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The History of Art Survey
Lecture 16
Early Christian Art
Gardner 300-323
A
B
C
1 Interior of the synagogue, c 245-256 CE, tempera on plaster Dura-Europos
2 Reconstruction of the Christian community house, c 240-256 CE Dura-Europos,
3 Painted ceiling, Catacomb of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus, early 4th c Rome
4 Sarcophagus with philosopher, orant,
and Old and New Testament scenes, c 270, 7’2” l.
5 Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, c 359, 8’ Rome
6 Christ enthroned, c 350-375, 2’4” h, Rome
7 Old St. Peter’s, c 320, reconstruction Rome
8 * Santa Sabina, 422-432 Rome
9 * Mausoleum of Constantia, c 337-351 Rome
10 Mausoleum of Constantia, section and plan Rome
11 Vault mosaic, Mausoleum of Constantia Rome
* Herakleitos, The Unswept Floor, 2nd c BCE, (copy of
painting by Sosos of Pergamon), Rome
12 Christ as Sol Invictus, det of vault mosaic,
Mausoleum of the Julii, late 3rd c Rome
* Christ enthroned and the apostles in the Heavenly
Jerusalem, apse, Santa Pudenziana, 410-417 Rome
13 The parting of Lot and Abraham, nave, Santa Maria
Maggiore, 432-440, Rome
14 Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, c 425 Ravenna
* Interior, Mausoleum Galla Placidia Ravenna
15 * Christ as the Good Shepherd, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna
16 Interior Sant’Apollinare, Nuovo, ded 504, Ravenna
17 Miracle of the loaves and fishes, Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna
18 Saints Onesiphorous and Porphyrius, dome Church of
St. George, c 390-450, Thessaloniki
10-19 Farmer instructing his slaves, Vatican Virgil, 1’, c 400-420
19 Rebecca and Eliezer at the well, Vienna Genesis, early 6th c
20 Christ before Pilate, Rossano Gospels, 11”, early 6th c
21 Suicide of Judas and Crucifixion of Christ, c 420, 4”
22 Priestess celebrating the rites of Bacchus, right leaf of
Diptych of the Nicomachi and the Symmachi, c 400, 1’
Art Historiography
When we move away from tribal or racial explanation for differences in tradition
we have the alternative of cultural explanations. Unlike the tribal explanation
in which German tribes naturally do one sort of thing and Roman tribes naturally
do another, we have many different cultural pools overlapping. There are both
material and ideological traditions, with material traditions including ideological
elements. The major ideological pools are shared languages and religions; the
major material traditions include visual styles, clothing and eating systems,
agricultural and hunting systems, and iconography.
Thus as later Roman art moves from more to less illusionism, it does so in both
its Roman religious iconography and its Christian iconography. Or Christian
religious traditions grow with mixtures of Roman and other ideologies mixing
in it in different ways.
Historiography
Now we come to one of the two archetypal “Western” modes of tradition.
The religion more or less synonymous with “the West”: Christianity.
The fact that the origins of Christianity are in Asia or “the East”
is seldom if ever allowed to intrude into the discussions of the hegemonic history.
When it does, its obviousness, along with the fact that it is recognized without
comprehension, is equated with it being an uninteresting anomaly. For us, pausing
to reflect critically, however, it is another reason to see “Western”
as an epithet attached to whatever the hegemonic tradition wishes to identify
with, without any real location in geography or culture.
In hegemonic histories, like our text, discussions of the later Roman empire
shift the discussion from the earlier contrast between the “West”
and the “East,” to a new one between Christian art and pagan art.
And what is missed here is that there is a reversal of roles that is hidden
behind these labels. The pagans here are the Romans, the followers of the classical
Mediterranean gods; the Christians are the one’s with an Asian god and
religion. It is now the “Eastern” religion that is preferred and
the “Western” religion that is going to be suppressed.
The definition of a pagan in Gardner’s glossary and usage is “A person who worships many gods.” This is a derogatory, Christian usage. The term for one who worships many deities is a polytheist. and a number of the pagan religions, like Manichism are not polytheist. A pagan is a non-Christian (or a bit more fully, anyone other than Christians and Jews, who have a special status for Christians. It comes into English mainly from Christian references to the religion of ancient Rome and any opposed by Christians, except those of the Jews, whose got the Christians accepted, and then the Muslims, who worshipped that same god.
Style Period: Early Christian Art 3rd c - AD 526 CE
Rome was a highly diverse multicultural society: with “people of an astonishing
range of social, ethnic, racial, linguistic and religious backgrounds.”
(302) The previous chapter focused on “the pagan Roman world.
But during the Late Roman Empire a rapidly growing number of people rejected
the emperors’ polytheism (belief in multiple gods) in favor of the worship
of a single all-powerful god.” The shift of this chapter is to Jewish
and Christian art under Roman rule.
Actually, with one exception, it is entirely to Christian art.
