MEDIEVAL Romanesque Art 12th century St.

Sernin, Toulouse France Tympanum at Autun

South portal of Saint-Pierre, Moissac, France Second Coming of Christ A vision of the second coming of Christ on judgment day greets worshipers entering Saint-Pierre at Moissac. The sculptural program reflects the belief that Christ is the door of salvation.

Gothic Art late 12th century -13th century

Chartres Cathedral Tympanum at Chartres Of the center portal of the narthex of La Madeleine, Vzelay, France. In the tympanum of the church most closely associated with the Crusades, light rays emanating from Christs hands instill the Holy Spirit in the apostles, whose mission is to convert the worlds heathens. Rose window and lancet at Chartres Cathedral

Flying buttresses made possible the replacement of heavy masonry walls with immense stained-glass windows, which transformed natural sunlight into divine light of various hues.

43 in diameter Immense stained-glass rose and lancet windows, held in place by an intricate armature of bar tracery, fill almost the entire faade wall of the High Gothic north transept of Charles Cathedral.

EARLY MEDIEVAL Migration 5th 7th century Purse cover From the Sutton Hoo ship burial in Suffolk, England Gold, glass, and cloisonn garnets 7 long British Museum, London This purse comes from a treasure-laden royal burial ship. The combination of abstract interlace ornamentation with animal figures is the hallmark of the art of the early Middle Ages in Western Europe.

Hiberno-Saxon 7th-9th century

Saint Mathew, Book of Durrow

Cross and Carpet Page, Lindisfarne Gospels

Cross-inscribed carpet page, folio 26 verso of the Lindisfarne Gospels, from Northumbria, England, ca. Tempra on vellum (calfskin) 1 foot 1 inch X 9 inches British library, London The cross-inscribed carpet page of the Lindisfarne Gospels exemplifies the way Hiberno-Saxon illuminators married Christian imagery and the animal-

interlace style of Chi-Rho page, Book of Kells

the early medieval warlords.

Carolingian 9th century Palatine Chapel of Charlemagne

Saint Mathew, Coronation Gospels

Ink and tempra on vellum 1 X 10 Schatzkammer, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna The books produced for Charlemagnes court reveal the legacy of classical art. The Carolingian painter used light, shade, and oerspective to create the illusion of threedimensional form.

Crucifixion from the Lindau Gospels

Front cover, from Saint Gall, Switzerland Gold, precious stones and pearls 11 3/8 X 10 3/8 Pierpont Morgan Library, New York This sumptuous Carolingian book cover revives the Early Christian imagery of the youthful Christ. The statuesque, crucified Christ, heedless of pain, is classical in conception and execution.

Byzantine Early Period 6th century AD

Justinian as World Conqueror

Ivory 11 X 10 Muse du Louvre, Paris Classical style and motifs lived on in Byzantine art in ivories such as this one. Justinian rides a rearing horse accompanied by personifications of Victory and Earth. Above, Christ blesses the emperor. Statues such as this one are the missing links in an imperial tradition that never really died and that lived on also in the Holy Roman Empire and in Renaissance Italy.

Hagia Sophia, Constantinople

Constantinople (Instanbul), Turkey Pendentive construction made possible Hagia Sophias lofty dome, which seems to ride on a halo of light. A contemporary said the dome seemed to be suspended by a golden chain from Heaven.

Mosaics from San Vitale, Ravenna:

Justinian and Attendants, mosaic
Mosaic on the north wall of the apse, San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy San Vitales mosaics reveal the new Byzantine aesthetic. Justinian is foremost among the weightless and the speechless frontal figures hovering before the viewer, their positions in space uncertain.

Mosaics from San Vitale, Ravenna :

Theodora and Attendants, mosaic
The south wall of the aspe, San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy Justinians counterpart on the opposite wall is the powerful Empress Theodora. Neither she nor Justinian ever visited Ravenna. San Vitales mosaics are proxies for the absent sovereigs.

