Characteristics

Artistic & Social Features
o Frontality
o Abstraction (grouping, balance)
o Art as status object
o Mix of imperial/religious imagery

Imperial Art

Official Portraiture

Architecture
o Arches & Columns
o Rome: Basilica of Constantine, c. 310/20
o Trier: Basilica, c. 310
 Porta Nigra, 4th c.
o Constantinople: Hagia Sophia, 532-37

Aristocratic Art

Ivory Diptychs
o 2 panels attached at one edge
o Celebrate consulship, marriage etc.

Mosaic Themes
o Hunting scenes
o Circus games, scenes from life
o Allegorical figures (Rome, seasons, muses)

Imperial (?) Villa at Piazza Armerina, Sicily

Decorative Arts
o Coptic textiles (preserved in Egypt)
o Metalwork (esp. precious metal)

Illuminated Manuscripts
o Vatican Vergil (early 5th c.)
o Vergilius Romanus (late 5th c.)
o Vienna Genesis (5th/6th c.)

Art & Christianity

o Catacomb paintings
o Mosaics in churches
o Sarcophagi

Iconography:
(1) set of conventional symbols/ attributes that allow identification of persons or scenes in art;
(2) study of such conventional symbols/attributes and their history.

o Cross as central symbol
o Fish (gr. ichthus)

Iesous CHristos THeou Uios Soter
Jesus Christ, son of God, savior

Development of Christ-image
o Mausoleum of Julii, Rome (3d c.)
o Junius Bassus sarcophagus (4th c.)
o S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna (6th c.)