Byzantine Images l. sweet / Materiality and the Religious Impulse / Fall 2008 Review Early Christian Art Structuring Concepts/Questions • the impact Byzantine rulers and imperial culture had on Christian art. • theologies governing the use of images (iconophiles and iconoclasts) • Icons: definition, authority of images and devotional function • Emerging and various images of the Virgin Mary • the theological and artistic challenges of describing the nature(s) of Jesus Christ • who originated Christian Byzantine images (describe the artists and patrons) Terms: tessera, eikon (icon), Triumph of Orthodoxy, Hodegetria, Theotokos, acheiropoietos, Eleousa The Byzantine Empire Map of Byzantium • Byzantium was the original name of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul in Turkey). Constantinople was the capital of Constantine’s Roman Empire, thus historians refer to this era/area of the Roman Empire as the Byzantine Empire. • the boundaries of the Byzantine Empire shifted dramatically over more than a millennium. • Scholars differ as to the ‘end’ of the Byzantine Empire – most point to the mid-15 th century with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks. • Christianity was first legalized by Constantine in 313, then declared the official religion of the Holy Roman (Byzantine) Empire. The Imperial underwriting of Christianity had an enormous impact on both the theology of the faith and its images. • Byzantine art – especially icons – continue to be made and used in the same manner established in the early centuries of Christianity. Today however, icon use is principally a devotional practice associated with the Eastern Orthodox and Russian Orthodox faiths.