Byzantine Art and Architecture by
The Byzantine empire began with the transformation of the Roman empire initiated by the official acceptance of Christianity and the establishment of Constantinople as the capital city. It ended with the fall of that city to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The art and architecture of the empire reflects its changing fortunes, the development of Christianity, and the cultural influences that affected it. This book offers a systematic introduction to the material culture of the Byzantine empire, from the fourth to the fourteenth centuries. It provides for the student or any other interested reader a compendium of material which is generally difficult to access: much of the writing on Byzantine art and architecture is not in English, and is published as articles in scholarly journals. The book sets out the subject in an accessible manner, describing and discussing by period the surviving material - and that which can be reconstructed from documentary sources - and exploring its social/historical context. The text is copiously illustrated by well over 400 halftones, plans and maps.
Early Christian and Byzantine Art by
The appreciation of early Christian and Byzantine Art as a sublime expression of religious thought and feeling is a comparatively modern phenomenon. Byzantine art is both static and dynamic: static in the sense that once an image was established it was felt that no improvement was necessary; dynamic in the sense that there was never one style and these styles or modes were constantly changing. The story is not only complex in its unravelling but ranges widely over various media: mosaic, wall painting and painted panels, sculpture in marble and ivory, manuscript illumination, gold, silver, and precious stones, jewellery, silk and rich vestments. This is an account by a medieval art-historian.
Divine Love by
Divine Love: The Art of the Nativity explores the ways in which the birth of Christ, at the heart of the Christian mystery, has been depicted from the earliest times. The book is thematic rather than chronological. Here Sarah Drummond explores the legends and traditions that have played into the way artists have visualised the Nativity. She discovers how, and why, the images and the elements that are shown evolved have. We learn about the essential ingredients concerning the Nativity and about the layers of meaning that the images reveal; and how have artists found ways to express both the human and the Divine natures of the Christ Child?
Byzantine Art by
The magnificence of this cultures palaces, churches, paintings, enamels, ceramics, and mosaics are fully represented in the book, inviting the reader on a great journey through the ages. The extraordinary power of this tradition guaranteed its survival long after the dissolution of the empire that gave it life, and the art left behind by this civilisation never stops beckoning to us.