Very SpeciFic Mythological Data .

1. The finest Christian images of the Late Antique period were the golden mosaics
that covered the walls and ceilings of churches. The glittering gold made lavish
backgrounds for richly colored figures and scenes. Golden mosaics were made
of gold foil fused to clear glass, and glass that had pigments added to it. Small
slabs of gold foil backed glass and colored glass were carefully broken up into
small cubic pieces called tesserae and embedded in plaster or concrete to make
the finished designs. The results were spectacular; light reflecting off each
fragment of glass caused the work to glitter and sparkle. The result was
spectacularand awe inspiring beauty.
pigments - are ground up minerals, colored clays, and natural materials like
bark, seeds, and leaves, that can be used to give color to paints, fabrics, glass,
inks and countless other items
These golden mosaics depicted Biblical narratives from the Old and New
Testaments, scenes from the life of Christ, lives of the saints and other important
abstract religious concepts.
(a) Apse of
the Church of
Sant'
(b) Apse of the
Basilica of San
Vitale,526 to 547,

2. Apollinare in
Classe, Italy,
c 549.
Sacred
Destinations
An apse is a
hemispherical
(half a dome)
recess of in
building.
Apses are
most
commonly
found in
churches.
Ravenna,
Italy. sjmcdonough
See San Vitale
Basilica,
Ravenna for more
pictures and
information.
REQUIRED VIEWING: Ravenna, Italy: Bits of Byzantium Rick Steves (3:20
minutes) This video talks about the overlapping of realism and abstraction in Late
Antique glass mosaics from the city of Ravenna. Steves comments on how the
two styles existed side by side for a period of time. Even so the images he

3. mentions are far from the highly realistic work of earlier centuries of Grecco-
Roman art.
Abstract Figures in Two-Dimensional Arts
Remember that Two-Dimensional Refers to Things That Are Flat
Mosaics from both Sant' Apollinare in Classe and San Vitale are very far from the
highly realistic 2nd cent B.C. stone fish mosaic you saw in the Roman Lecture.
As with the figures from the Arch of Constantine 313 (above) abstraction was
taking over in Christian religious arts. Figures have become simplified, flat, and
repeated in cookie cutter patterns.
 Proportions are off— in this case figures are unnaturally elongated.
 Flat figures overlap each other like paper dolls
 Figures are outlined,
 Facial features are simplified. Eyes noses and mouths are drawn with lines.
 There are problems with scale (scale has to with relative size) Saint
Apollinaris, pictured in the apse ofSant' Apollinare in Classe (above), is as
big as the tallest trees around him. He is out of scale with his setting since
in reality trees are bigger than people.

5. Christ as
Redeemer
seated on
the created
universe.
526-547,
Apse of
San Vitale,
Ravenna
Artstor
The scene
symbolizes
Christ's
rule over
the whole
universe. It

6. is very
appropriate
that it is
done with
simplified
abstract
figures
since it is a
shorthand
illustration
of an
abstract
concept.
'Symbolic Reality'
Depicting "real' reality had been the staple of classical arts since the Classical
Greek period. But now Christian artists wanted to be able to picture events
occurring in Heaven or to convey abstract concepts (like Christ seated on the
created universe). Christian artists now needed to depict symbolic reality, a
reality that could only be imagined, one that could not actually be seen with the

7. eyes. Placing figures in golden settings is one way to do it. Glittering gold
backgrounds were used to suggest the other-worldly transcendentalqualities of
Heaven that our eyes cannot see. They clearly indicated that God, Christ, the
Virgin Mary, and the saints are to be found in realm set apart from our here-and-
now physical reality. They are in a distant and remote heaven; mankind is below
on earth. Worshippers seeing the golden backgrounds would immediately
recognized that events portrayed was taking place in Heaven.
Miracle of
the
Loaves
and
Fishes,
Saint'
Apollinare
Nuovo,
Ravenna
c. 504
The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes is a scene from the life of Jesus. Here
Jesus blesses the loaves and fishes that were miraculously provided for the great
crowds that came to hear Jesus preach. Like the mosaics above, it's Late
Antique abstraction(simplified flattened overlapping paper doll like figures).

8. These mosaics are an example of subordinating the appearance of nature to
emphasizing important religious messages.