1 Interior of the synagogue, c 245-256 CE, tempera on plaster Dura-Europos
Dura is what the Romans called it, Europos is what the Greeks called it, the
city located on the Euphrates in Syria. Founded by [Selucids] taken by Trajan
from the Parthians in 115 and retaken by them; retaken by Romans 165, but lost
to the Sasanians in 256, and then evacuated. Thus it became the “Pompeii
of the desert.”
The synagogue at Dura-Europos preserves the oldest Jewish painting’s anywhere.
It was originally a private house. They are tempera painting on plaster. Though
the Jews had a prescriptions against “graven images” that was sometimes
interpreted as avoiding all figurative art, it was in other cases merely images
of their god, “YHWH” or “Yahweh.”
And then we get the sort of confusion that is truly confusion: “except as a hand emerging from the top of the framed panels.”
The style is devoid of action, but broken into scenes filled with figures making
stylized gestures. There is a niche in the middle of the wall for the Torah,
the scroll containing the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures.
[I’ll skip it since we haven’t got good pictures to see.]
2 Reconstruction of the Christian community house Dura-Europos, c 240-256
CE
The Christian worship center preserved at Dura-Europos was also a renovated
private house. It contained separate rooms for the meeting place and the baptistery.
The meeting place had a raised platform at one end for the prayer leader. The
baptistery had a covered font. The room for the celebration of the Eucharist
(the bread and wine that were actually or symbolically —depending on the
sect— the blood and body of Christ) was separate.
This new cult attracted all classes, promising equality in the judgments of
an afterlife. Diocletian ordered fresh persecutions as late as 303-5, Trahan
Decius had ordered some half a century earlier. Roman’s persecuted Christians
for refusing to pay homage to Rome’s official gods. The persecution ended
only with the Constantine’s victory at the Milvian bridge, which he attributed
to the Christian god, because of a vision he had.
3 Painted ceiling, Catacomb of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus, early 4th
c Rome
The catacombs were underground cemeteries for Christians, and other persecuted
sects, such as the Jews. Some 60 to 90 miles of these galleries, have been hollowed
out beneath Rome, of 2nd to 4th century. Originally they had to be outside the
city’s limits. Unlike the Etruscan recreation of a mansion, these were
only simple rooms cubicula. They were preserved as monuments to martyrs after
the sect was made legal. They were painted like houses. Here is a domed chamber
painted much like the insula of Ostia: (10-54). It is a spoked wheel organization
in a subtly domed space, depicted as a “dome of heaven,” with four
lunettes.
The four arms become a cross. In the center is Christ as the good shepherd,
sheep on his back. In the lunettes we see: Jonah, (left) being cast from his
ship, (right) within his sea monster, and (below) at ease back on land, which
Christians took to be a prefiguring of Christ’s resurrection in the Old
Testament. Between the lunettes are ornate, Christians praying with their arms
akimbo.
The Good Shepherd motif can be traced to ancient Greeks (5-9). The sheep representing
a sinner who has been saved. Christ wasn’t represented in the authoritarian,
imperial symbols until Christianity became the state religion, when he gained
the halo, purple robe and throne of rulership, and a beard to indicate adulthood.
.
4 Sarcophagus with philosopher, orant, and Old and New
Testament scenes, c 270, 7’2” l.
Christians were buried, not cremated. The subjects on wealthy Christian’s
sarcophagi use Christian iconographic subjects. Here we see, (from our
left to right): Jonah thrown into the sea, a female orant (praying figure),
a seated philosopher, Jesus as the Good Shepherd, and as a child being. The
faces on the praying woman and philosopher are unfinished, probably intended
to carry the likenesses of the deceased, though never completed.
5 Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, c 359, 8’ Rome
Junius Bassus was the city prefect of Rome when he converted. His sarcophagus,
like the last was in the Italian manner of decorating one side only. In this
case it is a two story architecture that creates ten framed scenes from the
old and new testaments. Christ is in the center of each register. Below he rides
toward his entry into Jerusalem. Above his is seen as an enthroned world ruler:
flanked by his chief apostles, Peter and Paul, and supported by the Roman personification
of the sky god. The heavenly triumph above and the earthly triumph below.
Like the first commandment in the old testament’s Decalogue, there is ambiguity here about the meaning of monotheism. The personification of the sky god is the sky god. His support of Christ here is intended to show the importance of Christ. This is what I meant by cultural traditions overlapping.
Here is another homme arcade like the Santa Maria Antigua sarcophagus (10-62), but one that doesn’t feature images of the deceased on its top lid, as that one did, thus dropping a long Italian tradition the Romans had followed. The human body was now—under the influence of Christian separation of body and soul—being down-played, though by the same token it was being preserved in sarcophagus rather than being cremated.
Both these scenes insert Christ into existing Roman imperial iconographies.
The first an enthroned Emperor portrait, like that of Constantine (10-72), the
second the mounted emperor portrait like that of Marcus Aurelius (10-59). Such
building of a new tradition on the framework of preceding traditions is a very
common esthetic practice all around the world and throughout history.
Other scenes were created freshly for the new tradition, over the preceding
generations: Christ preparing to wash the feet of his deciples, Adam and Eve
with the serpent, and Daniel unharmed by the lions below; the near sacrifice
of Issac, and Christ being led toward Pontius Pilate above. The Old Testament
scenes standing as prophases of the new.
