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This course examines the art and architecture of
the Byzantine Empire from its beginnings in the sixth
century until its end in 1453. The story of Byzantium begins
with emperor Justinian's attempt to revive the glory of
ancient Rome in Constantinople. This was short-lived,
as ethnic and political upheavals in the following centuries
set the eastern empire on a path of decline
into the status of a medieval principality. Austere saints
in dim candlelit interiors replaced the festive images of
salvation that had adorned the walls of Justinian's
dazzling bright churches. Despite this inclination toward
mysticism, links with Antiquity were not severed, and
a profoundly classical humanism came to permeate even
the strictest and most transcendental of Byzantine mosaics,
ivory plaques, illuminated manuscripts, or icons.
It is no accident, therefore, that even under the Paleologue
dynasty, there should have been a true classical revival
which anticipated the Italian Renaissance.
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