Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/855

* BYZANTllIE ABT. 753 BYZANTINE ART. elsewhere, as the cathedral at Capri and San Gerniano at Jlonte Cassino. Even Germany (AL-liiChapellc, I'aderboni) and France (whole of POrigord, c^jKHially Saint Front at Furi- gneiix), were s[)c)radioally invaded. It was nat- ural that the less civilized northern and east- ern nations on the borders of the Byzantine <loniinion should receive its architecture. The monuments of the countries in the northern part of the Balkan Peninsula are of this class. Ser- via, Bosnia. Bulgaria, all borrowed from Byzan- tium, and it was the same even with the more powerful States. The main classes of Byzantine architecture are: (1) Churches; (2) monastic establishments; (3) palaces; (4) fortresses. So little remains of lainur classes, such as private houses, hospit;Us, fountains, civil edifices, etc., that we can get only vague ideas as to their style. The imperial palace at Constantinople exists no longer except in the descriptions of its gorgeousness. The for- tresses have frequently survived and serve to show that in Africa, Syria, and Asia Minor they served as models to the Jlohammcdans, and subse- quently to the Crusaders, thus revolutionizing the military architecture of Europe, as well as the East. The monastic establishments are even more important for architectural history tlian the corresponding ones in the West (see JIoxastic Art), because Byzantium always remained sub- ject to monastic art. v.hereas Europe was so only for a short time. There were of course cer- tain great centres of monastic architecture, such as the Mount Athos monasteries, those of Thes- salj- (Meteora), the Stoudion near Constanti- nople, and Saint Simeon Stylites in Syria; but the monastic influence was not concentrated, as in the West, in a few large establishments, nor did the monks, as there, shun the cities. Every city was filled with them, and there were few churches that had no monastery attached to them, .mong good e.am])les are the monastery of the Eleventh Century on the island of Chios, that of Daphne, and Saint Luke on ilount Heli- con in Greece, of the same period ; but greatest of all is Motmt Athos (q.v.). The Byzantine archi- tects made but little use of concrete; building of brick, they were able to decrease the thickness of their walls. For their domes they used hollow conical bricks of very light clay, which fitted into each other. This gave a minimum of weight and a maximum of cohesion. Although they did not use any flying buttresses nor advertise their methods of construction as the Gothic architects did, they nevertheless invented a system of equi- librium through interacting thrusts and a con- centration of thrusts upon given points, which, although not apparent, was none the less elicct- ive. At Saint Sopliia there is a pyramidal pro- gression, the thrust of the dome being received on two sides by semi-domes, on two others by immense buttresses, and then transmitted to the gallery vaults over side aisles and narthex, until it dies away in the low walls of the exterior. But the mathematical knowledge required to carrj- out the principle successfully on so large a scale was not to survive Anthemius very long. No subsequent attempts equal Saint Sophia. The nearest approach, the palace church of Basil the Macedonian, has been destroyed. In the decora- tion of their interiors Byzantine architects loved color as much as did the Romans, and tlicy car- ried it out more thoroughly than the early Chris- tian architects of the basilical style, for their system was an incrvistation of marbles and mo- saics far richer than that used in the West, whose architects wore often satisfied with thin- colored wall paintings. The entire system of Christian ictmograjiliy was often given in mosaic pictures, and the lower walls covered with pat- terns of opus sectilc. The pavements also were of mosaics. This applies ])articularly to the cen- tral and most strongly Hellenic parts of the Byzantine dominions and less so to frontier jiniv- inces, such as Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor. The classic orders were almost wlioUy discarded; capitals, friezes, cornices, and jilacpics were deco- rated in low relief, basl<et-work (undercut and openwork), and Oriental patterns, often bor- rowed from stulFs, and heavy ])rojections were avoided. Sculptural became more and more sub- ordinated to color effects. Sculpture. There are few works of Byzan- tine figured sculpture, on account of both the Oriental incapacity in drawing the figure after the Roman decadence and the iconoclastic jjreju- dice against images. There are a few early works, such as the Ambone at Salonica, some sarcophagi at Ravenna, the wooden doors of Santa Sabina in Rome, which show how closely akin its style was during the Fifth and Sixth centuries to early Christian sculpture, with add- ed imagination and Hellenic refinements. One of the latest echoes of this stage is the colossal bronze statue of a Byzantine Emperor from Bar- letta, now in Naples, the last of the imperial statues. The stift'er late Byzantine methods which prevailed between the Tenth and Fifteenth centuries are shora in the Madonna of the cathe- dral at Ravenna, the reliefs of Christ and angels at the Eski-Diuma jNIosque in Constantinople, and a few reliefs at the Mount Athos monas- teries. While of rare occurrence, works of sculp- ture never lapsed into the state of barbarism current in Europe from the Seventh to the Twelfth Century, but always retained artistic qualities. Decorative sculpture especially was developed on principles of design more Oriental than classic; the stereotyped orders, anthemion, honeysuckle, egg-and-dart, and pearl motives, be- ing superseded by a great variety of floral, geo- metric, an<l animal forms, sometimes free, some- times schematic in arrangement. The techniqvie also difl'ered from that of classic ornament; the relief was usually slight, the surfaces rather flat, and the effectiveness secured by undercutting or sharp arrises, with violent rather than delicate transition of surfaces. Tliis was carried to an extreme in the 'basket' capitals and similar works, where the design is almost entirely cut away from the ground, and in the altar and choir screens, where the main outlines arc cut through the slab. The churches of Ravenna, Parenzo, Venice. Constantinople, and Salonica are rich in such works of the central Byzantine School, while a con-esponding but independent development appears in the numerous churches of central Syria, where the design is freer and less like an adaptation of patterns from stuffs ap- plied to sculpture. Byzantine ornament pre- vailed throughout Italy (except Lombardy) until the Eleventh Centtiry, and lay at the basis of much of Mohammedan design in Egj-pt. Spain, and the East. It thus, more or less directly, per- meated the Middle .ges. The minor branches of sculpture are described under Minor Arts.