The Byzantine art

The Byzantine art

1. Church

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   • It was very important but it had two problems
     • Iconoclasm
       • It banned representations of Christ, God or the saints as an image for worship. There were two periods of iconoclasm, one in the eighth century and again in the ninth century, when the Byzantine emperors ordered pictures to be removed from temples. These laws produce fights between the monks and the high class, and also among the population, until the image was finally accepted.
     • East-West schism
       • It was consequence of the rivalry between the pope in Rome and the patriarch in Constantinople, who refused to recognise the supremacy of the pope over Christianity. The confrontation ended with the division of the church into the Orthodox Christian Church and the Catholic Christian Church.

2. Art

   • Developed from the art of the Roman empire and incorporated influences from oriental art.
     • Churches
       • They are the most notable buildings of Byzantine architecture. The Greek-cross plan was commonly used. Churches were often built with brick, occasionally covered with marble on the outside, and decorated with rich mosaics inside.
     • Mosaics
       • Mosaics decorated the walls and the domes inside the churches. They were made with small, coloured pieces of ceramic. They represented religious themes.
     • Icons
       • Icons are religious images; they were usually painted on a wooden surface and gold paint was used to represent the radiance of Heaven