Christian Art

Christian Art: From Catacombs to Cathedrals       

       Christianity spread among the ruins of Roman Empire, even if it did not cause it to collapse. To be a Christian before Emperor Constantine’s proclamation of religious tolerance, one had to endure persecution. Under the emperors Nero, Trajan, Domitian, and Diocletian, Christians were slain for their beliefs. The Romans saw them as mad cult members and barbaric subversives who refuse to acknowledge the emperor as a god, or any Roman gods for that matter.

Early Christian art can be divided into two phases:

•       THE PERIOD OF PERSECUTION:

       During this period, Christians worship in secret, using private homes as well as chapels in catacombs.

•       THE PERIOD OF RECOGNITION:

       After Constantine’s edict, persecution of Christianity was officially forbidden and its followers were no longer forced to worship in secret. They poured their energy into constructing houses of worship, many of which erected on the land on top of the catacombs. In terms of design, it is not surprising that Christians turned to what they already knew – Roman architecture.

Through the passage of time, Christian art continue to flourish as of now. Even in the age of modernization, Christian art is still being used in architecture and art. It just show how amazing and innovative the Later Romans and Early Christians in producing their art and making it improved. 

Classical Art

Classical art

    The art of the ancient Greeks and Romans is called classical art. This name is used also to describe later periods in which artists looked for their inspiration to this ancient style. The Romans learned sculpture and painting largely from the Greeks and helped to transmit Greek art to later ages. Classical art owes its lasting influence to its simplicity and reasonableness, its humanity, and its sheer beauty.

Greece

    In the early 5th century Greek artists began consciously to attempt to render human and animal forms realistically. This entailed careful observation of the model as well as understanding the mechanics of anatomy - how a body adjusts to a pose which is not stiffly frontal but with the weight shifted to one side of the body, and how a body behaves in violent motion.

Architecture in ancient Greece:

    Greek life was dominated by religion and so it is not surprising that the temples of ancient Greece were the biggest and most beautiful.They also had a political purpose as they were often built to celebrate civic power and pride, or offer thanksgiving to the patron deity of a city for success in war.

Rome

    For several centuries Ancient Rome was the most powerful nation on earth, excelling all others at military organization and warfare, engineering, and architecture. Its unique cultural achievements include the invention of the dome and the groin vault, the development of concrete and a European-wide network of roads and bridges. Despite this, Roman sculptors and painters produced only a limited amount of outstanding original fine art, preferring instead to recycle designs from Greek art, which they revered as far superior to their own. Indeed, many types of art practised by the Romans - including,sculpture (bronze and marble statuary, sarcophagi), fine art painting(murals, portraiture, vase-painting), and decorative art (including mosaics, metalwork, jewellery, ivory carving) had already been fully mastered by Ancient Greek artists.

    Not surprisingly, therefore, while numerous Greek sculptors and painters were accorded great respect throughout the Hellenistic world, most Roman artists were regarded as no more than skilled tradesmen and have remained anonymous.

    Of course it is wrong to say that Roman art was devoid of innovation: its urban architecture was ground-breaking, as was its landscape painting and portrait busts. Nor is it true that Roman artists produced no great masterpieces - witness the extraordinary relief sculpture on monuments likeAra Pacis Augustae and Trajan's Column. But on the whole, we can say that Roman art was predominantly derivative and, above all, utilitarian. It served a purpose, a higher good: the dissemination of Roman values along with a respect for Roman power. As it transpired, classical Roman art has been immensely influential on many subsequent cultures, through revivalist movements like Neoclassical architecture, which have shaped much European and American architecture, as exemplified by the US Capitol Building.

Ancient Art

Ancient art refers to the many types of art produced by the advanced cultures of ancient societies with some form of writing, such as those of ancient China, India, Mesopotamia, Persia, Israel, Egypt, Greece and Rome.

Prehistoric art

Prehistoric culture                                                        

The longest phase of Stone Age culture - known as the Paleolithic period - is a hunter-gatherer culture which is usually divided into three parts: Lower;middle; Upper Paleolithic.

