Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Eastern Roman Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. (The Roman Empire during this period is conventionally known as the Byzantine Empire.)

The term can also be used for the art of states which were contemporary with the Byzantine Empire and shared a common culture with it, without actually being part of it (the "Byzantine commonwealth"), such as Bulgaria, Serbia, or Rus; and also for the art of the Republic of Venice and Kingdom of Sicily, which had close ties to the Byzantine Empire despite being in other respects part of western European culture. Art produced by Balkan and Anatolian Christians living in the Ottoman Empire is often called "post-Byzantine." Certain artistic traditions that originated in the Byzantine Empire, particularly in regard to icon painting and church architecture, are maintained in Greece, Russia and other Eastern Orthodox countries to the present day.

Exploring Art Style
Just as the Byzantine empire represented the political continuation of the Roman Empire, Byzantine art developed out of the art of the Roman empire, which was itself profoundly influenced by ancient Greek art. Byzantine art never entirely lost sight of this classical heritage. The Byzantine capital, Constantinople, was adorned with a large number of classical sculptures[1], although they eventually became an object of some puzzlement for its inhabitants.[2] And indeed, the art produced during the Byzantine empire, although marked by periodic revivals of a classical aesthetic, was above all marked by the development of a new aesthetic.

The most salient feature of this new aesthetic was its “abstract,” or anti-naturalistic character. If classical art was marked by the attempt to create representations that mimicked reality as closely as possible, Byzantine art seems to have abandoned this attempt in favor of a more symbolic approach.

Miniatures of the 6th-century Rabula Gospel display the more abstract and symbolic nature of Byzantine art.The nature and causes of this transformation, which largely took place during late antiquity, have been a subject of scholarly debate for centuries.[3] Giorgio Vasari attributed it to a decline in artistic skills and standards, which had in turn been revived by his contemporaries in the Italian Renaissance. Although this point of view has been occasionally revived, most notably by Bernard Berenson,[4] modern scholars tend to take a more positive view of the Byzantine aesthetic. Alois Riegl and Josef Strzygowski, writing in the early 20th century, were above all responsible for the revaluation of late antique art.[5] Riegl saw it as a natural development of pre-existing tendencies in Roman art, whereas Strzygowski viewed it as a product of “oriental” influences. Notable recent contributions to the debate include those of Ernst Kitzinger,[6] who traced a “dialectic” between “abstract" and "Hellenistic” tendencies in late antiquity, and John Onians,[7] who saw an “increase in visual response” in late antiquity, through which a viewer “could look at something which was in twentieth-century terms purely abstract and find it representational.”

In any case, the debate is purely modern: it is clear that most Byzantine viewers did not consider their art to be abstract or unnaturalistic. As Cyril Mango has observed, “our own appreciation of Byzantine art stems largely from the fact that this art is not naturalistic; yet the Byzantines themselves, judging by their extant statements, regarded it as being highly naturalistic and as being directly in the tradition of Phidias, Apelles, and Zeuxis.”[8]

Frescoes in Nerezi near Skopje (1164), with their unique blend of high tragedy, gentle humanity, and homespun realism, anticipate the approach of Giotto and other proto-Renaissance Italian artists.The subject matter of monumental Byzantine art was primarily religious and imperial: the two themes are often combined, as in the portraits of later Byzantine emperors that decorated the interior of the sixth-century church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. These preoccupations are partly a result of the pious and autocratic nature of Byzantine society, and partly a result of its economic structure: the wealth of the empire was concentrated in the hands of the church and the imperial office, which therefore had the greatest opportunity to undertake monumental artistic commissions.