Christ Between Angels and Saints, mosaic

Saint Vitalis, and Bishop Ecclesius, Ravenna, Italy In the apse vaiult, a youthful Christ, seated on the orb of the world at the time of his second coming, extends the gold martyrs wreath to Saint Vitalis. Bishop Ecclesius offers Christ a model of San Vitale.

Apse mosaic (Transfiguration) from Saint Apollinare in Classe

Saint Apollinaris amid sheep Ravenna, Italy Saint Apollinaris stands beneath Christs cross, his arms raised in prayer. Although the scene is set in a landscpae, the Byzantine artist rejected the classical illusionism of early mosaics.

Transfiguration mosaic from monastery of St. Catherine

Apse mosaic Church of the Virgin, Mount Sinai, Egypt In this apse mosaic, unlike Saint Apollinaris in Classe, the artist sweot away all the traces of landscape for a depthless field of gold. The prophets and the desciples cast no shadows even though bathed in divine light.

Virgin and Child icon

Virgin, Theotokos) and Child between Saints Theodore and George Icon 6th or early 7th century Encaustic on wood 23 X 17 Monastery of Saint Catherine, Mount Sinai, Egypt Byzantine icons are the heirs to the Roman tradition of portrait painting on small wood panels, but their Christian subjects and function as devotional objects broke sharply from classical models.

Middle Period Century 800-1200AD David composing the psalms, Paris Psalter
Tempra on vellum 12 1/8 X 10 Bibliothque Nationale, Paris During the Macedonian Renasissance, Byzantine artists revived the classical style. This painter portrayed David as if a Greek hero, accompanied by personifications of Melody, Echo, and Bethlehem.

Lamentation over the dead Christ [St. Pantaleimon, Nerezi]

Wall painting
1164 Working in the Balkans in an alternate Byzantine mode, this painter staged the emotional scene of the Lamentation in a hilly landscape below a blue sky and peopled it with fully modeled figures.

Vladimir Madonna

(Virgin of compassion icon) late 11th or early 12th century with later repainting Tempera on wood 2 6 X 19 Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow In this icon, the artist depicted Mary as the Virgin of Compassion, who presses her cheek against her sons as she contemplates his future. The reverse side shows the instruments of Christs passion.

Early Christian Art

Old St. Peter's, Rome
The greatest of Constantines churches in Rome Built by Constantine, the first imperial patron of Christianity, this huge church stood over Saint Peters grave. The buildings plan and elevation resemble those of Roman basilicas, not temples.

Christ as Good Shepherd mosaic, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna

Jesus sits among his flock, haloed and robed in gold and purple. The landscape and the figures, with their cast shadows, are the work of a mosaicist still rooted in the naturalistic classical tradition.

Miracle of the loaves and fishes, mosaic, Ravenna

In contrast to Christ as Good Shepherd Jesus here faces directly toward the viewer. Blue sky has given way to the otherworldly splendor of heavenly gold, the standard background color for medieval mosaics.

Roman Art

The Republic 1st century BC Temple of Portunus [Temple of Fortuna Virilis, Rome]
75 BCE Republican temples combined Etruscan plans and Greek elevations. This pseudoperipteral stone temple employs the lonic order, but it has a staircase and freestanding columns only at the front.

Head of Roman Patrician

Marble Life-size Veristic (superrealistic) portraits of old men from distinguished families were the norm during the Republic. The sculptor of this head painstakingly recorded every detail of the elderly mans face.

Funerary relief Gessius family

30 BCE Marble 2 1 high Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Roman freedmen often placed reliefs depicting themselves and their former owners on the facades of their tombs. The portraits and inscriptions celebrated their freedom and new status as citizens.

First Style wall painting in the fauces of the Samnite House, Herculaneum, Italy, late second century BCE
In First Style murals, the aim was to imitate costly marble panels using painted stucco relief. The style is Greek in origin and another example of the Hellenization of Republican architecture.

Second Style wall painting, Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii

Fresco, frieze 54 high Second Style painters created the illusion of an imaginary three-dimensional world on the walls of Roman houses. The figures in this room are acting out the initiation rites of the Dionysiac mysteries.

