidore of Miletus, physicist

  • Hemispheric dome

• How to join a circle on a square?

  • Pendentives

  • Wall pier

• -"Holy Wisdom"

• Earthquake collapsed the original dome

  • nephew of Isodore, Isodore the Younger designed the new dome

  • lighter materials

  • made it taller

  • Added Cleresotry

    • 40 windows

    • allows light into the interior

    • less amount of mass

    • created a “floating effect“

• Covered in mosaics

• Used materials from the western and eastern empires

• later transformed into an Islamic mosque

  • mosaic covered in white plastered in the 15th century during the conversion to Islamic mosque

Important Info (Byzantine Art)

-Hieratic imagery

-Basilica plan: see Important Info (Early Christian Art)

-Dome: Hemispheric, onion

-Clerestory: upper part of nave + transepts containing many windows

Early Christian Art characteristics

• Conataine conveted to Christianity

  • Making it the state religion

• Shemata representing human form

  • short, flat bodies

    • “Christian body deempahsized“

  • large heads

    • “Christian soul emphasized“

  • three: Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit)

  • Moving from pagan times to Christian times

  • 1st to 5th century

  • religion of salvation

    • teaching ritual practice

  • religion of the afterlife 

    • funerary earthly body/ immortal soul doctrine

  • Period Of Persecution 

    • 1st and 3rd century

    • Killed for practicing Christianity 

    • Before Constaine converted 

    • Had to practice in secret before it was changed to the state religion

  • Period of Proliferation

    • 4th and 5th century

    • Having to make large churches for now a larger body 

    • Very specific purpose 

  • 410 Rome fell to the Visigoth invasion (King Alaric)

    • Resulted in the relocation of the capital of the Western Empire to Ravenna 

    • Surrounded by swamps (defensible)

    • on Adriatic Sea

catacombs

funerary and scared

60 miles of subterranean tunnels in tufa beneath the city of Roman

Uses reserve columns

Loculi

Catacombs: funerary shelves in the Catacombs which christian bodies were entombs

Name?

Date?

Period?

Facts?

“Roman Wall Painting“ - Catacombs, Rome

1st - 3rd Century

Early Christian Art- Persecution Period

• Had to be ambiguous, so if caught, would be killed

• Orant figure 

  • Christ Crucifixion

  • Mother and Child

• Virgin Mary and Christ Child: Navity 

  • Christ in the temple

Orant figure

prayerful pose, a cross

figura

character type

Name?

Date?

Period?

Facts?

“Good Shepard“

1st - 3rd Century

Early Christian Art- Persecution Period

• Figura of Christ

• “I am the Good Shepherd “

• youthful “human” schema: large head/de-emphasized body

• rescue (salvation)

• sheep/lamb on shoulders

• Sheep/lamb being rescued by the Good Shepherd

• Creates a cross (cruxifiction story)crucifixion

• Avoids confusion with pagan gods

Name?

Date?

Period?

Facts?

“Old St. Peter’s“

320 

Early Christian Art- Proliferation Period

• Burial site of Peter

• Demolished in 1605 and restructed to New St, Peters

• Provide large public space for worship

  • 3,000-4,000 worshippers

• teach rituals 

• Avoid similarity to pagan temples

  • No order (Doric, Ionic, Corinthian)

  • No use of monolithic columns

  • Reduce use of concrete

• Mostly made out of wood

• Basilica Plan Church 

basilica plan church

• Aspe: where the scared altar is located

  • Circular: scared

• nave: procession way (the largest space in the church)

  • Longitudinal axis

  • Rectangular

• aisle: three-part division (symbol to trinity)

• Narthex: antechamber (entrance into church)

  • Transition from earthly/secular to sacred place

• Cross-like shape: Cruciform

  • Transpet: crossing of nave

Mosaic

glass, stone applied to a surface, tesserae

tesserae

individual sections

halo

a ring of ling that radiates from or around the head:holy, divine

Central Plan

focused on the center

Makes use of ambulatory

Ambulatory

walking path around interior

Hieratic imagery

imagery that is not realistic in terms of representing space or figures

Imagery whose primary focus is to convey religious meaning/symbolism

“Spiritual event“

Name?

Date?

Period?

Facts?

Justinian mosaic panel - San Vitale, Ravenna

547

Byzantine

• Left of Altar

• Justinian the Great - emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, 527-565

• Eucharist: presentation of the bread to the altar 

• Hieratic imagery

  • Golden sky

  • Slanted feet

  • no shadows

Name?

Date?

Period?

Facts?

Theodora mosicaic panel - San Vitale, Ravenna

547

Byzantine

• Right of Altar

• Theodora - wife of Justinian

• Eucharist: presentation of the wine to the altar 

• Hieratic imagery

  • Golden sky

  • Slanted feet

  • no shadows

• Tesserae

Pendentives

Concaves triangular supports of dome

Wall pier

wall section supporting pendentive

Name?

Date?

Period?

Facts?

Apse mosaic: “Second Coming” - San Vitale, Ravenna

547

Byzantine

• Christ is sitting was is on the world

• angels on side of him 

• floating in air 

• golden sky

• halo

• mosiac