Religious art was, however, not limited to the monumental decoration of church interiors. One of the most important genres of Byzantine art was the icon, an image of Christ, the Virgin, or a saint, used as an object of veneration in Orthodox churches and private homes alike. Icons were more religious than aesthetic in nature: especially after the end of iconoclasm, they were understood to manifest the unique “presence” of the figure depicted by means of a “likeness” to that figure maintained through carefully maintained canons of representation.[9]

The illumination of manuscripts was another major genre of Byzantine art. The most commonly illustrated texts were religious, both scripture itself (particularly the Psalms) and devotional or theological texts (such as the Ladder of Divine Ascent of John Climacus or the homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus). Secular texts were also illuminated: important examples include the Alexander Romance and the history of John Skylitzes.

“Minor” or “luxury” arts (i.e. ivories, steatites, enamels, jewelry, metalwork, ceramics, etc.) were produced in large number throughout the Byzantine era. Many of these were also religious in nature, although a large number of objects with secular or non-representational decoration were produced: for example, ivories representing themes from classical mythology, and ceramics decorated with figures that may derive from the Akritic epics.

Periods
Artistic forms characteristic of Byzantine art began to develop in the Roman Empire as early as the 4th century, as the classical tradition declined in vitality and eastern influences were more widely felt. The founding of Constantinople in 324 created a great new artistic centre for the eastern half of the Empire, and a specifically Christian one. But other artistic traditions flourished in rival cities such as Alexandria and Antioch, as well as Rome. It was not until all of these cities had fallen - the first two to the Arabs and Rome to the Goths - that Constantinople established its supremacy.

The Age of Justinian and iconoclasm
The first great age of Byzantine art coincided with the reign of Justinian I (483-565). Justinian was the last Emperor to see himself as the rightful ruler of the whole Greco-Roman world, and devoted much of his reign to reconquering Italy, North Africa and Spain. He also laid the foundations of the imperial absolutism of the Byzantine state, codifying its laws and imposing his religious views on all his subjects by law. Part of his program of imperial glory was a massive building program, including Hagia Sophia and the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople and the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna.

The Age of Justinian was followed by a political decline, since most of Justinian's conquests were lost and the Empire faced acute crisis with the invasions of the Avars, Slavs and Arabs in the 7th century. Constantinople was also wracked by religious and political conflict. In this period debate over the proper role of art in the decoration of churches intensified. Three canons of the Quinisext Council of 692 addressed controversies in this area: prohibition of the representation of the cross on church pavements (Canon 73), prohibition of the representation of Christ as a lamb (Canon 82), and a general injunction against "pictures, whether they are in paintings or in what way so ever, which attract the eye and corrupt the mind, and incite it to the enkindling of base pleasures" (Canon 100).

Intense debate over the role of art in worship led eventually to the period of (what is today known as) "Byzantine iconoclasm." Sporadic outbreaks of iconoclasm on the part of local bishops are attested in Asia Minor during the 720s. In 726, an underwater earthquake between the islands of Thera and Therasia was interpreted by Emperor Leo III as a sign of God's anger, and may have led Leo to remove a famous icon of Christ from the Chalke Gate outside the imperial palace. However, iconoclasm probably did not become imperial policy until the reign of Leo's son, Constantine V. The Council of Hieria, convened under Constantine in 754, proscribed the manufacture of icons of Christ. This inaugurated the Iconoclastic period, which lasted, with interruptions, until 843.

While iconoclasm severely restricted the role of religious art, and led to the removal of some earlier apse mosaics and (possibly) the sporadic destruction of portable icons, it never constituted a total ban on the production of figural art. Ample literary sources indicate that secular art (i.e. hunting scenes and depictions of the games in the hippodrome) continued to be produced, and the few monuments that can be securely dated to the period (most notably the manuscript of Ptolemy's "Handy Tables" today held by the Vatican) demonstrate that metropolitan artists maintained a high quality of production.

