CategoriesCultural and Religious Styles
Byzantine Art
Art of the eastern Roman Empire, 330–1453: gold-ground mosaics, painted icons, domed churches, ivories and enamels.
No works indexed yet · 4 related artists
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About
Byzantine art is the art of the eastern Roman Empire, centred on Constantinople from its founding in 330 until the city fell to the Ottomans in 1453. It kept the Roman craft of mosaic but turned it towards a Christian vision: figures stand frontal and weightless, gazing out from grounds of gold glass that seem to dissolve the wall.
Justinian's reign in the 6th century set the standard. Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus designed Hagia Sophia (537), its vast dome resting on a ring of windows, and in Ravenna the mosaics of San Vitale portray Justinian and Theodora. After the Iconoclast controversy of the 8th and 9th centuries, when religious images were banned, icon painting revived with new tenderness, as in the 12th-century Virgin of Vladimir. The Chora Church in Istanbul keeps lively late mosaics and frescoes from around 1320. Byzantine models shaped art in Russia and the Balkans, and the Italian painting of Cimabue and Duccio.
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