Early Christian Art CH. 10

• Any analysis of Early Christian art must begin with an appreciation for the Ancient Roman and Jewish precedents that greatly influence the Religion's nascent representational forms.

The Synagogue

• The Jewish synagogue, located by the western wall between towers 18 and 19, the last phase of which was dated by an Aramaic inscription to 244. It is the best preserved of the many ancient synagogues of that era that have been uncovered by archaeologists. It was preserved, ironically, when it had to be infilled with earth to strengthen the city's fortifications against a Sassanian assault in 256. It was uncovered in 1932 by Clark Hopkins, who found that it contains a forecourt and house of assembly with frescoed walls depicting people and animals, and a Torah shrine in the western wall facing Jerusalem. At first, it was mistaken for a Greek temple. The synagogue paintings, the earliest continuous surviving biblical narrative cycle,[7] are conserved at Damascus, together with the complete Roman horse-armor.

Early Christian House Church

• There was also the identified the Dura-Europos church, the earliest Christian house church, located by the 17th tower and preserved by the same defensive fill that saved the synagogue. "Their evidently open and tolerated presence in the middle of a major Roman garrison town reveals that the history of the early Church was not simply a story of pagan persecution".[8] The building consists of a house conjoined to a separate hall-like room, which functioned as the meeting room for the church. The surviving frescoes of the baptistry room are probably the most ancient Christian paintings. We can see the "Good Shepherd" (this iconography had a very long history in the Classical world), the "Healing of the paralytic" and "Christ and Peter walking on the water". These earliest depictions of Jesus Christ ever found anywhere date back to 235 A.D.

Synagogue at Dura-Europos, Syria, with wall paintings of Old Testament Scenes, ca. 245-246, Tempera on Plaster

Old St. Peter’s

o Architectural styleAncient Roman

architectureo Groundbreaking 326-

333o Completed c. 360

N.B. Roman Precedent

St. Paul Outside the Walls, Rome, begun A.D. 385

• St. Paul Outside the Walls, Rome, begun A.D. 385

• In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar in the sanctuary at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Note the Chancel Arch…

Typology

• Typology (Greek tupos, a.k.a. figura in Latin) in Christian theology and Biblical exegesis is a doctrine or theory concerning the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Events in the Old Testament (a term linked with Supersessionism, see Hebrew Bible) are seen as pre-figuring events or aspects of Christ in the New Testament, and, in the fullest version of the theory, that is seen as the purpose behind the Old Testament events occurring. The theory began in the Early Church, was at its most influential in the High Middle Ages, and continued to be popular, especially in Calvinism, after the Protestant Reformation, but in subsequent periods has been given less emphasis.[1]

• “…the New Testament is hidden in the Old; the Old is clarified by the New… (St. Augustine)”

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o Early Christian Sarcophagus, Santa Maria Antiqua

o 4th Centuryo Marbleo Early Christian-

Roman

• Sarcophagus Of Junius Bassus

• 359• Marble 3’ 10 ½” x 8’• Early Christian-

Roman

• Christ seated, from Civita Latina, Italy, ca. 350-375

• 2’4’’

• Marble

• Early Christian-Roman

In the Middle East

• Not all of the Christian world was in Constantinople and Rome..

Wisdom facing North

The Pride of Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/449698/pendentive

A pendentive is a constructive device permitting the placing of a circular dome over a square room or an elliptical dome over a rectangular room. [1] The pendentives, which are triangular segments of a sphere, taper to points at the bottom and spread at the top to establish the continuous circular or elliptical base needed for the dome.[2] In masonry the pendentives thus receive the weight of the dome, concentrating it at the four corners where it can be received by the piers beneath.

In Byzantine art, and later Eastern Orthodox art generally, the Deësis or Deisis (Greek: δέησις, "prayer" or "supplication"), is a traditional iconic representation of Christ in Majesty or Christ Pantocrator: enthroned, carrying a book, and flanked by the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist, and sometimes other saints and angels. Mary and John, and any other figures, are shown facing towards Christ with their hands raised in supplication on behalf of humanity.

The Rise of Islam

o Muhammad lives from 570 – 632

o Islam is one of the three Abrahamic Religions

o After his death, only on Arab peninsula.

o Within a hundred years, stretches into Europe and Asia.

Dome of the Rock

• squinch 1  (skwnch)n.A structure, such as a section of vaulting or corbeling, set diagonally across the interior angle between two walls to provide a transition from a square to a polygonal or more nearly circular base on which to construct a dome.

• Muslims take Jerusalem in 638

• Shortly thereafter, on the site of Adam’s burial, Abraham’s preparation for Isaac’s Sacrifice, and the Roman destruction of the Temple of Solomon 70 A.D…..a lasting monument to the next revelation occurs.

Begun 785-86

The first Muslim Ruler of Spain Abd-al-Rahman I escaped the Abbasid massacre of his Ummayad clansmen and est. a dynasty in Muslim Spain….since 711

The double arches elevated the interior ceiling to an acceptable height, otherwise unachievable with the repurposed columns in the hypostyle.

In architecture, a hypostyle hall has a roof which is supported by columns, as in the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. The word hypostyle comes from the Ancient Greek hypóstȳlos meaning "under columns" (where hypó means below or underneath and stŷlos means column).[1] The roof may be constructed of with bridging lintels of stone, wood or other rigid material such as cast iron, steel or reinforced concrete. There may be a ceiling. The columns may be all the same height or, as in the case of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak, the columns flanking the central space may be of greater height than those of the side aisles, allowing openings in the wall above the smaller columns, through which light is admitted over the aisle roof, through clerestory windows.

The Mihrab at Cordoba ca.961

o “…This original meaning of mihrab - i.e. as a special room in the house - continues to be preserved in some forms of Judaism where mihrabs are rooms used for private worship. In the Qur'an (xix.12), the word mihrab refers to a sanctuary/place of worship.”

Cathedral added in thirteenth century.

Originally a wooden roof rested on the second set of arches (replaced by vaulting in 16th century.)