Macedonian Art
 
An example of Macedonian ivorywork: the Harbaville Tryptych, now in the Louvre, Paris.The rulings of the Council of Hieria were reversed by a new church council in 843, celebrated to this day in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the "Triumph of Orthodoxy." In 867, the installation of a new apse mosaic in Hagia Sophia depicting the Virgin and Child was celebrated by the Patriarch Photios in a famous homily as a victory over the evils of iconoclasm. Later in the same year, the Emperor Basil I, called "the Macedonian," acceded to the throne; as a result the following period of Byzantine art has sometimes been called the "Macedonian Renaissance," although the term is doubly problematic (it was neither "Macedonian," nor, strictly speaking, a "Renaissance").

In the 9th and 10th centuries the Empire's military situation improved, and patronage of art and architecture increased. New churches were commissioned, and the standard architectural form (the "cross-in-square") and decorative scheme of the Middle Byzantine church were standardised. Major surviving examples include Hosios Loukas in Boeotia, the Daphni Monastery near Athens and Nea Moni on Chios.

There was a revival of interest in the depiction of subjects from classical mythology (as on the Veroli Casket) and in the use of a "classical" style to depict religious, and particularly Old Testament, subjects (of which the Paris Psalter and the Joshua Roll are important examples).

The Macedonian period also saw a revival of the late antique technique of ivory carving. Many ornate ivory triptychs and diptychs survive, such as the Harbaville Tryptych and a tryptich at Luton Hoo, dating from the reign of Nicephorus Phocas).

Comnenian Age
The Macedonian emperors were followed by the Komnenian dynasty, beginning with the reign of Alexios I Komnenos in 1081. Byzantium had recently suffered a period of severe dislocation following the battle of Manzikert in 1071 and the subsequent loss of Asia Minor to the Turks. However, the Komnenoi brought stability to the empire, (1081-1185), and during the course of the twelfth century their energetic campaigning did much to restore the fortunes of the empire. The Komnenoi were great patrons of the arts, and with their support Byzantine artists continued to move in the direction of greater humanism and emotion, of which the Theotokos of Vladimir, the cycle of mosaics at Daphni, and the murals at Nerezi yield important examples. Ivory sculpture and other expensive mediums of art gradually gave way to frescoes and icons, which for the first time gained widespread popularity across the Empire. Apart from painted icons, there were other varieties - notably the mosaic and ceramic ones.

The Annunciation from Ohrid, one of the most admired icons of the Paleologan Mannerism, bears comparison with the finest contemporary works by Italian artists.Some of the finest Byzantine work of this period may be found outside the Empire: in the mosaics of Gelati, Kiev, Torcello, Venice, Monreale, Cefalù and Palermo. For instance, Venice's Basilica of St Mark, begun in 1063, was based on the great Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, now destroyed, and is thus an echo of the age of Justinian. The acquisitive habits of the Venetians mean that the basilica is also a great museum of Byzantine artworks of all kinds (e.g., Pala d'Oro).

Palaeologan Age
Eight hundred years of continuous Byzantine culture were brought to an abrupt end in 1204 with the sacking of Constantinople by the knights of the Fourth Crusade, a disaster from which the Empire never recovered. Although the Byzantines regained the city in 1261, the Empire was thereafter a small and weak state confined to the Greek peninsula and the islands of the Aegean.

Nevertheless the Palaeologan Dynasty, beginning with Michael VIII Palaeologus in 1259, was a last golden age of Byzantine art, partly because of the increasing cultural exchange between Byzantine and Italian artists. Byzantine artists developed a new interest in landscapes and pastoral scenes, and the traditional mosaic-work (of which the Chora Church in Constantinople is the finest extant example) gradually gave way to detailed cycles of narrative frescoes (as evidenced in a large group of Mystras churches). The icons, which became a favoured medium for artistic expression, were characterized by a less austere attitude, new appreciation for purely decorative qualities of painting and meticulous attention to details, earning the popular name of the Paleologan Mannerism for the period in general.

Legacy
The Byzantine era properly defined came to an end with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, but by this time the Byzantine cultural heritage had been widely diffused, carried by the spread of Orthodox Christianity, to Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania and, most importantly, to Russia, which became the centre of the Orthodox world following the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. Even under Ottoman rule, Byzantine traditions in icon-painting and other small-scale arts survived.