It is interesting that the crucifixion, the ubiquitous image of later Christianity,
does not emerge until the 5th century, when it is quite rare. It is as a teacher
and miracle worker he is shown, not as suffering.
You will notice that the Christian orientation of our text continues by devices like the capitalization of “Old” and “New Testaments” even when they are not titles, and by sentences like: “The Romans condemned Jesus to death but he triumphantly overcame it.” Pointing this out is not a complaint, but a reminder that all texts include ideological assumptions that —once recognized— help us to better understand them. A hegemonic history in the United States is a Christian history.
6 Christ enthroned, c 350-375, 2’4” h, Rome
Monumental sculpture became increasingly rare in the 4th century. Monumental
images of Roman emperors and deities were still being manufactured, but less
and less. “Justin Martyr, a second-century philosopher who converted to
Christianity and was mindful of the Second Commandment’s admonition to
shun graven images, accused the pagans of worshipping statues as gods. Christians
tended to suspect the freestanding statue, linking it with the false gods of
the pagans, so Early Christian houses of worship had no “cult statues.”
(307)
This two-and-a-half foot Christ is a rare example of coming close. Our text
even suggests it may have been a the “rare instance...of [an] Early Christian
“idol...” It is a freestanding, youthful Christ enthroned. It is
a beardless, long-haired “Apollo-like” youth in a Roman tunic, toga,
and sandals, holding an unopened scroll. Thus it is much on the philosopher
iconography. Though a few images of Jesus as the Good Shepherd survive, there
are no standard image of Christ in European sculpture until the 12th
century, eight hundred years later.
Compared to the standard Roman images of the previous centuries, and even the enthroned Christ on the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, this is a particularly sack-like figure, which flattens out rather than projecting mass.
If the point of the Christian turn is dematerialization, this is moving in that direction.
7 Old St. Peter’s, c 320, reconstruction Rome
Old Saint Peter’s was begun in Constantine’s time, and lasted until
the Renaissance, when it was raised as being too decrepit to shore up, and replaced
by the church that is there today. Our record of Old St. Peter’s comes
largely from drawings and written descriptions. Once it ceased to be persecuted
and hidden, after Constantine’s victory, congregations grew and a monumental
sized church was constructed. The model chosen was the relatively light structure
of the brick basilica, such as the one we saw at Trier (10-80 & 81).
Constantine was the first great patron of the church. He built in Rome, Constantinople
and in the holy land itself. Old Saint Peter’s, Saint John Lateran, both
outside the older parts of the city.
Saint Peter’s was built over what was believed to be the location of Peter’s
burial. (Recent archaeological research reveals a 2nd century memorial that
effect.) This was one of the most hallowed spot in Christendom. [This is
particularly true of the hegemonic church.] Interpreting Matthew 16:18
“Thou art Peter, and upon this rock (in Greek, petra) I will build my
church, ” Peter was so designated by Jesus to create the bureaucracy that
would administer the religion.
It was a giant, monumental church, capable of crowds up to 4,000 persons. It
was based on the model of the basilica (10-41 and 10-80 & 81) with a raised
central nave aisle carrying windows and two pairs of lower side aisles. Unlike
the Mediterranean temple with its tiny interior for images of deities, and public
rituals held outside, this was a hall for public gathering.
Plan The church’s layout was organized
around a wide central nave and narrower side aisles, where the congregation
could gather, fronted by a wide crossing aisle called the transept, with an
apse, like a Roman basilica, before which stood a canopy (baldochino)
beneath which was to be performed the major ritual, the Mass, “The
Catholic and Orthodox ritual in which believers understand that Christ’s
redeeming sacrifice on the cross is repeated when the priest consecrates the
bread and wine in the Eucharist.” (p 550).
The baldichino was built directly over the crypt in which Saint Peter’s remains were said to be buried. Worshippers entered from the narthex (vestibule), which was preceded by an open-air courtyard, like forum proper with Trajan’s basilica, or like the entrance to a Roman mansion. Looking up the nave one saw the altar framed in an arched proscenium later called the triumphal arch. The relics of Saint Peter were housed off the southern transept arm.
The plan was thus established in the form of a cross over the tomb of a great saint, with its focus on the altar where the central nave met the crossing arm. The length of the nave provided a path for the procession of the pirests to the altar to pass by the assembled congregation as it preceded to the enactment of the church’s central and most sacred rite, the Eucharist.
Unlike the classical temple, the Roman Catholic church was an austere brick
structure on the exterior, preserving the interior for rich and colorful decoration
in fresco, mosaic, beautiful marble and figurative imagery. “The Early
Christian basilica may be likened to the ideal Christian , with a somber and
plain exterior and a glowing and beautiful soul within.” (312)
Here we see more of the anti-classical, anti-humanist imagery of the early Christian church, with a rejection of the visible body and exhalation of what lies within. Some scholars suggest this rejection of the body is part of what is going on in the stylistic shift from beautiful classical anatomy to the more conceptual imagery of the later Roman art, which is early Christian art.
