Simple medieval illuminations12/30/2023 The generic faces of figures inhabiting many mosaic programs made it easy to erase images of your rivals. After Arianism fell quite seriously out of favor, later leaders removed images of Theodoric and his court by altering the mosaic to show sets of curtains where each figure had been. The Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great (454-526 CE), who commissioned some of the mosaics, practiced a form of Christianity called Arianism. In the church of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna presents a good example. In fact, they were occasionally adapted by removing some of the tesserae and re-setting them in different designs to accommodate changing tastes and political regimes. The surviving medieval mosaics we see today don’t necessarily appear the way they did in the Middle Ages. Photo by Leon petrosyan via Wikimedia Commons. Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy, c. Large, boldly-gesturing figures, like those of modern-day comic strip characters, are easily legible to viewers in the church far below.Īlthough some medieval mosaics can appear flat and static, fine examples, such as those at the Greek monasteries of Daphni and Hosios Loukas or at Monreale Cathedral in Sicily, achieve grace and harmony in their monumental simplicity. These scenes could take place anywhere and at any time. Backgrounds tend towards solid gold fields or non-specific landscapes. Human figures and faces appear rather generalized, sometimes to the point that mosaic name labels must be included to identify them. Their simplified, decorative forms tell stories through line and color, rather than volume and shading. This pared-down style attracts a lot of people to medieval art today. Photo by Tango7174 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).Įventually, medieval art shifted in style, becoming less naturalistic than its classical precedents. Mosaics in the apse of Monreale Cathedral, Sicily, Italy, began in 1174 CE. Elsewhere might appear representations of saints, especially the saint to whom a church is dedicated, angels, and biblical stories. The most important – usually those located in and near the apse, as well as on domed ceilings – feature monumental images such as Christ Pantocrator, the Virgin and Child, the Lamb of God (a symbolic representation of Christ as a lamb with a cross), and crosses. Unsurprisingly, religious themes dominate the subject matter of medieval mosaics in the Christian world. By contrast, the art form never really caught on in Western European nations like France and England. This tradition took hold particularly strongly in the Byzantine Empire, especially in Turkey and Greece, and in Byzantine-influenced Italy. Mosaics flourished as Christianity grew and prospered starting in the 5th century CE when they replaced murals as church decoration. Photo by Petar Milošević via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Lamb of God mosaic, Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy, 526/7-547 CE.
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