Why was there such a marked difference in style/quality between Roman art (sculpture, painting, mosaics, etc.) and later Eastern Roman (Byzantine) art?
The change is very obvious: Roman art is naturalistic and requires a great deal of technical proficiency, whereas Byzantine art devolves into stylistic child-like drawings, and sculpture never makes a comeback in the Empire. I've heard the arguments that the rise of Christianity is what destroyed the Classical sculpting tradition, but what explains the devolution of painting and mosaic-art? Even the few sculptures (mostly carvings) we have from the Byzantine Empire are quite crude when compared to Roman carvings. Was the technology/technical expertise lost?
No clue, but the exact same thing happened in the West as well. Medieval art generally looks like a retard drew it.
>>1008107
The trend had begun during the Roman Empire:
>The figures are stout and blocky, far from the verisimilitude or the idealism of earlier Greco-Roman art. The figures are stiff and rigid, the attire being patterned and stylized. Their faces are repetitive and they seem to stare in a kind of trance. Comparing them to the slightly later reliefs on the Arch of Constantine in Rome, Ernst Kitzinger finds the same "stubby proportions, angular movements, an ordering of parts through symmetry and repetition and a rendering of features and drapery folds through incisions rather than modelling". Noting other examples, he continues "The hallmark of the style wherever it appears consists of an emphatic hardness, heaviness and angularity — in short, an almost complete rejection of the classical tradition".[3]
>The question of how to account for what may seem a decline in both style and execution in Late Antique art has generated a vast amount of discussion. Factors introduced into the discussion include: a breakdown of the transmission in artistic skills due to the political and economic disruption of the Crisis of the Third Century,[4] influence from Eastern and other pre-classical regional styles from around the Empire (a view promoted by Josef Strzygowski (1862–1941), and now mostly discounted),[5] the emergence into high-status public art of a simpler "popular" or "Italic" style that had been used by the less wealthy throughout the reign of Greek models, an active ideological turning against what classical styles had come to represent, and a deliberate preference for seeing the world simply and exploiting the expressive possibilities that a simpler style gave.[6] One factor that cannot be responsible, as the date and origin of the Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs show, is the rise of Christianity to official support, as the changes predated that.[7] This shift in artistic style points towards the style of the Middle Ages.[8]
>>1008107
It really is bad. My friend is a proffessional artist and he said something to the effect "Roman art is inspiring. Dark Age art is worst than Jim Davis."
I think part of it might have been Christianity. At this time period the accepted theology emphasized man's weakness, frailty, and failures. Everyone was born with original sin, people were told pain and suffering is everyone and it's because of man's evil (ie you became sick because God is punishing you, everything bad that ever happened is because of man). This demoralizes artists and makes them shun greatness.
>>1008173
This is an asspull theory. Baroque is arguably the most beautiful western art and the baroque period was full of piety and religious zeal.
>>1008249
Not him, but the rise of Christianity did contribute to the decline of Classical sculpture, mostly because the early Christians were aniconic/iconclasts, and because they associated sculpture and high art with pagan traditions and 'muh degeneracy'.
Remember, the Church up until the early Medieval period held that 'simplicity' was good, and this only began to change with the rise of the city-states outside of feudal culture, with their complex array of technical profession and literati. In other words, the Christian religion purposefully moved towards 'simplicity' during the late Roman period and only began to rid itself of this 'simplicity' in the middle-to-late Middle Ages with the rise of the merchant classes and decline of the feudal system, in which this new class of affluent merchants and city-dwellers preferred 'complexity/proficiency'. This is very general, of course.
I remember reading an analysis of this concerning the Decameron of the 13th century: how Boccaccio praises the "new" virtues such as wittiness, intelligence, literacy, refinement, and open-mindedness that arise with the rise of the Italian city-states and merchant republics while making fun of the "old" virtues of the ignorant peasants which the Church had traditionally held as better (ex: humility, silence, deference, etc.).
The skills died out, grand masters and their students were killed when cities were sacked by barbarians, artists no longer had 10000s of nobles across the mediterranean willing to pay for their services, mohammedan and iconoclast zealots persecuted art, the few remaining artists had a poor education and were second rate.
>>1008107
There's something quite beautiful about the abstract, simple, flat figures of Byzantine and Romanesque
It communicates something to me: the vast gulf of time that separates me from the people who made, and also a certain religious sensation of the majesty of God. It's hewed from stone, it's contorted by the medium. It somehow expresses age and solidity to me. It is humble in a way that befits art for the worship of Christ. Byzantine mosaic work in particular goes beyond mere realism into something more; the hues of the material shines through with the suffused warm light of imperial and divine majesty.
Also, never, ever let me catch you hating on Germanic and Byzantine early medieval patterns and decoration. The carvings on Viking longships, the filigree work on Germanic personal artifacts, the tile and fabric decoration of Byzantine architecture and textiles, is GOD TIER.
Byzantine art style had roman style frescoes, mosaics and tile art from late antiquity , they just didn't built statues because they thought it was evocative of pagan times and was related with idolatry.
Hell, even the veneration of icons became extremely controversial at some point and even started a series of civil wars. So religious art stagnated in creativity due to fear of depicting religious figures in a too naturalistic way and not in a detached divinely inspired form. All orthodox depictions of saintly figures follow the same style because of that fear. Something western catholic Europe never struggled with, leading to renaissance painting.
>>1008107
>but what explains the devolution of painting and mosaic-art?
Iconoclasm. Seriously.
During the early Byzantine era, secular art declined with people being more interested in art representing saints or Jesus. The fact that we have so few pieces of secular art from 6th-9th century is a testament to an enormous decline of demand for such art.
The sacred art which supplanted secular art. was still largely realistic and carried on traditions from antiquity. Pic related. A rare surviving 6th century icon depicting St. Peter. It's realistic that it could be as well a portrait of an actual person.
And then came Iconoclasm. Lots of art was destroyed, but what's more important, the creation of new religious art became a clandestine, risky business. Since the iconoclasm lasted several decades, it's safe to assume that that's when the transmission of skills was severed. When it was again safe to produce art, there's no one around who created art before the ban on religious images. The iconodule (icon-supporters) camp wasn't very helpful either. When under attack, they assumed an extremely dogmatic and uncompromising stance. They no longer liked realistic images, but images that were uncompromising, otherworldly, full of symbolism.
>>1008173
>dark age
Your friend is fucking retarded
>>1008558
Correlation =/= Causation.
>>1008610
This pretty much, starving artists started to literally starve.
The plague and the massive blow to the economy it brought probably didn't help either.
>>1008107
>byzantine art
>worse than roman art
fucking kek
>>1008107
Romans had more time for the arts
>>1009270
>Correlation =/= Causation.
Good thing he explained the causation then you idiot.
>>1009803
I'm a Byzaboo, but you'd have to be an idiot to think the classical sculpture and art of the Roman Imperial period wasn't superior to art in the medieval Eastern Roman Empire
>>1008107
Perfection in art wasn't something Christians of that era desired.
In their eyes only God could create perfection.
So it follows that man and all he creates will always be imperfect.
>>1008160
excellent post. have a (you).
