Week 6: Daily # 3

Josh Mannion

April 6, 2011

Western Civ.

Question: How does Early Christian and Byzantine portraiture represent both a continuation of and a break from the past?

            The early Christian and Byzantine portraiture represent a lot about religion and don’t look much different from what we have today. Today, we have many paintings and art that deal with religion, like stain glass windows in many churches. Many of these paintings also have to do with culture and what the people looked like and did. Right down in Baltimore, we have statues of people who were sports great, just how many Christian and Byzantine portraitures had pictures and statues of people in different events. The portraiture of Early Christian and Byzantine art also showed great people from the past like the Ravenna Portrait of Justinian because this shows emperor Justinian and the Bishop of Ravenna in a meeting of some sort while surrounded by soldiers. This closely relates to the national monument at Mount Rushmore, because Mount Rushmore shows the great presidents we once had. As you can see both Early Christian and Byzantine portraiture clearly represent a continuation from the past.

           

            As the early Christian and Byzantine portraiture represent a continuation of the past, they also represent a break from the past. The Christian and Byzantine portraitures are in a lot more detail than they are today, because most portraiture now are very simplistic and are more abstract.  As you can see not only did we change from the past, but will also learn and keep some of the past in the present, just like we saw in the early Christian and Byzantine portraitures.