Some of the differences in the Roman art and early Christian art that I noticed was with the way they presented the individual that they were drawing, painting, or sculpting. For instance when you compare the hair styles of those used in Roman art work with that of the early Christians you can see that the Christians didn’t put major emphasis on things such as this. It appears that the early Christians were more focused on the content rather than the appearance of the individuals in the art work.
Two of the art pieces in particular that show this are the Young Flavian Woman, which was a sculpture made of marble and the painting of the Virgin of Vladimir. There are other paintings from the early Christians that also put less emphasis on the individual’s beauty such as the lady in the painting of David the Psalmist and the painting of the Empress Theodora and her attendants. While looking at these art pieces you can get a sense of feeling that those who sculpted the image of the Young Flavian Woman wanted to show how beautiful the woman was in more ways than one. Not only does her hair express extravagant beauty, but there is beauty in her facial features as well. Her eyes appear to have perfect symmetry, her nose, and lips all fit well with one another. Now if you look at the painting of the Virgin of Vladimir you kind of see the opposite. Her hair is covered she doesn’t have a lot of emphasis on her physical features at all. The only thing that they seem to have in common is the fact that there is symmetry in her face. However, even with viewing these the Flavian woman appears to have larger eyes and semi-fuller lips whereas the painting of the Virgin of Vladimir has smaller lips and sadder looking eyes. Although the Virgin of Vladimir has a sadder look to her you also get a stronger since of humility throughout the entire art piece whereas with the sculpture of the Young Flavian Woman you can’t sense any humility at all throughout the art piece especially when you gaze at her eyes and hair.
Furthermore, while looking at the sculpture of the Young Flavian Woman it is difficult for me to tell what she is trying to express outside of the beauty. I know that it is more than just beauty that is being expressed here, but the first thing that comes to mind is how extravagant her hair is. However, what is her facial expression saying in relation to her hair? On the other hand, if you ask yourself what is the painting of the Virgin of Vladimir trying to express? A few things come to mind such as love, humility, care, protection, warmth, sincerity, selflessness, or maybe even sadness. You can see emotions and expressions like these just by looking in her eyes as well as looking at her body language. There seems to be a lot of content expression that was made noticeable when you view the art work of the early Christians. Now its not to say that the Romans didn’t express this in any of their art work, because they did. For example the sculpture of Caracalla clearly shows this. Nevertheless, with his facial expression you still see major emphasis on the aesthetics of the art piece. His hair is nicely done even his facial hair has detail.
In closing, I think the differences that can be easily be noticed when you look and compare the art work of the Early Christians to that of the Romans you can see that the Early Christians were not trying to put major importance on beauty rather they wanted to put emphasis on the content of the art work.
With women of Rome they where especially vain because those are the ones that would definitely want to be portrayed as being young damsels rather then being old maids. When you look at the features of the sculptures the women have small stomaches and their faces are without blemishes. The Romans probably thought that slender girls where the most attractive. In the text there was only one sculpture of an old woman with wrinkles but other then that the women where portrayed as young. The reason behind this is probably because the female body loses it's beauty when it grows old because of the wrinkles and the breasts sag. To the female most of all beauty is important.
ReplyDeleteHi Solomon! You've skipped a little too far ahead (chronologically-speaking) with the examples that you discussed. Although they are found in Chapter 7 of our textbook, the "Virgin of Vladimir" and "Empress Theodora" mosaic date from the Byzantine period, not the Early Christian period. Some Early Christian examples in the book are the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (p. 230) and Christ as the Good Shepherd (p. 225).
ReplyDeleteThat being said, you have can make some interesting parallels about realism/verism vs. stylization in the works that you have chosen to discuss.
-Prof. Bowen
I think you have pointed out some interesting things, but maybe you could elaborate on how the christian painting portrays such emotions like sadness and humility. The way she holds the child and the tilt of her head. I think you just could have gone more into detail about how you reached your conclusion.
ReplyDelete