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Late Roman Art |
3. Roman Imperial Art - Late Empire Period (c.200-400 CE)Christianity was not the principal cause of the artistic changes in Late Antiquity. Christianity was only one among many spiritual movements that started in the East and flooded the Roman environment with rites, cults and sects. Christian art did not make an impression as of something new - rather it was just one of the branches, and not the main one - of the art of the time. Instead of creating a new style or a new iconography, it made the necessary adaptations to Pagan traditions and drew on them. These adaptations arose largely from the
new importance of the East and of the provinces in general in the life
of the Empire. The axis of Imperial policy gradually shifted to the East,
and it was there that the contests for power were often settled. It was
there too that political movements pressing for autonomy flourished, while
on the eastern frontiers the Empire's most dangerous and warlike enemies
were continually threatening. 'The Eastern transformation of life in Late
Antiquity is an undeniable fact that cannot escape the scholar's attention'
(Schlosser). A renewal of political importance almost always coincides
- and not only in the ancient world - with a cultural renaissance. The
East was a land of very ancient art and
culture, and it was not surprising that the original substrata of the
various Eastern cultures, submerged by Hellenism and Rome, should reappear
at the moment when the historical, philosophical and political assumptions
on which the dominating culture had been founded, were entering a crisis.
Scholars have always underlined the importance of neo-platonism, especially
that of Plotinus, in the shaping of a new vision of art, and now, together
with this new doctrine that proposed a synthesis of Greek
art with Oriental ideas, there was a resurrection of the ancient 'primitive'
cults, revived in the new climate of spiritual curiosity and new forms
of art. It is these elements that confer on Late Antiquity that 'singular aspect of innovation and age' that Schlosser so clearly saw. The new spiritual demands and the manner in which they were expressed in art (the schematization of designs, simplification of forms, the reduction of the plastic elements - concentrating on those essential features considered to be the most expressive - as well as all the distortions that came from this, etc.) did not, of course, impose themselves all at once on the Roman environment. They merged with and were bound to the traditional Hellenistic-Roman elements, and in this way a fresh tradition began that was to become the dominating one - especially after Constantine, and especially in the Eastern zone of the Empire. (The word 'dominating' is not in fact intended to mean exclusive, insofar as artistic traditions often take a long time to fade, and a cultural background is never so homogeneous as it may appear in the ordered descriptions of later scholars.) Imperial Art Mingles With Local Traditions Thus, in the Eastern countries that had had ancient civilizations, the Hellenistic and, later, Roman cultures were accompanied at certain stages by 'archaic resurrections', some of which were energetically pursued, others less so. They became stronger whenever the recurring crises of the Empire loosened direct contact between the capital and the provinces. And it was for this complex and varied artistic world - encompassing both painting and sculpture - that such art definitions were coined as: Romano-Mesopotamian, Romano-Syriac, Romano-Egyptian, and so forth. It was a world of rich and multiple aspects, and fascinating like all composite cultures. At times, a strange kind of mysticism, developing in Asia Minor, united with an exuberant decorative richness that was clearly Oriental in origin. It was just this complex and esoteric splendour that created the subtle fascination of the Artemis statue at Ephesus, a work that would have been outstanding in any age. Certain busts of ladies, emperors or other illustrious persons revealed an acquaintance with Roman models, but they have been freely interpreted by original artists open to many different influences. The funerary stelae found at Palmyra are particularly remarkable. The image of the dead person was depicted on the stelae which were used to cover the graves. They represent one of the highest forms of the new Byzantine art, with its frontal representation and splendid sumptuousness. It is not surprising to find such original and vibrant works of art at Palmyra, if we remember the extent of the prosperity and power that this ancient caravan city had attained by the third century AD, and the way in which it had succeeded in making itself completely independent from Rome. In the same way as Eastern art was to have a decisive importance in the development of Byzantine figurative art, so the art of the Western provinces of the Empire (where, similarly, the ancient local substratum flowered alongside the Roman culture) asserted its own importance. A parallel phenomenon, analogous to events in the Middle East, occurred in the regions of Europe that had been reached by Roman expansion. There the imperial Roman art of the conquerors was grafted on to that of the local inhabitants; this process brought forth original results and contributed to the formation of the medieval style in the West. Next: 4. Roman Empire Art, Celtic Style. |
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