Ejemplo de normalización

Byzantine history spans the period from the late Roman Empire to the beginning of the modern age. Constan-tine the Great, fi rst Christian ruler of the Roman Empire, moved his capital to Byzantion in 330, renaming the city Constantinople. The state he ruled was Byzant, but the citizens called themselves Rhomaioi (Romans). The Byz-antine Empire was heir to the Roman Empire. With the passage of time Byzantine civilization became distinct, as Greek infl uence increased and it dealt with the cultural impacts of Europe, Asia, and, after the seventh century, Islam. During the Middle Ages, when the concept of Eu-56 Byzantine Empire: architecture, culture, and the arts

rope developed, Byzantium was in decline and isolated from the West. Thus Europe came into being without Byzantium, the successor to the Roman Empire. By the time Europe was a full-blown concept, Byzantium was no longer a remnant of the Roman Empire, and Con-stantinople was part of the Ottoman Empire.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Constantine established Constantinople as Rome’s capital, so the fall of Rome to the Goths did not end the empire, it merely relocated its center. Byzantine cul-ture was a continuation of classical Greece and Rome but was distinctive in the way that it synthesized those infl uences with European and Islamic ones. The early Byzantine period saw the replacement of the ancient gods by Christianity and the establishment of Roman law and Greek and Roman culture. The golden age last-ed until the Arab and Persian invasions in the seventh century and the iconoclasm of the eighth century. The Byzantine emperors instituted administrative and fi nan-cial reforms. Eschewing the western approach of hiring foreign troops and lacking the tax base of the West, the emperors in Constantinople kept a small military.

Although the western area lacked an emperor after 476, Byzantine emperors claimed to be rulers of the entire old Roman Empire, even though Byzantium’s military was insuffi cient for the reconquest of the West.

For most Byzantine emperors the rhetorical com-mitment to recapturing Rome was suffi cient. Justinian I (527–565) undertook expeditions with some success, taking North Africa and Italy, but Justinian’s wars against the Ostrogoths destroyed Italy economically, devastating its urban culture. His wars were also a great burden on the treasury. Justinian’s successors had to focus on reestablishing Byzantine fi nances destroyed by Justinian. They also had to deal with Persians in the east and Germans, Slavs, and Mongolians in the west.

Heraclius I (610–641) settled Huns in the Balkans to thwart the western threat. Then he bested the Persians, ending that empire. The year of Heraclius’s ascent to the throne, in Arabia Muhammad fi rst heard the mes-sage that would send the forces of Islam across the world.

By the end of Heraclius’s reign, the Muslim threat in Syria and Persia would force Byzantine attention away from the west and toward the east and south.

After initial Muslim successes in Syria and Egypt the Muslims took Persia and pressed into Byzantium several times in the seventh and eighth centuries. Leo the Isau-rian (717–741) defeated the fi nal Muslim effort to take Byzantium, and the empire stabilized. Taking advantage of unsettled conditions in the Muslim Caliphate the

empire retook most of Syria and reestablished itself as dominant until the 11th century.

After besting the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1071, the Seljuk Turks controlled Byzantium’s eastern terri-tory. Byzantium called on its coreligionists in Europe for help against the Turks, sparking the Crusades, which produced European kingdoms in Syria and Palestine and the taking of Constantinople in 1204. Byzantium continued in Greece and retook Constantinople in 1261, but the reestablished kingdom was a small city-centered entity, and Ottoman Turks absorbed it in 1453, renam-ing it Istanbul.

The empire was Christian but its Christianity dif-fered from that of the West. The Latin popes won pri-macy in a Europe with no centralized secular ruler, but in Byzantium the emperor kept a powerful role in the church. The Byzantine retention of the Roman concept that the emperor was nearly divine would generate a split with the West, particularly through the Iconoclas-tic Controversy.

THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY

During the fourth century in the Roman Empire, classi-cal forms declined and eastern infl uences became more important. Constantinople became a new center for art-ists in the eastern part of the empire, especially Chris-tians. Other centers included Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome. When the fi rst two fell to the Arabs and Rome to the Goths, Constantinople was alone and supreme.

