Art and culture topic 6

Early christian

According to tradition, Jesus of Nazareth lived 33 years, the year of his supposed birth is
considered year 0; Jesus, according to the Christian tradition, is the son of God that came to
the Earth to save all the people from their sins. Jesus is attributed with a lot of miracles,
during his lifetime, including turning water into wine, walking over the water, healing sick
people and coming back from the death. Even his own birth is thought to be a miracle,
because he was born from a virgin.

Other important events of his life are the last supper that he had with his disciples, in which
he announced he was going to be betrayed; his crying in the garden of Gethsemane before
his execution, and the Crucifixion.
Jesus predicated a message based on love, comprehension and forgiveness, marking their
statements as a particular way of living, where people should love each other and forgive
their mistakes and debts.

The first part of the Bible is called the Old Testament; it is divided in different sections: the
Pentateuch, history books; the poetic books, and the books of the prophets. Among the
stories included, are the creation, in which God invented the world with the use of his word
(which establishes a parallel with the artist, as deities may be seen as omnipotent artists);
also how Adam and Eve, the first human beings, were created.

Another story is the one of Moses, who received the Ten Commandments; Abraham, that
was asked to sacrifice his own son in order to prove his commitment to God, when he was
about to kill him, an angel appears and stopped him. In addition, the story of Noah, who
built an ark, filled with his family and all the animals, to survive to a flood.

It is important to know the biblical context because it represents the base of one of the most
important religions nowadays: Christianity. In addition, lot of the things described there are a
constant influence in art. Biblical histories are interpreted and reinterpreted in books,
movies, paintings, sculptures, and architecture. Even contemporary works discuss this
religion, making it always a controversial issue.

Early christian art

The style in paintings was very similar to the Roman, but with ideas taken from Christianity.
There are symbols that Christians used to identify themselves and escape from the
persecutions of Romans. One of them is a fish that was called ichtus, an acronym for Jesus
Christ, Son of God, Savior (Schneider, 2008). Another symbols used were the lamb on a
shoulder of Christ, meaning the people who need to be saved, the sheep around Jesus,
representing his followers and the most commonly known, the cross, a symbol of the dead
of Christ.

One of the places in which early Christians meet up were the catacombs, cemeteries in the
underground. Those places were sacred for Roman people, there were sacrosanct
(meaning
it should not be trespassed), so Christians could be there without the fear of finding a Roman
prosecutor. According to Schneider (2008), catacombs were forgotten after the sixth century.
The catacomb of Priscilla, at Rome, contain a painting called Christ as the Good Shepherd
or simply The Good Shepherd, in where Jesus is depicted with some goats, birds and a tree.

Byzantine

The West part of the Roman Empire started losing power and prestige, and finally fell to the
Germanic tribes. The Eastern Roman Empire survived for another 1,000 years, and it was
called the Byzantine Empire, because of the name of an ancient Greek city, which
Constantine I, the new emperor, decided to use it as a new capital. After that, this city was
renamed as Constantinople. According to Mittler (2000), Constantinople was more powerful
than Rome and larger, becoming a reference in culture and art. All the important buildings
were there.

Reinassance

The Renaissance happened during three different periods, mostly in Italy. The so-called
Quattrocento (four hundred), through the 15th century, in which the Middle Ages artistic
style was ending. The High Renaissance, (from 1490 to 1530) where the art matures and
artists were inspired developing a human approach (human being as the center of the
world). The last period was the Late Renaissance, also known as Mannerism (from 1530 to
1600), where visual artists were inspired by Michelangelo and da Vinci and tried to emulate
their paintings but with a unique creativity.

A new idea of beauty. Beauty is not something that a god or a saint reflects. Instead, there
is a concept in which proper balance and symmetry is important. “Beauty was believed to
afford at least some glimpse of a transcendental existence”, according to Kreis (2012). The
correct use of proportion is going to be popular in this era. For a typical example of this,
look at the Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, which is a drawing of the human body in where da
Vinci explains a lot of proportions based on the works of an architect called Vitruvius.

Anthropocentrism. The important figure in this period is the man, the human being. It is the
beginning of the humanism, which is “the term generally applied to the predominant social
philosophy and intellectual and literary ... the philosophy of secularism, the appreciation of

worldly pleasures, and above all intensified the assertion of personal independence and
individual expression” (Kreis, 2012).

