Early Christian art and architecture
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Early Christian art and architecture is the art produced by Christians or under Christian patronage from about the year 200 to about the year 500. Prior to 200 there is no surviving art that can be called Christian with certainty. After about 500 Christian art shows the beginnings of Byzantine artistic style.
Prior to 200 Christians may have been constrained by their position as a persecuted group from producing durable works of art. Since Christianity was largely a religion of lower classes in this period, the lack of surviving art may reflect a lack of funds for patronage. The Old Testament restrictions against the production of graven (an idol or fetish carved in wood or stone) images may also have constrained Christians from producing art. It is also possible that Christians purchased art using pagan iconography, but gave it Christian meanings. If this happened, "Christian" art would not be immediately recognizable as such.
Early Christians used the same artistic media as the surrounding pagan culture. These media included fresco, mosaics, sculpture, and manuscript illumination. Early Christian art not only used Roman forms, it also used Roman styles. Late classical style included a proportional portrayal of the human body and impressionistic presentation of space. Late classical style is seen in early Christian frescos, such as those in the catacombs of Rome.
Early Christians adapted Roman motifs and gave new meanings to what had been pagan symbols. Among the motifs adopted were the peacock, grapevines, and the good shepherd. Early Christians also developed their own iconography, for example such symbols as the fish (ikhthus), were not borrowed from pagan iconography.
After about the year 200 Christian art must be broken into two periods: before and after the Edict of Milan in 313.
Christian Art prior to 313
- Funerary art
- *Catacomb Frescos
- *Sarcophagi
- Cleveland Statuettes of Jonah and the Whale
- House Church - Dura-Europos
Christian architecture after 313
Main article: Christianising the basilica in Basilica
In the 4th century, Christians were prepared to build larger and more handsome edifices for worship than the furtive meeting places they had been using. Architectural formulas for temples were unsuitable, not simply for their pagan associations, but because pagan cult and sacrifices occurred outdoors under the open sky in the sight of the gods, with the temple, housing the cult figures and the treasury, as a backdrop. The usable model at hand, when Emperor Constantine I wanted to memorialize his imperial piety, was the familiar conventional architecture of the basilicas. These had a center nave with one aisle at each side and an apse at one end: on this raised platform sat the bishop and priests.
- Constantinian Basilicas:
- *St. John Lateran
- *St Mary Major
- *Old St. Peters
- *Church of the Holy Sepulchre
- *Church of the Nativity
- Centralized Plan Churches
- *Church of Santa Constanza, Rome
- See also: Early Christendom in Church architecture
Christian art after 313
- Manuscripts
- *Vienna Genesis
- *Rossano Gospels
- *Cotton Genesis
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