5.6 The Art of the Church

The Year the World Changed

With its conquests, Rome changed, and was changed by, the worlds it absorbed into its imperial maw. In 312 CE, the Empire changed and was changed by an alliance made by the Emperor Constantine with bishops of a formerly obscure religious faith. Over the next several centuries, the Empire was Christianized and the Christian Church became Imperial. Neither would ever be the same.

Early Church Images

It would be wonderful to dig into the story of the Church and Empire, but our concern is with art. We have seen that the Hebrew tradition never depicted images of its God, Jehovah, as “graven images” would lead to the practice of idolatry which was forbidden by the Law of Moses. Christianity grew out of the Jewish faith. But its theology of Jesus as one of the persons of a unified God who was incarnated in the body of a man opened the door to depictions of the Son of God.

From their earliest days, Christians composed artistic images. Early Christian art reflected the ethos of small churches that met in private homes and tended to the needs of humble people, especially women and slaves. Most frequently, Jesus was depicted in Fresco as a good shepherd (see John 10) on the ceilings or walls of tombs.

Christ as the Good Shepherd. (3rd C CE). Catacomb of Donna Velata. Ceiling Fresco.

Let’s notice two things. First, the depictions of Christ made by the early church emphasized his humility. Shepherds occupied a very low rung on the social ladder. The image of a lowly shepherd protecting his flock with loving care parallels the gospels’ vision of a great lord who assumed a lowly place to save his children.

Second, notice that the Classical model of art is being left behind. The classical artist analyzed human visual experience to mimetically create the illusion of actual seeing. These images portray the figures of Jesus and the sheep with reduced mimetic detail. The figures are abstracted from any context of time, action, or emotional pathos. They are depicted for purely devotional reasons. Without suggesting any value judgment whatsoever, we can recognize that these images are not conceived according to a classical model of art.

Imperial Church; Imperial Christian Art

The alliance of Christian bishops with Emperors transformed the art of the Mediterranean world and, in time, of Northern Europe. The bishops’ single-minded focus on Christian themes gradually came to monopolize the patronage and practice of artists. On the other hand, the influence of the Empire transformed Christian ideology and its image of the Christ.

At the same time that he was allying with bishops, Constantine moved the imperial capital from Rome to a town called Byzantium which was strategically located on the Bosporus, a narrow strip of water separating the Western (European) and Eastern (Asian) worlds. He moved most of the treasures and art of Rome to the city which was renamed—what else?—Constantinople, the city of Constantine.

Constantine also began to build churches. Really big churches. Vast basilicas reconceived as public buildings reflecting the glory of the empire. In the 6th Century, the Emperor Justinian rebuilt the Cathedral of Constantinople. Hagia Sophia (The church of Holy Wisdom) was at the time one of the grandest buildings on earth with the largest dome. It testified to God’s grandeur, but even more directly to the power of the Empire that now equated its interests with Christ’s.

Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom). (537 CE). Exterior view.	Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom). (537 CE). Interior rotunda.

The interior of Hagia Sophia was lavished with gorgeous Mosaics. A mosaic is a visual composition comprised of thousands of colored bits of glass, stone, or gems called tesserae.

Christ Pantocrator. (532-537 CE). Mosaic. Hagia Sophia.	Virgin and Child. (532-537 CE).  Mosaic. Hagia Sophia.

In these mosaics we again see a departure from the Classical model of art. Christ and the Virgin Mary are depicted in stylized, simplified form. Their impassive faces betray no reaction to any particular event and their bodies are posed in a timeless, abstracted stasis. We could see it as heaven or simply as an ideological formulation. We are clear on what we are seeing: figures we recognize for conventional reasons and theological signification. But we are not led to think about an act of seeing actual visual subjects in time. Jesus, after all, is frozen into the moment of his infancy in this and countless images of Mother and Child into our own day.

We must also notice the profound transformation of these figures. Jesus the humble shepherd has been reconceived as Christ Pantocrator, the imperial ruler of everything. Mary, the carpenter’s wife, is now enthroned as the Queen of Heaven. Heaven itself has mutated into an imperial court.

The Byzantine Tradition

The term Byzantine is applied to the eastern half of the Roman Empire, centered in Constantinople, formerly named Byzantium. Its Orthodox churches in northern Africa, Asia Minor, Greece, the Balkans, and, in time, Russia continue to this day to form an alternative to the Roman Catholic world.