It may also be of note that the practice of building Medieval Catholic altars over crypts holding martyrs’ remains became standard, as this provided a particular sanctity to the spot. A glance back at the plan and isometric view in the book reveals the presence of a pair or attached martyria, martyr tombs, on the south of the church. Issues of death and “eternal life” are preeminently significant and uppermost in early Christian culture and design.
8 * Santa Sabina, 422-432 Rome
The best surviving example of the sort of monumental church that was first in
vogue can be seen in Rome’s Santa Sabina. Seen from its east end it presents
the same sort of brick geometry we’ve seen in the Aula Palatina (10-80).
A rectangular structure with a tile roof over an arcaded wall. The major difference
here is the addition of side aisles, to hold a larger congregation. These are
on the ground level, so the upper level here becomes a clear story. There are
small semi-circular apses on the side aisles as well, accentuating the character
of assembled geometric solids. The wall is left flat and unarticulated, but
for the windows. Thus as plain as possible.
8 * Interior of Santa Sabina, 422-432 Rome
On the inside of the structure is a long hall with side aisles extended beyond
the airy columnar arcade (series of arches). There is a triumphal arch
proscenium framing the location of the altar, where the apse joins the hall.
The curving form of the apse and the quarter dome of its vault focuses the hall
on the alter, as the arcade perspective leads the eye to it. The grid of rafters
in the timber ceiling above adds to the same effect. The altar occupies the
position that a statue of the emperor would have in an imperial basilica. The
wall is a flat plane on a widely spaced colonnade, opened by windows set almost
flush. The effect is an insubstantial lightness: open space in thin containers.
The most solid element in the hall is the painting in the semi-dome, which is
a later addition. The columns of the colonnade have Corinthian columns.
As they were originally constructed, there was a seat for the bishop in the apse, behind the altar. There is a low rail in the middle of the nave separating off the choir from the hall. There is a pulpit attached to it.
9 * Mausoleum of Constantia (formerly Santa Costanza), c 337-351 Rome
The Mausoleum of Constantia, was long called Santa Costanza, and acted as a
church and martyrium (martyr’s tomb). It follows a Roman model of a central-planned
tomb, a structure symmetrical about a point. These can be square, hexagonal,
octagonal, or as here circular. Normally as here they are domed. We saw one
of these in Diocletian’s fortress palace at Spilt (10-75). This was originally
the tomb of Constantine’s daughters Constantia and Helena, the first of
which was long confused nun who was a martyr.
Looking at the plan and section together, we see a central-planned, domed space
within a circular colonnade, surrounded by a barrel-vaulted ambulatory aisle
on a lower level. There is an outer, lower, flat ceilinged corridor, separated
by a wall, that was formerly an open pillared porch, but now closed in by a
wall. The result is a bright, vertical, central space, surrounded by a lower,
outside aisle. It may be that the 12 pairs of pillars supporting the arcade
are a reference to the 12 apostles.
In a Roman manner, I haven’t commented on before, there is a contrast between the relatively plain walls and the gem-like beauty of the polished stone columns. Romans often selected particularly handsome stones for columns, or even took fine columns from existing buildings. The sarcophagus of Constantia, that remains, is a giant carved red porphyry gem of polished stone.
Though this structure was for a long time turned into a church and Costanza treated like a saint, this was originally only a tomb. It was conceived as a jewel box for witnessing two sarcophagi at its center, not a hall to be filled by a congregation. When Gardner’s authors liken it to the beehive tombs of the Myceneans (4-21 & 22), they are referring to the fact of its domed, central space, not monumentality, as this is a very compressed space.
Like the basilican churches of the day the tomb had a plain, brick exterior,
which contrasts with the richness of its interior.
11 Vault mosaic, Mausoleum of Constantia (formerly Santa
Costanza), c 337-351, inner hall is 15 m. diam, the
diameter of the aisle is 30 m, Rome
The tunnel-vaulted ambulatory aisle carries a rich mosaic ceiling. The imagery
here is not Christian at all, but secular. Among the images are those seen here,
of Constantia and her sister amid grape vines, along with scenes of a bullock
cart hauling grapes and the stamping of the grapes into juice. There are putti
(cherubic young boys) and birds among the vines. Similar imagery appears on
Constantia’s sarcophagus.
I think Gardner’s text is mistaken to call the imagery here pagan, by which they intend the Roman religion. There are no Roman deities here as central figures like Constantia. There are mythological figures used in a decorative manner, in the repeated patterns of some of the other bays, but these are tiny and like the putti among the vines around Constantia, hardly important. Putti do occur inoffensively in Renaissance Christian art.