The influence of Byzantine art in western Europe, particularly Italy, was seen in ecclesiastical architecture, through the development of the Romanesque style in the 10th century and 11th centuries. This influence was transmitted through the Frankish and Salic emperors, primarily Charlemagne, who had close relations with Byzantium.

Art Works By Artist

• Byzantium, Constantinople, Fragment of a Sarcophagus, early 5th century, marble relief, height 142 cm, width 124 cm, Museum für Spätantike und Byzantinische Kunst, Berlin. See fragment and sarcophagus.
• Italy, Ravenna, Mosaic, c. 545/46, tesserae (cubes) of colored glass and stone, 432 x 615 cm, Museum für Spätantike und Byzantinische Kunst, Berlin.
  Egypt, Portrait of Bishop Apa Abraham, c. 590 / 600, tempera on wood panel, 36.5 x 26.5 cm, Museum für Spätantike und Byzantinische Kunst, Berlin.
• Byzantine (Constantinople or Sinai), second half of the 13th century, Icon with the Archangel Gabriel, tempera and gold on wood panel with raised borders, 105 x 75 cm (41 3/8 x 29 1/2 inches), Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai, Egypt.
• Byzantium, Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, South Gallery or Catechumena, The Deesis, third quarter of the 13th century, mosaic, Istanbul, Turkey. Christ's left hand holds a closed Book of Gospels as he raises his right hand in benediction. 
• Gerona Bible Master, Bologna, Italy, Gradual, Proper and Common of Saints (folio 84 verso in Manuscript 526), c. 1285, tempera on vellum, one of 290 folios, 51.5 x 35.5 cm (20 1/4 x 14 inches), Musei Civici d'Arte Antica, Bologna.
• Byzantium, The Cambrai Madonna, c. 1340, Metropolitan Museum of Art. About a hundred years after it was produced, Canon Fursy de Bruille acquired this icon in Rome. He was told that it was a holy relic: it had been painted by St. Luke himself.
• Byzantine, 14th century, Reliquary Box with Scenes from the Life of John the Baptist, tempera and gold on wood, 9 x 23.5 x 9.9 cm (3 5/8 x 9 1/4 x 4 inches), Cleveland Museum of Art, OH. Here are enlargements of two views of this reliquary -- first and second. See Byzantine art.
• Byzantine, 14th century, Hexaptych Icon with Scenes from the Great Feasts (obverse), Apostles, Saints, and Angels (reverse), tempera and gold on six wood panels, 31 x 13.5 cm (12 1/4 x 5 3/8 inches) each panel, Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai, Egypt. See polyptych.
• Byzantium, Christ Pantocrator, 1363, egg tempera on gesso, wood, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. This icon was created for the Monastery of the Pantocrator on Mount Athos. It is a characteristic work from the last high period of Constantinople painting, the late 14th and early 15th centuries. See monastery
  

Notes and Reference

1^ S. Bassett, The urban image of late antique Constantinople (Cambridge, 2004).
2^ C. Mango, "Antique statuary and the Byzantine beholder," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 17 (1963), 53-75.
3^ O. Brendel, Prolegomena to the study of Roman art (New Haven, 1979).
4^ B. Berenson, The Arch of Constantine; or, the decline of form (London, 1954).
5^ J. Elsner, "The birth of late antiquity: Riegl and Strzygowski in 1901," Art History 25 (2002), 358-79.
6^ E. Kitzinger, Byzantine art in the making (Cambridge, 1977).
7^ J. Onians, "Abstraction and imagination in late antiquity," Art History 3 (1980), 1-23.
8^ C. Mango, "Antique statuary," 65.
9^ H. Belting, tr. E. Jephcott, Likeness and presence: a history of the image before the era of art (Chicago, 1994).