Individualism. This is a characteristic that goes hand in hand with the anthropocentrism.
Artists became proud of their own work and style, even if patrons commissioned many
works. People should live and create their own way of living, being proud of what they do
and not getting worried about the influence of the church: “As the grip of medieval
supernaturalism began to diminish, secular and human interests became more prominent.
The facts of individual experience in the here and now became more interesting than the
shadowy afterlife. Reliance upon faith and God weakened” (Kreis, 2012).

Naturalism. New techniques arise in order to recreate the world, a world that translates the
 perception of reality into art, elements like sfumato and chiaroscuro appeared. After some
years, during the Romanticism, landscapes and nature are going to be important themes.

Perspective. Artworks in the Renaissance started to add some perspective, a three-

dimensional look that made the viewer feeling like looking through a window.

This is one of the most prolific and important period in art history; many of the most
influential artists appeared, this topic covers only general characteristics in architecture,
painting and sculpture

Architecture

According to the Department of European Paintings of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

(2014), architects, involved in the humanism, made people change their minds about how
to see them, not only as a skilled laborer, but also as an artist. People were open to newer
artistic manifestations and innovation.

According to Fernández-Madrid (2009), one of the most important characteristics in the

Renaissance architecture was the simplicity and purity in proportions. Geometry is simple
(later on during the Baroque is going to be the opposite). Dimensions are not a reflection of
a god, but to have an order that reflects the human intellect controlling its environment
through mathematics and proportion.

Another characteristic of architecture was the preoccupation of how to build churches. They
believed that the circle was the perfect form, so they searched a way to incorporate it in
their architecture.

Painting

When you think about classic paintings, artworks that have become so famous that are
constantly referenced in your culture, in many contexts (like in television shows, cartoons or
movies), is more likely that you think in paintings from the Renaissance period. Is there
anybody who hasn’t heard about The Mona Lisa, or the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?

Fernández-Madrid (2009) and Mittler (2000) list the following characteristics:

New techniques and materials. The use of tempera was very popular: “a paint made of dry
pigments or colors, which are mixed with a binding material” (Mittler, 2000). They also
started using oil paint for the details and to have a more exact way to represent things; this
also allowed working in a tranquil way, because the drying time was slow.

Different themes. The life of Jesus, Mary, and the saints were again popular themes, but
also mythological themes, like in the famous The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli; this
painting brings the theme of individualism and anthropocentrism. There are a lot of portraits
from the

Medici family (Giulano’s, for example, was painted by Botticelli), that was used to show the
influence and power they used to have.
 Perspective. Being the mathematics an important part of architecture and sculpture,
painting could not be left aside. Artists were worried about the depth of their work, so they
started to investigate ways for portraying their subjects in a more realistic way, using light
and shadows, for example. Painters started writing about different issues and themes, like
the vanishing point (the point in a painting in which all the lines intersect), the use of the
light or the movement. Da Vinci also created the sfumato technique, in which the paintings
are represented with a smoke, making the paintings a little bit diffuse.

Some artworks still captivate and delight us; one of them is The Last Supper, by Leonardo
da Vinci. The painting depicts Jesus dinning for the last time with his disciples. He is in the
center of the painting, and all his confused and worried apostles are at the left and right
hand of his Master. According to Mittler (2000), da Vinci painted Judas the traitor with the
other apostles, breaking with tradition that usually sets Judas by himself. The vanishing
point is clearly in the head of Christ, because all the lines join in that point. Nowadays, the
painting is not very well conserved because da Vinci used a new technique and did not
work as expected.

Sculpture

Some general characteristics of sculpture in this period were the following (Fernández-
Madrid, 2009):

Use of different materials like bronze and marble.

Different themes were addressed; not only religious, but also mythological and profane.
Medieval themes were represented in an allegorical way.

Inspiration from classical models.

Donatello was the most influential sculptor of the time. He made a bronze statue of David
(the same David from which Michelangelo made another sculpture), the biblical figure who
beats Goliath with a stone and a sling, portrayed in the sculpture. In the sculpture, David
severed the head of Goliath and stands over it. His expression is from somebody that
accomplished a mission, a gesture of satisfaction and success.