I’ll discuss this issue a little further, as this petty disagreement between the text specialist an myself grows. For those reading the lectures with care it may be interesting to watch historians thinking and disagreeing. For those who are reading the lectures loosely, I am afraid it will be confusing.* Herakleitos, The Unswept Floor, 2nd c BCE, (copy of
painting by Sosos of Pergamon), Rome
This may be the moment to explain mosaic. It is surface design technique in which the artist composes pictures out of small bits of stone, pebbles (5-68), ceramic or glass. They can be made for floors as well as walls and ceilings. It is their strength, to withstand wear as well as the elements that recommends them for architectural use. They take longer to manufacture than a painted decoration, and are certainly a less flexible medium than painting, but you can walk on them, or leave them on a wall for centuries and they wont flake off. The earliest known examples of the technique date to the 8th century BCE at Gordion in what is now Turkey. By the third century BCE they were being used for sophisticated images that approached paintings in their naturalistic effects.
Monumental Roman and Christian mosaics for walls and ceilings were composed flat tesserae (cubes, bits) of polished marble, that were usually squarish, but could be shaped with care to suit a representational need. Christians often preferred tesserae of colored glass, or with gold leaf behind them to gleam and reflect the light. Strips of lead can be used to add definition or hold small bits. We’ve already seen the floor mosaic from Pompeii that preserves Philoxenos’ Battle of Isis (5-69), well enough for historians to use it, as here to remember that painting.
It would be a mistake to look at the artists ability to approach painting’s subtlety of modeling, as we can see it in Herakleitos paraphrase of Sosos’s painting of a floor strewn with refuse from a feast, as the point in an effective mosaic. Subtlety was an aspect of the design, but subtlety of a very specific sort: subtlety in contrast. The quality that makes mosaics most effective and most enjoyable is the artists’ ability to make their designs strikingly visible at a distance. It is a monumental form, not an intimate one. It is particularly the clash of a dark stone against a lighter one, or one color against another that catches our eyes.
Thus it is the sharpness that separates the mouse or apple slice here from the dull beige of the ground that makes it stand out so we can see it while standing upon it, or from across the room. Up close it may appear a bit crude in the jump of one tesserae against another, but that seeming crudeness, like piano passages compared to the same melody on a violin, has its own striking interest. It isn’t so smooth, but instead has a sort of digitally percussive strength. Herakleitos’s floor can never have the subtlety of Sosos’s, but the enjoyment we get from it, when we don’t look for subtlety can be quite as fine, or even finer.
* Vault mosaic, Mausoleum of Constantia
If we pull back from the narrow, close-up illustration (11-11) in our text, that shows the mosaic as a picture of something, and consider the situation of the full composition, as a continuous series and framed decorative designs, we can see how this works. As a cliché, we look at the picture and we look for representation of a subject. As a wall decoration in Constantia’s Mausoleum we can enjoy its curving, unrectangular shape and borders. We can enjoy the way the vault’s curve has been incorporated into its avoidance of the omnipresently universal rectangle. We have the fun of seeing the artist play with scenes with three different ground lines. Constantia is set across the axis of the aisle, while the oxcart and grape stomping scenes are set against either side. And the entire scene abuts another panel which is a purely decorative repeat pattern. Though it is clearly a very rich pattern we might take a long to study if we wanted to fully enjoy it.
And then we may go back to look for the mosaic’s design for its most interesting aspects. We can enjoy its percussive staccato of separate tesserae, and not miss that joy in an attempt to find the elision of modulations we have been used to in painting. Once we have that looking skill under our belts, we can go on to think about what mosaic’s are good for, rather than what they are not.
12 Christ as Sol Invictus, det of vault mosaic, Mausoleum of
the Julii, late 3rd c, Rome
“CHRIST AS SUN GOD The earliest known mosaic of explicitly
Christian content is the late-third-century vault mosaic (fig. 11-12) in a small
Christian mausoleum not far from Saint Peter’s tomb in the Roman cemetery
beneath Old Saint Peter’s. It depicts Christ in the guise of a familiar
pagan deity Sol Invictus (in Greek, Helios) the Invincible Sun, driving the
sun chariot through the golden heavens. All about Christ are vines, as in Constantia’s
mausoleum (fig. 11-11). He holds an orb in his left hand, characterizing him
as ruler of the universe, another borrowing from the pagan repertory of Roman
imperial art. But viewers could easily distinguish the Christian charioteer
from the pagan Sol by the halo around his head: the rays suggest the pattern
of a cross.” (313, emphasis added)
That is the full quotation on this little fragment of mosaic in our text, the 11th edition of Gardner’s Art Through the Ages. It rings a little strange if one reads it carefully. “The earliest known mosaic of explicitly Christian content” [my italics for emphasis]. What is explicit about depicting Christ as the Roman Sun god? The author’s point is that Christians of the day knew they were supposed to see a direct reference from the Roman god —they were no longer supposed to worship— to the Christian one that those buried in the tomb of Juli followed. The difficulty for us is that things were, and still are more ambiguous than that. Things aren’t as explicit or clear in real life as we would often like. And it is this ambiguity that I referred to above when I said this might become confusing.
While many Christians rejected the polytheism that our book refers to by the Christian code word “pagan,” many others saw Christ as one god among many, even if the greatest. People still worry about this thousands of years later. Why else are we fighting about putting the Ten Commandments up in our courtrooms? Have you looked into the first commandment lately? It certainly isn’t a principle of American law.