The fi rst great age came during the reign of Justinian I (483–565). He established a code of law that imposed his religion on his subjects and set the stage for absolut-ism. He built the Hagia Sophia and the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople and the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna (in Italy). After Justinian the empire declined, with Justinian’s conquests lost and Avars, Slavs, and Arabs threatening. Religious and political confl ict also disturbed the capital.

In 730 Leo III the Isaurian came into contact with Islamic beliefs during his successful wars against the Muslims. Accepting the purity of the Muslim rejection of idols and images, he banned images of Jesus, Mary, and the saints. The Iconoclastic period lasted until 843.

Iconoclastic theologians regarded the worship of icons or images as pagan. Worship was reserved for Christ and God, not for the product of human hands, during the Iconoclastic Controversy.

The Iconoclastic Controversy disoriented the Byzan-tine Church. ByzanByzan-tine religious culture and intellectual life, previously known for innovation and speculation, were stagnant from that point. A wholesale destruction Byzantine Empire: architecture, culture, and the arts 57

of art showing inappropriate fi gures occurred. Restric-tions on content meant that ornamental designs and symbols such as the cross were about the limit of expres-sion. Without human fi gures, mosaicists borrowed Per-sian and Arab designs, such as fl orals, and the minor arts remained vibrant.

The papacy adamantly rejected iconoclasm as a threat to the authority of the pope. Leo’s son Constan-tine V (740–775) was more adamantly iconoclastic than Leo. Although Byzantium abandoned iconoclasm in the ninth century, the breach persisted. The end of iconoclasm brought about the Macedonian Renaissance, beginning under Basil I, the Macedonian, in 867. The ninth and 10th centuries were times of improved military circumstances, and art and architecture rebounded. Byzantine mosaic style became standardized, with revived interest in clas-sical themes and more sophisticated techniques in human fi gures.

After the Iconoclastic Controversy resolved itself in favor of using icons, the empire fl ourished from 843 to 1261. During this period the arts prospered, the offi cial language was Greek, and Christianity solidifi ed its hold from the capital through the northern Slavic lands.

Afer the Macedonians came the Komnenian dynasty, starting in 1081 under Alexios I Komnenos. This dynas-ty reestablished stabilidynas-ty after the major dislocations of Manzikert, which cost Byzantium Asia Minor. Between 1081 and 1185 the Komnenoi patronized the arts, and a period of increased humanism and emotion occurred.

Examples are the Theotokos of Vladimir and the Murals

at Nerezi. As well as painted icons, this period saw mosaic and ceramic examples, and for the fi rst time the iconic form became popular through the empire.

Excellent Byzantine work of this period is also found in Kiev, Venice, Palermo, and other places outside the empire. Venice’s Basilica of St. Mark, begun in 1063, was modeled on the now destroyed Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. The Crusades, specifi cally the massacre of Constantinople in 1204, ended eight centuries of Byzantine culture. The Frankish crusaders of the Fourth Crusade pillaged Constantinople, generat-ing even more destruction of Byzantine art than did the iconoclastic period.

PALAEOLOGAN MANNERISM

The state reestablished in 1261 included only the Greek Peninsula and Aegean Islands. After the crusader period (1204–61), Byzantium had a fi nal surge until the Otto-man conquest. The fi nal bloom of Byzantine art, the Pal-aeologan Mannerism, occurred under the PalPal-aeologan dynasty, founded by Michael VIII Palaeologus in 1259.

This era saw increased exchange between Byzantine and Italian artists, new interest in pastorals and landscapes, and the replacement of masterful mosaic work such as the Chora Church in Constantinope by narrative fres-coes. Byzantine culture included women and men alike, unlike practices in classical Greece and Rome or in medi-eval Europe. Women could not attend school, but aris-tocratic females received tutoring in history, literature, philosophy, and composition. The greatest Byzantine writer was the female historian Anna Komnene, whose biography of her father, Emperor Alexios, is among the best of medieval histories.

Byzantine art was underpinned by the art of ancient Greece, and until at least 1453 it remained strong-ly classical yet unique. One difference was that the ancient Greek humanistic ethic gave way to the Chris-tian ethic. That meant that the classical glorifi cation of man became the glorifi cation of God, particularly Jesus. Byzantine art replaced the classical nude with fi gures of God the Father, Jesus (Christ) of Nazareth, the Virgin Mary, and the saints and martyrs. Byzantine art emphasized strongly the icon, an image of Christ, Mary, a saint, or Madonna and Child used as an object of veneration either in church or at home.

