The medieval world
Byzantine art
c. 330–1453
The art of the Eastern Roman Empire, where gold mosaics and icons made the sacred visible.
Overview
When Constantinople became the capital of the Roman Empire, a Christian art developed that valued spiritual presence over physical realism. Figures are frontal, elongated and set against shimmering gold, which removes them from everyday space and time.
Icons, painted images of holy figures, were central to worship and at times bitterly contested: during the Iconoclasm of the eighth and ninth centuries many were destroyed. Byzantine style went on to shape the art of Russia, the Balkans and medieval Italy.
What defines it
- Gold-ground mosaics covering domes and walls
- Flat, frontal, stylized figures with large eyes
- Domed churches built on a central plan
Works to know
- Hagia Sophia
- Mosaics of Justinian and Theodora, San Vitale
- Christ Pantocrator icon
- Virgin of Vladimir