And why is belief such a difficult and controversial issue? Because it is not easy, simple or convenient. Myself, I understand quite well why some Christians of the early Renaissance were so opposed to the return of the classicism that was being reborn. Classicism is deeply embedded with values that aren’t Christian. Some of today’s so-called fundamentalists are as concerned with things that seem to confuse and shade focus on what they want clear cut distinctions between what they see as Christian, or Muslim, or Buddhist or Hindu, and other belief systems. So are many others. Everybody isn’t always as simply clear as everyone else.
Let’s look at what Gardner’s 10th edition said: “In the minds of simple Christians only recently converted, Jesus easily could have been identified with the familiar deities of the Mediterranean world, especially Sol Invictus (in Greek, Helios), the invincible Sun. The late third-century vault mosaic (fig.. ) of a small Christian mausoleum, not far from St. Peter’s tomb in the Roman cemetery beneath Old St. Peter’s, shows Christ as Sol Invictus, with a rayed halo driving the horses of the sun chariot through the heavens and holding an orb in his left hand...” (Gardner 10th, 286)
* Christ enthroned and the apostles in the Heavenly
Jerusalem, apse, Santa Pudenziana, 410-417, Rome
Roman illusionism was a major style, if the waning style, at the beginning of
Christian monumental art. The mosaic in the apse of Santa Pudenziana in Rome,
contains the earliest securely datable example of this type to survive. Although
“drastically” restored in the 19th century, when its right half
was repaired, it can tell us something of the esthetic moment that was about
to be rejected. It shows Christ enthroned like an emperor, in imperial purple
and gold, now bearded and haloed, unlike the earlier clean shaven images. He
is placed in the Heavenly Jerusalem flanked by the apostles, deployed around
him like an emperor’s entourage (e.g. 10-77). Two women stand a bit behind
these, symbolizing the Old Testament church of the Synagogue and the New Testament
Church of the Gentiles. The heavenly city rings him while above in the air floats
the jeweled cross that Constantine raised on the site of Christ’s crucifixion.
To either side hover the animals symbolizing the four evangelists. (10th Gardner
268)
What is most striking here is the illusionism of figures in space, much more striking than anything we have seen to survive. And, this is a mosaic. And, it depicts this effectively evocative space on a curving surface. So here we are a century and a half after the Arch of Constantine’s announcement of the flattening out space in later Roman art, and for early Christian reasons.
13 The parting of Lot and Abraham, nave, Santa Maria
Maggiore, 432-440, 6’ w Rome
The early 5th century mosaic in our volume comes from a little panel, high up
on the wall of the giant Santa Maria Maggiore. It is one of a great number of
narrative scenes out of the Old Testament, running down the nave aisle, at a
very high level. Abraham moves toward Canaan, on our left. Gardner’s author
believes that the figure before him is Isaac, even if that is anachronistic.
Lot moves the other way, with his two daughters in front of him, towards Sodom.
The gestures are stage like, the figures limited in their naturalism, “Thus
the complex action of Roman art stiffened into the medieval art of simplified
motion, which has real power to communicate without ambiguity. The artist’s
placing of the panel’s figures in the foreground and disinterest in defining
the spatial setting also foreshadowed the character of later Christian art.”
(315-316) There is still use of dark contrasting lines to indicate mass; these
would disappear in a century, for an even flatter effect.
I can’t help wondering whether or not this is true, when we consider the image can only be seen at a great distance. Never as close as you can in the book or the blown up slide in class. Though the actual work is 5 feet wide; it is so high on the nave clearstory wall and at such a distance that it is indeed quite difficult to make out. Step back 8 feet from your text’s illustration to have an idea. It is in part to carry across this distance that the style is so simplified.
Current History
In 324 Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to his new seat of
Constantinople, in the Greek speaking, eastern half of his realm. In 337 he
died. In 387 his successor Theodosius I issued the edict making Christianity
the state religion of the Roman Empire. “In 391 he enacted a ban against
pagan worship.” (316)
In this case the book’s use of the term pagan is appropriate. The ban was against all non-Christian worship, Roman, Greek, German, Mithraic, Manicheism. Judaism and Samaratinism were at first not persecuted, because they had a special status under the laws of Constantine, But early in the 5th century new synagogues were prohibited, and soon both Jews and Samaritans were expelled from the army and public service. They revolted in 529 and 567, and when Persians and Arabs invaced Palestine in he 6th and 7th centuries they were welcomed as an improvement over the Christian Roman Empire.
In 395 Theodosius died and the empire was split again. This time between his son Arcadius who ruled from Constantinople, and his son Honorious, who became Emperor of the West. In 404 the Visigoths under Alaric invaded Italy from the north, and Honorious was forced to move his capital from Milan to Ravenna on the Adriatic coast. (Milan had replaced Rome as the capital of the Western Empire in 286.) There it remained, while Alaric took, and sacked, Rome in 410. When Honorious died in 423 his sister Galla Placidia, took the throne as Regent (for her son), ruling from 425 to 440.