Byzantine miniatures showed both Hellenistic and Asian infl uences. Byzantine architecture rested on Roman technical developments. Proximity to the Hel-lenized East meant that Constantinople’s architecture showed Eastern infl uences. The Basilica of St. John of the Studion, dating from the fi fth century, exemplifi es 58 Byzantine Empire: architecture, culture, and the arts

Justinian I built the Hagia Sophia in sixth century. The minarets were added later by the Ottomans.

the Byzantine use of Roman models. Some criticize Byz-antine art as lacking in realistic depictions of humans.

Byzantine art lacked some of the naturalism of ancient Greek art. Particularly in sculpture, technical expertise declined as emphasis shifted to Christian themes. How-ever, Byzantine art had periodic technical revivals, and it maintained enough of the Greek classical infl uence to allow the Renaissance to happen. Rejecting sensual plea-sure, pagan idols, and personal vanity, Byzantine artists worked to serve Christianity by showing not the external perfect human form but the internal, spiritual element of the subject. Stylized and simplifi ed representations were appropriate to this purpose.

New techniques and new levels of accomplishment characterized Byzantine silver- and goldsmithing, enam-el, jewelry, and textiles. Byzantine mosaics and icons showed high levels of originality. Architecture found its highest expression in the Hagia Sophia, superior in scale and magnifi cence to anything in the ancient world.

Although skill levels fl uctuated over time, in most Byz-antine art forms certain usages, patterns, and practices remained constant. Mosaics served as the predominant decorative art for domes, half-domes, and other avail-able surfaces of Byzantine churches.

Byzantine painting concentrated to a great extent on devotional panels. Icons were vital to both religious and secular life. Icons lacked individuality, their effec-tiveness resting on faithfulness to a prototype. Byzantine painting also included manuscript illumination. Byzan-tine art continues in some aspects in the art of Greece, Russia, and the modern Eastern Orthodox countries.

Enamel, ivory, and metal reliquaries and devotional panels were highly valued through the Middle Ages in the West. Byzantine silk was a state monopoly and a highly prized luxury.

In Italy Byzantine art was a major contributor to the Romanesque style in the 10th and 11th centuries.

In the Holy Roman Empire, Charlemagne had close ties to Byzantium; he and other Frankish and Salic emperors transmitted the Byzantine infl uence through their domains.

The offi cial end to Byzantium came with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, but in the meantime the culture had diffused with Orthodox Christianity to Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and, most signifi cantly, Russia, which took the mantle from Con-stantinople after 1453. The Ottomans allowed Byzan-tine icon painting and small-scale arts to continue. Byz-antium transmitted classical culture to Islam and to the West. More important, Byzantine culture and religion strongly infl uenced the Slavs, particularly the Russians.

Around 988 the Russian Vladimir converted to Byz-antine Christianity. When Byzantium collapsed in 1453, Russia’s rulers took the title “caesar” (czar), that of the Byzantine emperors. The Russian czar proclaimed Mos-cow the “Third Rome,” after Rome and Byzantium.

The Byzantines also preserved culture, pursuing sci-ence, philosophy, and classical studies. Byzantine basic education entailed mastery of classical Greek literature, including the works of Homer, largely unknown in the West. Byzantine scholars studied and preserved the works of Plato and Aristotle, making them available to fi rst the Islamic world and then western Europe.

See also Byzantine Empire: political history.

Further reading: Cormack, Robin. Byzantine Art. Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2000; Evans, James Allan. The Em-peror Justinian and the Byzantine Empire. Westport, CT:

Greenwood Press, 2005; Geankoplos, Deno. The Infl uences of Byzantine Culture on the Medieval Western World. New York: Harper Torch Books, 1966; Rodley, Lyn. Byzantine Art Byzantine Empire: architecture, culture, and the arts 59

The interior of the Hagia Sophia (now a museum in Istanbul), considered more magnifi cent than anything in the ancient world.

and Architecture: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

John H. Barnhill