The Byzantine Age

          The era of Byzantine art has very stylistic representations of humans. Starting by looking at the mosaic made in c. 547 A.D., titled Emperor Justinian and his Attendants located in the Church of San Vitale, we see different pieces of the art that are stylized (Stokstad, 240). For one thing the bodies show little or no form, instead they are flat and straight with no depth, and although some form is shown through the draping of their robes, it is very little. Another aspect of the stylized art is the fact that the people in the scene remain two dimensional, their bodies outlined in black line, display a flat 2-D look, unlike a 3-D human naturally would look. There is barely a sense of individualism in this artwork, which I think also contributes to its stylized nature. Since mainly the attendants are all wearing the same thing, their military outfits and battle gear, and the men in the white robes appear the same, not to mention that every person disregarding the bishop has short brown hair, shows that they all have the same kind of appearance. Since there is a lack of individualism and almost all the men appear the same this proves that the piece of art is stylized and unrealistic. The only way that you can tell the emperor apart from the others is his clothing, shoes and halo.

                In the Byzantine art era, we can look at another piece of art similar to that which was discussed above. Painted on wood using beeswax and color pigments, the Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels is a similar representation of the stylized art during this time (Stokstad, 245). In this painting we see the human form depicted as flat and elongated, which are both very unnatural, and there are no naturalistic curves to the bodies. You can see in Madonna’s hands and one of the Saint’s faces, they are unnaturally long, especially the length of their bodies are unrealistic. As well as the San Vitale mosaic the Madonna and Saints are standing straight forward with no sense of body form. This feature contributes to the 2-D effect because the bodies are in no other position and the position of straight forward with no depth can seem very two dimensional. This is also seen in the black outlines and some shadows that are created in the faces and necks and although these shadows appear the bodies still appear flat and drab compared to say the features of a classical Greek human. The halos contribute to the stylized feature of the Byzantine age. The halos in any given situation wouldn’t truly be behind someone’s head; therefore they unrealistically are placed in this picture. Although I am aware of why the halos are present, serving as a spiritual purpose, I am just trying to add another example to the unrealism in this piece of art.

                The last example of stylized Byzantine art will be briefly discussed and is located at the Church of Dormition in Greece and it depicts Christ’s crucifixion (Stokstad, 250). Now although one might first write this off as realistic, as it very well seems, there are some aspects to it that are stylized. Firstly the Saints around him both have the qualities of the other pieces of art that have been discussed. For example their elongated bodies, no sense of form because of long robes and draping, etc. No Christ in this picture is different because he is only wearing a loin cloth, so we see his full body. Although his body shows some muscle, in comparison to the Greeks, it is miniscule. The basic lines are shown for the abs and arms, but nothing more. So I feel like in this era they simplified things as best they could without just drawing an outline for Christ’s figure. All of these mosaics and paintings that I have discussed are from the Byzantine age and show the stylized nature in which the created art.