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Ancients and Moderns on Seeing and Thinking
Sarah Bassett
Published online:

15 August 2024

Print publication:

08 August 2024
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How do we best see and understand the art of late antiquity? One of the perceived challenges of so doing is that this is a period whose visual production has been defined as stylistically abstract and emotionally spiritual, and therefore elusive. But this is a perception which – in her path-breaking new book – Sarah Bassett boldly challenges, offering two novel lines of interpretative inquiry. She first argues, by focusing on the art of late antiquity in late nineteenth-century Viennese intellectual and artistic circles, that that period's definition of late antique form was in fact a response to contemporaneous political concerns, anticipating modernist thinking and artistic practice. She then suggests that late antique viewers never actually abandoned a sense of those mimetic goals that characterized Greek and Roman habits of representation. This interpretative shift is transformative because it allows us to understand the full range and richness of late antique visual experience.

One - The Early Christian Iconography of Divine Inspiration
Karin Krause, University of Chicago
Book:

Divine Inspiration in Byzantium

Published online:

16 July 2022

Print publication:

09 June 2022, pp 36-86
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Summary

Seminal iconographic innovations in early Christian images of the divinely inspired evangelists reflect fundamentally changed attitudes toward the authenticity and authority of sacred texts. These portraits depart significantly from relevant pagan and Jewish imagery in that they emphasize the accurate documentation of the revealed texts in writing. The early Byzantine iconography of divine inspiration substantiates visually claims of Christianity being the only “true religion” that were expressed by late antique theologians and are also manifest in imperial legislation.

29 - Art and Propaganda fide: Christian art and architecture, 300–600
from Part IV - Christian Beliefs and Practices
- By Beat Brenk
Edited by Augustine Casiday, University of Wales, Lampeter, Frederick W. Norris
Book:

The Cambridge History of Christianity

Published online:

28 March 2008

Print publication:

30 August 2007, pp 691-725
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Summary

Since Jesus declared poverty and humility to be the most important Christian virtues, the question inevitably arises as to why the church accepted architectural ornamentation and the public display of artistic pomp. At first glance, early Christian art appears to be a mere clone, or at best an identical twin, of its Greco-Roman counterpart, and there is indeed no denying the fact that early Christian art is based on the Greco-Roman artisan tradition and mindset. This chapter first discusses a broader context the issue of the acceptance of the pictorial religious image in Christianity. Next, it discusses baptism and baptisteries, and explores the impact the church has on the believer through the medium of art and architecture after acceptance of Christ and baptism. Then, the chapter examines how the church markets salvation to believers through the medium of art. Finally, it discusses subjects of Christian archaeology such as catacombs and mausoleums and their decorative accoutrements.