The history of Italy from this point on is written as a tribal warfare between the marauding hoards speaking Germanic languages and settled populations speaking local Romance and Germanic languages and the remnants of the Roman empire, moving slowly from Latin toward Italian.14 Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, c 425 Ravenna
The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia maintains the tradition of a plain brick exterior with a rich interior. It is another example of the central-planned mausoleum, more or less. That is, it is almost a Greek (equilateral) cross in plan, and is certainly experienced that way. Though in actual fact it is 33 x 39 feet on plan and so the earliest Christian structure we know on a Latin cross plan. The roof is of ceramic tiles. It was established originally as a Martyrium for Saint Lawrence, but later added cenotaphs for Galla Placidia and Honorious.
It is notable how here, as usual in these early Christian, ritual buildings, the simple structural articulation of the brick exterior is itself quite handsome, if demonstrably austere in comparison to their rich interiors.
* Interior, Mausoleum Galla Placidia Ravenna
The simple pent roofs cover barrel vaulted arms and a rounded dome on the interior,
the entirety finished in marble to the level of the springing of the arches,
and brilliant mosaic above. Entering the structure is like walking into a jewel
box. The vaults and upper wall carry a dark blue sky filled with bright snowflake
stars, with a golden cross in the center of the central dome. The lunettes have
framed pictures of the apostles, set in spaces against the same dark blue background
so the viewer is more or less walking into the heavens. In the ends of the arms
are panels with narrative depictions.
15 * Christ as the Good Shepherd, Mausoleum of Galla
Placidia, Ravenna
The image over the entrance, which one sees upon leaving, is of Christ as the
Good Shepherd. Jesus here is shown with a golden halo, seated on a rock, holding
a tall cross and surrounded by a flock. He is shaven and wearing the royal purple
and gold. The space around him is not deep, but well established. Christ, the
sheep and the rocks are all modeled with darkened edges and shadows to produce
mass. They cast shadows on the ground.
More Historiography and History
Hegemonic history of Europe in the first millenium follows long tradition of reading the conflicts of various tribal nations. These seem to be genetic groups, some sedentary, at a particular location, like the Britons, Romans or Etruscans, and some moving across these regions, most particularly the Germanic tribes we know as the Goths, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals and so on. The genetic or tribal way of understanding these groups—and the primitive way they seem to have understood themselves—equates them with gene pools of varying degrees of “purity.” The more recent way has been to understand them as language-cultural communities, with relatively porous genetic pools made up of whoever they came into contact with.
In this vein the hegemonic history of the later Roman Empire is of Romans at war with Germanic invaders.
In 476 the Visigoths (western Goths), under Odoacer, finally took control of
the entirety of the Italian peninsula from the Romans, with the capture of Ravenna.
In 493 Theodoric the Ostrgoth (eastern Goths) took Ravenna from him. By then,
the Ostrogoths had been Christians for some time, though they were unorthodox
Christians who followed Arianism—the hearsay condemned by the Council
of Nicea in 325, of believing Jesus Christ and god the father to be separate
beings.
* Sant’Apollinare, Nuovo, ded 504, Ravenna
Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo is the name given to Theodoric’s palace church
in the 9th century, when the relics of Saint Apollinaris were brought their
from the nearby harbor city of Classe, where they had rested in the earlier
Sant’ Apollinare. Originally this three aisled basilica was called the
Church of the Savior.
16 Interior Sant’Apollinare, Nuovo, ded 504, Ravenna
On the inside the basilica is more or less similar in design to Santa Sabina, a central, clearstory nave with a timber roof, expanding into lower side aisles on each side through airy, open colonnades and focused on an altar framed by a triumphal arch and apse. Though the side aisles, arch and apse are now bare, there are three rich registers of mosaic running down the walls of the nave. The upper two registers date from Theodoric’s time. Between the clearstory windows are Old Testament prophets and patriarchs, and above are small panels from the life of Christ [and various saints].
17 Miracle of the loaves and fishes, Sant’Apollinare
Nuovo, Ravenna
The panels of the upper register show the stylistic development that has occurred
since the Galla Placidia murals of a century before. In a nutshell it can be
seen in the differences between the gaze of Christ to the side of Christ as
the Good Shepherd in 425, and his fully frontal gaze, out toward the spectator
at Sant’ Apollinare. In the first we read a scene with a figure in a spatial
setting. In the second we have a more of a line up of symbols.
It is in many ways the step we saw in the opposite direction, between the two pediments of Aphia at Aegina (5-27 and 5-28) a millenium before, when the dyeing warrior looking straight out at the spectator on the older program, of c 490 BCE, was replaced by one looking away, on the later program, of c 480 BCE.
Christ in the Sant’ Apollinare mosaics stands fully frontal, his arms
outstretched in the orant position, flanked by two, nearly-as-frontal, figures.
Christ’s halo is a perfect circle. Despite a bit of development in the
feet and profiles of the flanking figures, to suggest a bit of circling around
Christ, all five figures are lined up flatly against the picture plane, and
all five stare out directly at the viewer, as does nearly figure in every panel
of both upper registers. There is no question about the subject or its meaning.
Christ is producing the loaves and fishes in each of his outstretched hands.