The Christian Icon

In the Christian tradition, an Icon is a depiction of Jesus, the Virgin and child, or a saint which focuses worship. In the Orthodox and Catholic traditions, icons called the faithful to worship Christ, venerate[1] Saint Mary, confess to a priest, and partake of the Eucharist (communion). They facilitated personal, intercessory prayers to saints who had earned God’s favor and would pass the requests on to the one who could grant them. Icons have been and still are produced in the thousands for devotional display in churches or homes, on jewelry, or in a host of other applications.

Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Theodore and George.  (6th C CE). Encaustic on panel	St. Peter. (7th Century CE). Encaustic on panel

By the way, let’s clarify the use of the phrase “Virgin and child” for anyone who might be wondering how a mother might be a virgin. While the Bible is by no means clear on this point, later tradition held that Mary was impregnated not by a man but by the intervention of the Holy Spirit.

We should notice a few conventional contents shared among these icons: Mary, Jesus arrested in permanent infancy, and attending angels or saints. The haloes indicate the status of the saint: a person who has died and been sanctified by faith or by notable acts of holiness including martyrdom or a particular holy life. As was true of Hindu art, saints are indicated by attributes: St. Peter is generally shown carrying a set of keys indicating his commission from Jesus (Matthew 16.18-19).

The functions to which icons are directed influence their form and style. The focus on theology and devotion leads to a representational technique that is more stylized than the classical emphasis on mimesis. Figures are abstracted, static and emotionless, devoid of any individuating features. They are frozen in a timeless present and the composition does little to indicate spatial depth. As we saw in Egyptian art, this timeless constancy affirms eternal authority, in this case that of God and the Queen of Heaven.[2]

Rome and a Disintegrating West

As imperial force and wealth increasingly settled in Constantinople, its authority eroded in the European west. In the 5th and 6th Centuries, Germanic and Hunnish peoples flowed into the power vacuum of what would become Europe and the Western Empire dissolved.

In the 6th Century, Emperor Justinian made a last effort to pull the West back into line. In the regional capital of Ravenna (a town on Italy’s Adriatic Coast) he built a magnificent Basilica with stunning mosaics.

Basilica di San Vitale. (548 CE). Interior view	Christ the Redeemer. Apse Vault. Mosaic
Mosaic of the Donors: Justinian and his Court	Mosaic of the Donors: Theodora and her Court

As you can see, the Byzantine style is persisting. We should note the remarkable distance Christian ideological has moved into an imperial model. Christ is sitting in imperial purple robes on an imperial throne that bestrides the world. Emperor and Empress are flanking the altar as if they convey devotional power in themselves. We might ask, how far has an imperial model of the church led later generations away from the values of the early church?

Despite Justinian’s efforts, Europe in the Middle Ages became increasingly dominated by Germanic cultures that assumed fragmented forms of authority, the so-called Feudal System.[3] These war lords had little interest in the classical tradition of scholarship. So they conceded much of the task of administration to the scholars of the Church of Rome. These scholars used Latin for everything. They read St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible. They preserved a smattering of classical Latin scholarship. And they conducted the business of kings, dukes, counts and earls in Latin.

[3] Feudal System: Medieval scholars today question whether there ever really a Feudal System was. For our purposes, we can simply note that centralized Imperial authority was fragmented into only loosely associated local fiefs.

Much of the art produced in these centuries was composed by scribes as illustrations to manuscripts, hand printed copies of texts. Before the printing press, European texts were all inscribed by hand. Some editions of the Bible were lovingly and sumptuously illustrated by monks. The Book of Kells in Ireland and the Northumbrian (Northern England) Lindisfarne Gospels are beautifully preserved examples.

Linisfarne Gospels. (c 698). Book of Matthew.	Book of Mark	Limbourg Brothers. (1416). February. Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Manuscript Illustration.

A very small proportion of the population could read and fewer could afford the cost of a manuscript. However, medieval aristocracy often patronized scribes and artists to compose elaborately illustrated books of hours. These were devotional guides for the canonical ours of prayer observed in monasteries. In the sample of the book of hours of the Duc de Berry.

Through nearly 1,000 years, the Church of Rome almost completely dominated Europe’s cultural life. Artists were almost exclusively patronized by the church. Their primary role was to compose icons and devotional art for church architecture, altar pieces, and icons for the home. Through it all, the Byzantine style persisted, as we see in the work of a 13th Century Florentine artist named Cimabue. Can you see Byzantine conventional contents and stylistic orientations in his work?

Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Peter. (c. 1290). Tempera on panel.	Painted crucifix. (c 1274).	Madonna and Child Enthroned with two Angels 13th C). Tempera on panel.