Early western Christian art was highly symbolic and it was used to express Christian ideas. The Christians expressed their principles using various forms of artistic images and symbols. Sculpture was the main art form and it was used in Christian buildings to illustrate Christian beliefs, principles and ideas. Byzantine art was produced during the Byzantine Empire that lasted between 330 and 1453 (Freeland, 2001). This art had a religious background it revolved around religious icons. These icons served a dual purpose because they were used as religious objects and aesthetic objects, from a religious view point, these icons were venerated by the Christians and any insult to an icon was considered heretical by the ruling authorities. One characteristic of this art is classicism and focus on Constantinople. The art was quite abstract and had an anti naturalistic character unlike the classical Christian art. Byanzatine art was highly symbolic. Monumental Byzantine art combined religious and imperial themes and this was dictated by the pious and the dictatorial nature of the Byzantine social structure.
Early Christian art was produced to illustrate the concrete principles of Christianity and art has for a long time been used by Christians in their places of worship. Images of Christ are the most common forms of Christian art and they have been incorporated in Christian architecture. The scenes of the life of Christ have also been illustrated in art symbolically to illustrate various Christian principles and ideas.. Early Christian art had two main functions. It was used symbolically and aesthetically.
Islamic art regarded calligraphy as the highest form of fine art. The Arabic art in most scripts is usually decorated using various forms of Islamic art (Fiero, 2008). These Arabesque ornament was commonly used in architecture and other functional artifacts such as vessels and textiles, however Islamic art was used for aesthetic purposes only and had no special meanings or symbolic insights. One notable element of Islamic art is the absence of figures because it is believed that since time immemorial, figures have not been part of the Islamic faith. According to the Holy Quran, God is unique and cannot be represented using figures.
In the first century, when Jesus was born, the Romans ruled the modern day Israel and they had established a hierarchical government whereby the Jewish self government was answerable to the Roman government residing in Palestine. This government was headed by King Herod who also reported to the head of the Roman Empire based in Rome. The head of the Roman Empire was known as Caesar. The Roman government practiced syncretism which means that there was religious tolerance. However, religious freedom was under strict control.
There were various problems in this region in the first century. The root of this problem was the Jewish hatred for the Roman rule because the Romans had made them unwilling subjects. King Herod used to place evil idols in Jewish temples and this created tension between the Jews and the Roman Palestine government.
The other source of tension was the arrogance of Jews struggled to distance themselves from the Gentiles who did not follow the Jewish traditions. The Jews had a lot of faith in their governing system though the Romans did not allow them to totally govern themselves and this was another source of tension. These tensions derailed the Christian movement in the first century because the Romans persecuted the Jews. In 70 CE, the Romans killed many Jews and sent many others to exile after they destroyed the temple of Jerusalem and this persecution severely weakened the Christian movement. However religious tolerance in the Roman Empire helped the Christian movement to grow.
Works Cited
- Fiero, Gloria. Landmarks in Humanities second edition. NY: Mc Graw Hill, 2008
- Freeland, Cynthia. An Introduction to Art Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.