Ancients near the east

SUMER

Sumerians inhabited mostly southern Mesopotamia from about 4000 BCE to about 2000 BCE. This area was prone to violent weather conditions, such as unexpected flooding. These chaotic conditions resulted in the Sumerians becoming a highly religious society. Religion provided a sense of order and reason behind the disorder. Much of the art created by the Sumerians is religious themed. Materials used included shell, lapis lazuli, limestone and gold.

AKKAD

When the Akkadians, from northern Iraq, conquered southern Iraq about 2400 BC, they unified all of Iraq - Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers - into one empire for the first time. In some ways, Akkadian art was the same as the Sumerian art that went before it. Carvings still usually had rounded shapes, recalling early clay sculptures.

BABYLON

The conquest of Sumer and Akkad by Babylon marks a turning point in the artistic as well as political history of the region.

The Babylonians took advantage of the abundance of clay in Mesopotamia to create bricks. The use of brick led to the early development of the pilaster and column, as well as of frescoes and enameled tiles. The walls were brilliantly coloured, and sometimes plated with bronze or gold as well as with tiles. Painted terra-cotta cones were also embedded in the plaster.

ASSYRIA

Like all other kingdoms, the Babylonian kingdom did not last forever. When Babylon fell into decline it was eventually conquered by Assyria, one of its former colonies, Assyria inherited its arts as well as its empire.

PERSIA

Iran succeeded to the Hittite Empire and initially took much of its artistic styles from them. Huge palaces in rural settings, often worked on by craftsmen drawn from other nations, subject or not, were distinctive features. After the Empire was decisively overthrown by Alexander the Great a new Sassanian culture emerged, notable for palaces and metalwork. The capitals Susa, Persepolis, Ecbatana and Estakhr have revealed much rich Persian art.

Egyptian Art

Ancient Egyptian consists of paintings, sculptures, architecture and other arts produced by the civilization of Ancient Egypt in the lower Nile Valley from about 3000 BC to 100 AD. Ancient Egyptian art reached a high level in painting and sculpture, and was both highly stylized and symbolic. Much of the surviving art comes from tombs and monuments and thus there is an emphasis on life after death and the preservation of knowledge of the past.

Aegean Art

Aegean art refers to art that was created in the Grecian lands surrounding, and the islands within, the Aegean Sea. Included in the category Aegean art is Mycenaean art, famous for its gold masks, war faring imagery and sturdy architecture consisting of citadels on hills with walls up to 20 feet thick and tunnels into the bedrock, the art of the Cyclades, famous for its simple "Venus" figurines carved in white marble, and Minoan art which is famous for its animal imagery, images of harvest, and light, breezy, non-warlike architecture which is almost the antithesis of the Mycenaean art. Taking all this into account, the term "Aegean Art" is thought of as contrived among many art historians because it includes the widely varying art of very different cultures that happened to be in the same area around the same period.

Cyclades

Cycladic art encompasses the visual art of the ancient Cycladic civilization, which flourished in the islands of the Aegean Sea from3300 - 2000 BCE. Along with the Minoans and Mycenaeans, the Cycladic people are counted among the three major Aegean cultures. Cycladic art therefore comprises one of the three main branches of Aegean art.

Crete

The civilization that developed on the island of Crete was one of the most remarkable in the ancient world, rich in painting, sculpture, and elaborate architecture. It also brought us names like King Minos (Crete’s culture is known as Minoan, after the king) and creatures like the Minotaur.

Minoan Art

The greatest collection of Minoan art is in the museum at Heraklion, near Knossos on the north shore of Crete. Minoan art, with other remains of material culture, especially the sequence of ceramic styles, has been used by archaeologists to define the three phases of Minoan culture (EM, MM, LM) discussed above.

Mycenae

Mycenae was a prehistoric city in the Peloponnese region of Ancient Greece. The term "Mycenaean" or "Mycenean" culture is used to describe one of the strands of Aegean Art that emerged in the eastern Mediterranean area. It is also used sometimes to describe early mainland Greek art as a whole, during the late Bronze Age (c.1650-1200 BCE). The actual start of the Mycenean era is marked by the shaft graves of Grave Circles A and B (1650-1500 BCE), containing luxurious relics of Mycenean nobles, which were discovered by Heinrich Schliemann in 1876.

Jerusalem

During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times. The oldest part of the city was settled in the 4th millennium BCE, making Jerusalem one of the oldest cities in the world.