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Byzantine Art
The opulence of Byzantine art, with its extravagant use of gold and silver, is well known. Highly skilled artists created powerful representations reflecting and promoting this society and its values in icons, illuminated manuscripts, and mosaics and wallpaintings placed in domed churches and public buildings. This complete introduction to the whole period and range of Byzantine art combines immense breadth with interesting historical detail.Robin Cormack overturns the myth that Byzantine art remained constant from the inauguration of Constantinople, its artistic centre, in the year 330 until the fall of the city to the Ottomans in 1453. He shows how the many political and religious upheavals of this period produced a wide range of styles and developments in art. This updated, colour edition includes new discoveries, a revised bibliography, and, in a new epilogue, a rethinking of Byzantine Art for the presentday.
253 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 26, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 16, 2025
This book is a comprehensive tour of the masterpieces of Byzantine Art, but frustrates for lack of technical instruction.
The author says for instance “it involves dating the [Joshua] roll around 970 to coincide with the imperial campaign, despite its style fitting better with the works up around 950” (96-97) but does not tell us the stylistic elements or devices which allow specialist to make that judgment.
This is a replaying of the opening chapter which compares the Dome mosaics of the Rotunda of St. George in Thessaloniki and the Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, where stylistic features are given no air, and the conceptual content of the work is described, without giving us the tools for mapping time and style.
This problem is present throughout. And we might produce dozens of examples.
“In the early Byzantine period there is a clear continuity of techniques between Fayum mummy painting and the early Sinai icons; but the character of the portrait, especially noticeable in the treatment of the gaze, and the functions of the imagery, has radically changed.” (119) but how does it change? We are not told.
Or, in the final chapter, statements of real significance are not explaine; What specifically is the character of Cretan production “which ultimately led to such artists as El Greco” or Rublev? (194). By contrast, he gives us a very helpful but rare rare stylistic feature in the elongated faces of the iconography of Theophanes the Greek.
We do, helpfully, get an explanation of compositional motifs, such as the Hodegetria or Anastasis, which emerged in the eighth century, as historically informed artistic developments which relate content to form.
Most of this book is filled with explanations of the content of particular, albeit important, works, with their historical context. There is more history than art, though the former is clearly and helpfully presented and, as the author has demonstrated, indispensable for thinking about Byzantine Art and art generally.
The author says for instance “it involves dating the [Joshua] roll around 970 to coincide with the imperial campaign, despite its style fitting better with the works up around 950” (96-97) but does not tell us the stylistic elements or devices which allow specialist to make that judgment.
This is a replaying of the opening chapter which compares the Dome mosaics of the Rotunda of St. George in Thessaloniki and the Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, where stylistic features are given no air, and the conceptual content of the work is described, without giving us the tools for mapping time and style.
This problem is present throughout. And we might produce dozens of examples.
“In the early Byzantine period there is a clear continuity of techniques between Fayum mummy painting and the early Sinai icons; but the character of the portrait, especially noticeable in the treatment of the gaze, and the functions of the imagery, has radically changed.” (119) but how does it change? We are not told.
Or, in the final chapter, statements of real significance are not explaine; What specifically is the character of Cretan production “which ultimately led to such artists as El Greco” or Rublev? (194). By contrast, he gives us a very helpful but rare rare stylistic feature in the elongated faces of the iconography of Theophanes the Greek.
We do, helpfully, get an explanation of compositional motifs, such as the Hodegetria or Anastasis, which emerged in the eighth century, as historically informed artistic developments which relate content to form.
Most of this book is filled with explanations of the content of particular, albeit important, works, with their historical context. There is more history than art, though the former is clearly and helpfully presented and, as the author has demonstrated, indispensable for thinking about Byzantine Art and art generally.
October 1, 2019
A very clear outline of the art history of Byzantium, placing both individual items and the process of development within the context of historical change and the circumstances of individual commissions. A perfect companion to Gervase Mathews' Byzantine Aesthetics.
May 9, 2022
A first rate history of Byzantine with gorgeous illustrations. Leads you intelligently from Late Antique to 1453 showing how Byzantine art is not as unchanging or monolithic as is sometimes said.
June 30, 2023
Lepsza merytorycznie Leslie Brubacker „Inventing Iconoclasm”. Ale Cormack ma dobrze podpisane zdjęcia i są kolorowe!
March 5, 2015
A great reader on one of my all-time favourite types of art. Now of course it has whetted my appetite even further to visit and see many of these artworks in situ - not least the cave church in Cappadocia. One day...
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July 9, 2012Did not finish this text book.
March 27, 2016
A detailed analysis of Byzantine art showing how the political and religious upheavals resulted in a wide range of styles.
April 4, 2017
I've not read much in art history so found the book over all fascinating. Good background information for those who want to know more about the history of iconography and its place in Orthodox history.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews