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Chapter 8

Late Antiquity

Gardner’s Art Through the Ages,

14e

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Europe and the Near East in Late Antiquity

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Goals

• Understand the influence of religion in the art of the Roman

Empire in Late Antiquity.

• Examine the art forms and architecture of Late Antiquity.

• Understand the different media used to create Early Christian art.

• Find Roman stylistic features that are incorporated into early

Christian art.

• Know and cite artistic and architectural terminology from the

period.

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8.1 The Art of Late Antiquity

• During the third and fourth centuries, a rapidly growing

number of Romans rejected polytheism (belief in multiple

gods) in favor of monotheism (the worship of a single

all-powerful god)—but they did not stop

commissioning works of art.

• The multicultural character of Roman society became only

more pronounced as the Romans expanded their territories

throughout Europe, Africa, and MesopotamiaUnderstand

the different media used to create early Christian art,

particularly frescoes.

• Although the works in this chpater are Roman in style and

technique, the Jewish and Christian sculptures, paintings, and

buildings of Late Antiquity differ significantly in subject and

often in function from contemporaneous Roman secular and

religious art and architecture.

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Dura-Europoas and Jewish Art

• Called Europos by the Greeks and Dura by the Romans, the town probably was founded shortly after the death of Alexander the Great by one of his successors.

• Dura-Europos fell in 256 to Rome’s new enemy in the East, the Sasanians, heirs to the Parthian Empire.

• The Sasanian siege of Dura is an important fixed point in the chronology of Late Antiquity because the inhabitants evacuated the town, leaving its buildings largely intact.

• This “Pompeii of the desert” has revealed the remains of more than a dozen different cult buildings, including many shrines of the polytheistic religions of the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia. But the excavators also discovered places of worship for the monotheistic creeds of Judaism and Christianity.

Synagogue Paintings

• The Jews of Dura-Europos converted a private house with a

central courtyard into a synagogue during the latter part of the

second century.

• The Main room has a niche for the Torah at the center of one

long wall. The paintings cover all the remaining wall surfaces.

• The discovery of an elaborate mural cycle in a Jewish temple

initially surprised scholars because they had assumed the Second

Commandment (Exodus 20:4–6) prohibiting Jews from

worshiping images precluded the decoration of synagogues with

figural scenes.

• The Dura murals are mostly devoid of action, even when the

subject is a narrative theme. The artists told the stories through

stylized gestures, and the figures, which have expressionless

features and, in most of the panels, lack both volume and

shadow, tend to stand in frontal rows.

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Figure 8-2 Interior of the synagogue, Dura-Europos, Syria,with wall paintings of Old Testament themes, ca.245–256.Tempera

on plaster. Reconstruction in National Museum, Damascus.

Figure 8-3 Samuel anoints David, detail of the mural paintings in the syna-gogue, Dura-Europos, Syria, ca. 245–256. Tempera on

plaster, 47 high.

The figures in this scene from the book of Samuel lack volume, stand in frontal rows, and

exhibit stylized gestures, features characteristic of Late Antique art, regardless of subject

matter.

The painter drew attention to Samuel by depicting him larger than all the rest, a familiar

convention of Late Antique art. 8

Villa Torlonia

• Mural paintings of similar date depicting Jewish themes

have also been found in Rome, most notably in

underground chambers on the grounds of the present

Villa Torlonia, where Jewish families buried their dead

beginning in the second century.

• Perhaps the finest of the Torlonia paintings Fig. 8-4)

depicts two seven-branched menorahs, modest versions

of the sumptuous menorah (Fig. 7-41) Roman soldiers

brought back from Jerusalem after Titus sacked the great

Hebrew temple there.

• At the center is the Ark of the Covenant of the Jerusalem

temple, which contained the sacred stone tablets of

Moses with the Ten Commandments. These important

emblems of their faith appropriately decorated one wall

of the tomb in which these Roman Jews were laid to rest.9

8-4 Ark of the Covenant and two menorahs, painted wall in a Jewish catacomb, Villa Torlonia, Rome, Italy, third century.

Fresco, 3’ 11” high.

Some of the oldest catacombs in Rome were Jewish burial places. This example features

mural paintings that include depictions of the sacred Ark of the Covenant and two

menorahs.

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Early Christian Images

• Very little is known about the art of the first Christians. When art historians speak about “Early Christian art,” they are referring to the earliest preserved artworks with Christian subjects, not the art of Christians at the time of Jesus.

• Most Early Christian art in Rome dates to the third and fourth centuries and is found in the catacombs (Subterranean networks of rock-cut galleries and chambers designed as cemeteries for the burial of the dead).

• After Christianity received official approval under Constantine, churches rose on the land above the catacombs so the pious could worship openly at the burial sites of some of the earliest Christian martyrs (men and women who chose to die rather than deny their religious beliefs), whom the Church had declared saints).

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The Expression of Religious Ideas through Painting and

Sculpture

• As already noted, Late Antique Jewish and Christian works of art do not differ from

contemporaneous secular Roman artworks in style or technique, only in content.

• Most Christians rejected cremation because they believed in the resurrection of the

body, and the wealthiest Christian faithful, as other well-to-do Romans, favored

impressive marble sarcophagi

• Roman emperors and other officials continued to set up portraits, and sculptors still

carved and cast statues of Greco-Roman gods and mythological figures, but the

number of freestanding sculptures decreased sharply.

• Christians tended to suspect the freestanding statue, linking it with the false gods of the

Romans, so Early Christian houses of worship, like Late Antique synagogues, had no

cult statues. Nor did churches or synagogues have any equivalent of the pedimental

statues and relief friezes of Greco-Roman temples.

• The Greco-Roman experience, however, was still a living part of the Mediterranean

mentality, and many recently converted Christians retained some of the traditional

values of the Greco-Roman world. This may account for those rare instances of

freestanding Early Christian sculptures.

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Figure 8-6 The Good Shepherd, the story of Jonah,and orants, painted ceiling of a cubiculum in the Catacomb of Saints Peter

and Marcellinus, Rome, Italy, early fourth century.

This ceiling in a Roman catacomb is similar in format to the painted vaults of some Ostian

apartment houses, but the subjects come from the Hebrew scriptures and the New

Testament.

Jewish Subjects in Christian Art

• The following are three of the most popular Jewish biblical stories depicted in Early

Christian art:

• Adam and Eve. Eve, the first woman, tempted by a serpent, ate the forbidden fruit of

the tree of knowledge, and fed some to Adam, the first man. As punishment, God

expelled Adam and Eve from Paradise. This “original sin” ultimately led to Christ’s

sacrifice on the cross so that all humankind could be saved. Christian theologians often

consider Christ the new Adam and his mother, Mary, the new Eve.

• Sacrifice of Isaac. God instructed Abraham, the father of the Hebrew nation, to sacrifice

Isaac, his only son with his wife Sarah, as proof of his faith. (The mother of Abraham’s

first son, Ishmael, was Sarah’s handmaiden.) When it became clear that Abraham

would obey, the Lord sent an angel to restrain him and provided a ram for sacrifice in

Isaac’s place. Christians view this episode as a prefiguration of the sacrifice of God’s

only son, Jesus.

• Jonah. The Old Testament prophet Jonah had disobeyed God’s command. In his

wrath, the Lord caused a storm while Jonah was at sea. Jonah asked the sailors to

throw him overboard, and the storm subsided. A sea dragon then swallowed Jonah,

but God answered his prayers, and the monster spat out Jonah after three days,

foretelling Christ’s resurrection.14

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Figure 8-7 Sarcophagus with philosopher, orant, and Old and New Testament scenes, ca. 270. Marble, 1’ 111/4” x 7’2”. Santa

Maria Antiqua, Rome.

Early Christian sarcophagi often mixed Old and New Testament themes.

Jonah was a popular subject because he emerged safely from a sea monster

after three days, prefiguring Christ’s resurrection.

8-5A Cubiculum N, Via Dino Compagni Catacomb, Via Latina,

Rome, Italy, ca. 320–360.

Early Christian artists almost

invariably represented Christ either as

the Good Shepherd or as a teacher.

Only after Christianity became the

Roman Empire’s official religion in

380 did Christ take on in art such

imperial attributes as the halo, the

purple robe, and the throne, which

denoted rulership.

Eventually, artists depicted Christ

with the beard of a mature adult—as

in the late-fourth-century Catacomb

of Commodilla in Rome —which has

been the standard form for centuries,

supplanting the youthful imagery of

most Early Christian portrayals of the

Savior. 16

8-6A Cubiculum Leonis, Catacomb of Commodilla, Via Ostiense, Rome, Italy, ca. 370–385.

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8-8 Christ as the Good Shepherd, ca.

300–350. Marble, 3’ 1/4" high. Musei

Vaticani, Rome.

Although freestanding

images of Christ were

uncommon in Late

Antiquity, several

statuettes exist

representing the Good

Shepherd. The patrons

were probably recent

converts to Christianity.

In the Good Shepherd

statuette, he stands in a

classical contrapposto

stance with his right hip

outthrust and his left leg

bent.

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8.2 Artistic Changes and Constantine

• Once Christianity achieved imperial sponsorship under Constantine, an

urgent need suddenly arose to construct churches.

• Constantine believed the Christian god had guided him to victory over

Maxentius, and in lifelong gratitude he protected and advanced

Christianity throughout the Empire.

• He constructed elaborate basilicas, memorials, and mausoleums not only

in Rome but also in Constantinople, his “New Rome” in the East, and at

sites sacred to Christianity, most notably Bethlehem, the birthplace of

Jesus, and Jerusalem, the site of the crucifixion.

• The decision to erect churches at those sites also enabled Constantine to

keep the new Christian shrines out of the city center and avoid any

confrontation between Rome’s Christians and those who continued to

worship the old gods.

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Early Religious Architecture

• Old Saint Peter’s: The greatest of Constantine’s churches in Rome was Old

Saint Peter’s probably begun as early as 319. The present-day church, one of

the masterpieces of Italian Renaissance and Baroque architecture, is a

replacement for the Constantinian structure.

• Capable of housing 3,000 to 4,000 worshipers at one time, the immense

church enshrined Peter’s tomb, one of the most hallowed sites in

Christendom, second only to the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the site of

Christ’s resurrection.

• The Christians, understandably, did not want their houses of worship to

mimic the form of polytheistic shrines, but practical considerations also

contributed to their shunning the classical temple type. Greco-Roman

temples housed only the cult statue of the deity. All rituals took place

outside at open-air altars. Therefore, architects would have found it difficult

to adapt the classical temple as a building accommodating large numbers of

people within it. The Roman basilica, in contrast, was ideally suited as a

place for congregation.

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Figure 8-9 Restored cutaway view (top) and plan (bottom) of Old Saint Peter’s, Rome, Italy, begun ca. 319 (John Burge).

(1) nave, (2) aisle, (3) apse, (4) transept, (5) narthex, (6) atrium.

Built by Constantine, the first imperial patron of Christianity, this huge church stood

over Saint Peter’s grave. The building’s plan and elevation resemble those of Roman

basilicas, not temples.

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Figure 8-10 Interior of Santa Sabina, Rome, Italy, 422–432.

Santa Sabina and other Early Christian basilican churches were timber-

roofed and illuminated by clerestory windows. The nave arcade focused

attention on the apse, which framed the altar.

Santa Costanza

• Early Christian architects also adopted another classical

architectural type: the central-plan building, in which the parts are

of equal or almost equal dimensions around the center.

• A highly refined example of the central-plan design is Santa

Costanza built on the northern outskirts of Rome in the mid-

fourth century, possibly as the mausoleum for Constantina, the

emperor Constantine’s daughter.

• Like most Early Christian basilicas, Santa Costanza has a severe

brick exterior. Its interior was once richly adorned with mosaics,

although most are lost.

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Figure 8-11 Interior of Santa Costanza, Rome, Italy, ca. 337–351.

Possibly built as the mausoleum of Constantine’s daughter, Santa Costanza later

became a church. Its central plan, featuring a domed interior, would become the

preferred form for Byzantine churches.

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Figure 8-12 Plan of Santa Costanza, Rome, Italy, ca.

337–351.

Mosaics

• As an art form, mosaics had a rather simple and utilitarian beginning, seemingly

invented primarily to provide an inexpensive and durable flooring. Originally,

mosaicists set small beach pebbles, unaltered from their natural form and color, into a

thick coat of cement. Artisans soon discovered, however, that the stones could be

arranged in decorative patterns

• Eventually, artists arranged the stones to form more complex pictorial designs, and by

the fourth century bce the technique had developed to a high level of sophistication.

Mosaicists depicted elaborate figural scenes using a broad range of colors—red, yellow,

and brown in addition to black, white, and gray—and shaded the figures, clothing, and

setting to suggest volume.

• Early Christian mosaics were not meant to incorporate the subtle tonal changes a

naturalistic painter’s approach would require. Artists “placed,” rather than blended,

colors.

• Early Christian mosaics, designed to be seen from a distance, employed larger tesserae.

The mosaicists also set the tesserae (Latin for “cubes” or “dice”) unevenly so that their

surfaces could catch and reflect the light. Artists favored simple designs for optimal

legibility. For several centuries, mosaic, in the service of Christian theology, was the

medium of some of the supreme masterpieces of medieval art.

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Figure 8-13 Detail of vault mosaic in the ambulatory of Santa Costanza, Rome, Italy, ca. 337–351.

The ambulatory mosaics of Santa Costanza depict putti harvesting grapes and making wine, motifs

associated with Bacchus, but for a Christian, the scenes evoked the Eucharist and Christ’s blood.

8-13A Christ as Sol Invictus, detail of the mosaic in the vault of the Mausoleum of the Julii (tomb M),

Vatican Necropolis, Rome, Italy, late third century.

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Figure 8-13 Closer detail

4th c. Ambulatory vault Mosaics: closer view of decorative roundels with putti and birds

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The Parting of Abraham and Lot

• Agreeing to disagree, Abraham’s nephew Lot leads his family and

followers to the right, toward the city of Sodom, while Abraham heads

for Canaan, moving toward a basilica-like building (perhaps symbolizing

the Church) on the left. Lot’s is the evil choice, and the instruments of

the evil (his two daughters) stand in front of him. The figure of the yet-

unborn Isaac, the instrument of good (and, as noted earlier, a

prefiguration of Christ), stands before his father, Abraham.

• The mosaicist represented each group using a shorthand device called a

Head Cluster, which had precedents in antiquity and a long history in

Christian art.

• The figures engage in a sharp dialogue of glance and gesture. The wide

eyes turn in their sockets, and the enlarged hands make broad gestures.

This kind of simplified motion, which is characteristic of Late Antique

narrative art of Roman, Jewish, and Christian subject matter alike, has

great power to communicate without ambiguity.

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Figure 8-14 The parting of Abraham and Lot, nave of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, Italy, 432–440. Mosaic, 3’ 4” high.

Another century had to pass before Western Christian mosaicists portrayed figures

as flat images, rather than as three-dimensional bodies, finally rejecting the norms

of classical art in favor of a style better suited for a focus on the spiritual instead of

the natural world.

Ravenna• In the decades after the 324 founding of Constantinople, the New Rome in

the East, and the death of Constantine in 337, the pace of Christianization of

the Roman Empire quickened. In 380 the emperor Theodosius I (r. 379–395)

issued an edict finally establishing Christianity as the state religion. In 391 he

enacted a ban against worship of the old Roman gods, and in 394 he

abolished the Olympic Games, the enduring symbol of the classical world and

its values.

• Theodosius died in 395, and imperial power passed to his two sons, Arcadius

(r. 395–408), who became Emperor of the East, and Honorius (r. 395–423),

Emperor of the West. In 404, when the Visigoths, under their king, Alaric (r.

395–410), threatened to overrun Italy from the northwest, Honorius moved

his capital from Milan to Ravenna, an ancient Roman city (perhaps founded

by the Etruscans) near Italy’s Adriatic coast, some 80 miles south of Venice.

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Figure 8-15 Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, Italy, ca. 425.

This cruciform chapel with a domed crossing is an early example of the combination of

central and longitudinal plans. The unadorned brick shell encloses a rich ensemble of

mosaics.

8-16 Interior of the

Mausoleum of Galla Placidia,

Ravenna, Italy, ca. 425.

Mosaics cover

every square inch

of the interior

surfaces above the

marble-faced walls.

Before Late

Antiquity, mosaics

were usually

confined to floors.

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Figure 8-17 Christ as the Good Shepherd, mosaic from the entrance wall of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, Italy, ca.

425.

Jesus sits among his flock, haloed and robed in gold and purple. The landscape and the

figures, with their cast shadows, are the work of a mosaicist still rooted in the naturalistic

classical tradition.

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Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes

• Stands in sharp contrast to the 80-year-earlier mosaics of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. Jesus, beardless, in the imperial dress of gold and purple, and now distinguished by the cross-inscribed halo that signifies his divinity, faces directly toward the viewer.

• The mosaicist told the story with the least number of figures necessary to make its meaning explicit, aligning the figures laterally, moving them close to the foreground, and placing them in a shallow picture box.

• The landscape setting is merely a few rocks and bushes enclosing the figure group like parentheses. The blue sky of the physical world has given way to the otherworldly splendor of heavenly gold.

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Figure 8-19 Miracle of the loaves and fishes, mosaic from the top register of the nave wall (above the clerestory windows

in FIG. 8-18) of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy, ca. 504.

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The Luxury Arts

• Throughout history, artists have produced so-called “minor arts”—jewelry, metalwork, cameos, ivories, among other crafts—alongside the “major arts” of sculpture and painting. Although the terminology seems to suggest a difference in importance or quality, “minor” refers only to size

• In Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the minor arts—more appropriately called “luxury arts”—enjoyed high status, and they figure prominently in the history of art through the ages.

Illuminated Manuscripts

• Although few examples survive, illustrated books were common in public and private

libraries in the ancient world.

• Illuminated manuscripts

A luxurious handmade book with painted illustrations and decorations.

• The oldest preserved painted Greek or Latin manuscript is the Vatican Vergil, which

dates from the early fifth century and is among the earliest preserved illustrated

medieval books.

• The manuscript is important not only because of its age. The Vatican Vergil is a prime

example of traditional Roman iconography and of the classical style long after

Theodosius banned worship of the old gods.

• The oldest well-preserved painted manuscript containing biblical scenes is the early-

sixth-century Vienna Genesis, so called because of its present location. The pages are

fine calfskin dyed with rich purple, the same dye used to give imperial cloth its

distinctive color. The Greek text is in silver ink.

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Figure 8-20 The old farmer Corycus, folio 7 verso of the Vatican Vergil, ca. 400-420. Tempera on parchment, 1’

½” X 1’. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rome.

The earliest surviving painted Latin

manuscript is a collection of the poet Vergil’s works. This page includes part of the text of the Georgicsand a pastoral scene

reminiscent of Roman landscape murals.

The heavy, dark frame has close parallels in the late Pompeian

styles of mural painting

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Figure 8-21 Rebecca and Eliezer at the

well, folio 7 recto of the Vienna Genesis, early

sixth century. Tempera, gold, and silver on

purple vellum, approx. 1’ 1/4” X 9 1/4”.

Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna.

8-21A The story of Jacob, folio 12 verso of

the Vienna Genesis, early sixth century.

Tempera, gold, and silver on purple vellum, 1’1 1/4" X 9 1/4". Österreichische

Nationalbibliothek, Vienna.

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Figure 8-22 Christ before Pilate,

folio 8 verso of the Rossano Gospels,

early sixth century. Tempera on

purple vellum, 11” X 10 1/4”.

Museo Diocesano d’Arte Sacra,

Rossano.

Metalwork

• Especially prized in antiquity and throughout the Middle

Ages were items of tableware fashioned out of precious

metals.

• Mildenhall Treasure

• In 1942, a farmer plowing his fields near Mildenhall,

England, discovered a hoard of silver tableware dating to

the mid-fourth century ce. The “Mildenhall Treasure”

must have been the proud possession of a wealthy local

family. The hoard consists of 34 silver pieces, including

bowls, platters, ladles, and spoons. The most spectacular

item is a large platter known as the “Great Dish”.

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Figure 8-23 Oceanus and Nereids, and drinking contest between Bacchus and Hercules, “Great Dish,” from Mildenhall,

England, mid-fourth century CE. Silver, 1’ 11 ¾” diameter. British Museum, London.

Part of a hoard of silver tableware owned by a Christian family, this large

platter nonetheless features sea deities and a drinking contest between

Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, and Hercules.45

Ivory Carvings

• Ivory has been prized since the earliest times, when

sculptors fashioned the tusks of Ice Age European

mammoths into pendants, beads, and other items for

body adornment, and, occasionally, statuettes.

• The primary ivory sources in the historical period have

been the elephants of India and especially Africa, where

the species is larger than the Asian counterpart and the

tusks longer, heavier, and of finer grain. African elephant

tusks 5 to 6 feet in length and weighing 10 pounds are

common, but tusks of male elephants can be 10 feet

long or more and weigh well over 100 pounds.

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Figure 8-24 Suicide of Judas and Crucifixion of Christ, plaque from a box, ca. 420. Ivory, 3” X 3 7/8”. British Museum,

London.

This plaque from a luxurious ivory box is the first known representation of the

Crucifixion of Christ, shown here as a beardless youth who experiences no pain. At the

left, Judas, his betrayer, hangs himself.

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Figure 8-25 Woman sacrificing at an altar, right leaf of the diptych of

the Nicomachi and the Symmachi, ca. 400. Ivory, 11 3/4” X 5 1/2”.

Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Although Constantine endorsed Christianity and

dedicated his New Rome in the East to the

Christian God, not everyone converted to the new

religion, even after Theodosius banned all ancient

cults and closed all temples in 391.

The sculptor who carved this ivory plaque also

carried on the classical artistic style.

She wears ivy in her hair and seems to be

celebrating the rites of Bacchus—the same wine

god featured on the Mildenhall silver platter.

The precise yet fluent and graceful line, the

relaxed poses, and the mood of spiritual serenity

reveal an artist who practiced within a still-vital

classical tradition that idealized human beauty as

its central focus.

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Discussion Questions

Why are the wall paintings at Dura Europos important to

understanding the art of the Late Antique (Roman) and

Early Christian time periods?

What visual characteristics of earlier pagan funerary art are

seen in Christian art from this period? Does the context

change?

What might one speculate as reasons for the absence of a

crucified Christ in Early Christian art?

What was/were the purpose(s) of Early Christian art?