Second Style wall painting, [Villa of Livia, Primaporta]

Gardenscape Fresco, 67 high The ultimate example of a Second Style picture window wall is Livias gardenscape. To suggest recession, the painter used atmospheric perspective, intentionally blurring the most distant forms.

Third Style wall painting [Villa of Agrippa Postumus, Boscotrecase]

10BCE Fresco 78 high In the Third Style, Roman painters decorated walls with delicate linear fantasies sketched on monochromatic backgrounds. Here, a tiny floating landscape on a black ground is the central motif.

Fourth Style wall painting [Domus Aurea of Nero, Rome]

The creamy white walls of this Neronian room display a kinship with the Third Style, but views through the wall reveal the irrational architectural vistas that characterize the new Fourth Style.

Early Empire 25B.C. - 100 A.D.

Statue of Augustus
Italy Early-first century Copy of a bronze original 20BCE marble 68high The models for Augustuss idealized portraits, which depict him as a never-aging god, were Classical Greek statues. This portrait presents the emperor in armor in his role as general.

The Ara Pacis or Altar of Peace

Rome, Italy 13-9 BCE Augustus sought to present his new order as a Golden Age equaling that of Ahens under Pericles. The Ara Pacis celebrates the emperors most important achievement, the establishment of peace.

Relief with Personifications of Earth

Rome, Italy 13-9BCE Marble, 53 high This female personification with two babies on her lap embodies the fruits of the Pax Augusta. All around her the bountiful earth is in bloom, and animals of different species live together peacefully.

The Maison Carree, [Nimes]

1-10CE This well preserved Corinthian pseudoperipteral temple in France, modeled on the temple in the Forum of Augustus in Rome, exemplifies the conservative Neo-Classical Augustan architectural style.

Arch of Titus
Rome, Italy After 81 CE Domitian built this arch on the road leading into the Roman Frum to honor his brother, the emperor Titus, who became a

god after his death. Victories fill the spandrels of the arcuated passageway.

Relief of Triumph of Titus

Rome, Italy After 81CE Marble 710 high Victory crowns Titus in his triumphal chariot. Also present are personifications of Honor and Valor in this first known instance of the intermingling of human and divine figures in a Roman historical relief.

High Empire 2nd Century AD

Forum of Trajan
Funded by the spoils from two Dacian wars, Romes largest forum features a basilica with clerestory lighting, two libraries, a commemorative column, and a temple of the deified Trajan.

Column of Trajan
Rome, Italy Dedicated 112CE The spiral frieze of Trajans Column tells the story of the Dacian wars in 150 episodes. The reliefs depicted all aspects of the campaigns, from battles to sacrifices to road and fort construction.

Pantheon
Rome, Italy 118-125CE The Pantheons traditional faade masked its revolutionary cylindrical drum and its huge hemispherical dome. The interior symbolized both the orb of the earth and the vault of the heavens.

Calvary procession from Column of Antoninus Pius

The Antonine decursio relief breaks sharply with Classical art conventions. The ground is the whole surface of the relief, and the figures stand on floating patches of earth.

Late Empire 200-325 AD

Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus
Rome, Italy 250-260 CE Marble, 5 high A chaotic scene of battle between Romans and barbarians decorates the front of this sarcophagus. The sculptor piled up the writhing, emotive figures in an empathetic rejection of Classical perspective.

Tetrarchs
From Constantinople 305CE Porphyry, 43 high Diocletian established the tetrarchy to bring order to the Roman world. In group portraits, artists always depicted the four corulers as nearly identical partners in power, not as distinct individuals.

Arch of Constantine

Rome, Italy 312-315CE Much of the sculptural decoration of Constantines arch came from monuments of Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus Aurelius. Sculptors recut the heads of the earlier emperors to substitute Constantines features.

Portrait of Constantine
Rome, Italy 315-330 CE Marble, 86 high Constantines portraits revive the Augustan image of an eternally youthful ruler. This colossal head is one fragment of an enthroned Jupiter-like statue of the emperor holding the orb of world power.