Although that Greek art influence the art after it, we don’t see much of it in our lives now. Replacing the sculptures and the status are paintings about big events and religions. But have you wondered when people start to paint religion and what happened during the era? In this post, I show Christianity influenced the Middle Ages art by an increased amount of paintings with Jesus and religious themes and fewer paintings with daily life.
book ART OF THE WESTERN WORLD wrote by Michael Wood is continually used in this post. Michael Wood is a professor in Oxford University; he did a very good job explaining the art history.
book ART OF THE WESTERN WORLD wrote by Michael Wood is continually used in this post. Michael Wood is a professor in Oxford University; he did a very good job explaining the art history.
Q: When did this religious art start? And what religion is shown in the art?
A: In A.D. 392, as the Rome fell, Christianity had become more and more spreaded around the world. Between A.D. 500-900 (from the fall of Rome to Renaissance), Europe experienced what is called the Dark Ages, religion is the only light that directed people. According to a writer at this time, this era was considered dark because of the lack of Christianity; later in the days, the world started to glow more light because the wide spread of Christianity. People’s lives started to revolve around religion. Everything was related to Jesus. Things happened before Jesus’s death were considered leadings to Jesus’s death; things happened after Jesus’s death were considered the influence of the death. Of course, Jesus entered the art world too.
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Q: How did the art changed from the Greek and Roman art?
A: As the Rome fell, the empire was divided into many smaller countries. Lots of artists with different forms swept through Rome, and all of them are influenced by the Christianity. Rome changed from a pagan, which means one who has little or no religion, to many smaller Christianity based countries. The late Roman artists did not want to show Jesus’s death, but rather the alive and triumph of Jesus. Art was used to express feeling about the religion at this time, but not record events and ideas. The sad thing is that the large-scale civic sculptures, the portraits, the wall paintings, the depiction of figures both real and ideal arts of Greeks and Romans were gone!
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Q: On what extent did Christianity occupied in art world?
A: From the last question, it is very obvious that religion almost replaced all the other content of art. Since most people rely on religion to have hope, most of the arts are about faith but not nature and human figures. Although that in 312, the human figures resumed back in art, at this time period, human figures are hardly seen in paintings and sculptures. Compare to Greek and Roman art, people are secondary to the country they belong, however in this highly ritualistic era, people become so secondary to God that they are not representative. People are considered an object instead of subject. :(
Now we can see that, no matter how important and brilliant the previous era is, art is still created by the people. Like in the Middle Age, diseases and hunger were everywhere; to escape this suffering, people start to believe in religion and afterworld. Therefore art about religions were born. One of the reasons that Christianity can spread this wide and this quick is also because the art promoted others to join the religion.
Through out the posts, art is used to record events, ideas and spread religions. What are some other purposes of art? Why choose art but not other ways? What does the artist want the audience to get from the art? Check out my next post for the answers.
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