But the manner of depiction has moved from one aimed at evoking an emotional
response to a scene viewed, to one aimed at symbolizing rather than evoking:
stating an idea rather than summoning an emotion.
A millenium long development of illusionistic imagery in monumental art has come full circle back to the conceptual imagery that preceded it.
Despite the slight bit of space suggested in the progression from lighter to darker green in the ground plan, the overall setting is aimed at flatness. The figures are lined up close to the edge. The background is a flat gold of decoration, not a blue sky. The landscape motifs are pushed to either side and lined up with the figures. The few shadows left in the scene will soon be gone. Most of the lines in the scene are parallel to the frame.
This is a world view quite “foreign to classical art, with its worldly
themes, naturalism, perspective illusionism, modeling in light and shade, and
proportionality.”(319)
18 Saints Onesiphorous and Porphyrius, dome Church of St.
George, c 390-450, Thessaloniki
Illuminated Manuscripts
The mass of visual imagery in the ancient world was not in the monumental form
that has survived, because of its construction on brick and stone or out of
mosaic tiles. It was in drawing and painting on much more fragile fabrics, such
as cloth or the parchment (lambskin) and vellum (calfskin) of the earliest scrolls
and books. Our book illustrates an Egyptian papyrus scroll from 1290-1280 BCE,
but little else has survived before the early Christian manuscripts we are about
to consider, for their illustrations.
The Romans developed the codex of bound pages, to go along with their continuing
use of scrolls.
19 The old farmer of Corycus, folio 7 verso of the
Vatican Vergil, c 400-420, 1’
The pastoral imagery of Roman landscape painting echoes the pastoral imagery
that held an important place in Roman poetry. Vergil is one of the most famous
authors in this genre. Horace is another. [Pastoral imagery is an interesting
accompaniment to cultures that have become focused in great urban sites, where
the countryside ceases to be a reality and may become a terrain for nostalgic
idealization.] The Vatican library’s 5th century book of Vergil’s
poetry and accompanying illustrations is one of the earliest illustrated books
to survive. It contains 50 painted folios out of around 250 in the completed
text.
The page we have shows text above and a red and black framed scene of simple design. Recession is accomplished by five or six horizontally receding registers: foreground earth, foliage and people, middle ground plane of grass (?), a building along with a line of trees, and a blue sky. All four square and simple.
We see it here not because it is great art, or much art at all, but because it is a rare survival. And, I suppose because it has more of a landscape than strictly anecdotal subject. Tempera (egg-based) colors on parchment.
I have placed it here rather than in the painting discussion the of our book’s Republican Rome discussion (Lecture 12).
19 Rebecca and Eliezer at the well, Vienna Genesis, early
6th c
12 x 9” page
The Vienna Genesis is the earliest manuscript in good condition. It is on purple
dyed vellum with silver ink. The tradition of continuous narration, with more
than one iteration of the subject in a single scene, that was common in the
continuous scroll, is maintained here. We see the story of Rebecca’s meeting
with Eliezer at the well, where she is seen first coming to the well with a
recumbent figure (symbolizing the spring source of the well) and then offering
water to Eliezer and his camels.
To the side we see the walled city of Nahor. The Roman convention here is the
same seen in relief on the column of Trajan, viewed from above. We also see
the cast shadows of Roman illusionism.
20 Christ before Pilate, Rossano Gospels, 11”, early 6th c
The Rossano Gospels are the earliest well-preserved New Testament. Here too
there is the purple ground. Here again we see continuous narrative. We see Jesus
appearing before Pilate, who is asking the Jews to choose between Jesus and
Barabas. In the upper part of the scene is Pilate on his dais. Here Jesus is
a bearded adult, as the type will soon be standard.
21 Suicide of Judas and Crucifixion of Christ, c 420, 4”,
from an ivory casket.
Here is one of a series of images from a decorated casket. We see Judas hanging
from a tree, beneath him his bag of silver open and spilling out on the ground.
Beside the cross are Mary and Joseph of Arimathea. Longinus with his lance is
thrusting from the other side. “REX IVD” spells out Jesus King of
the Jews. This set is the oldest surviving image of the passion. Jesus here
is still unshaven.
To our text Judas hangs down while Jesus floats up. I think this may be reading too much into a tiny and fairly unsophisticated image. It is, if not the oldest surviving image of the crucifixion, one of the two oldest examples. The other is carved on the doors of Santa Sabina, of the same time.
22 Priestess celebrating the rites of Bacchus, right leaf of
Diptych of the Nicomachi and the Symmachi, c400, 1’
Even after Theodosius closed all non-Christian temples and banned all non-Christian
cults in 391, imagery from those traditions continued, as Christian had before
it was made legal. Here is half of a diptych celebrating the marriage of two
wealthy, senatorial families. This is a low relief depiction of a traditional
Roman sacrifice, by a priestess at an altar of Bacchus, before a sacred oak
of Jupiter.
Compared to the previous ivory you can see the subtlety of the carving here.
To an extent we may also have the different ideal. The Roman subject more classical
and the Christian more conceptual. .