AP Art History - Late Antiquity

welcome to unit 3. this will be early europe and the colonial americas we're going to start in late antiquity and we're going to go all the way to the baroque era which is around 1600. so late antiquity is this sort of transition period between the latter half of the roman empire and the inception of christianity so it's kind of this this transition period between these two radically different europes so in the first century ce christianity is founded by jesus christ who we'll talk about in a moment and starting from around 100 to 300 ce we're

starting to see christianity spreading from its point of origin over in the area by jerusalem and then spreading across western europe through missionary work so missionaries are people that basically spread religion outward from a single point of origin so um there was also christianity happening in rome proper um through underground churches but they had to be very careful early christians were heavily persecuted by the romans and had to do all this work in secret so for a long period of its early history christianity was quite literally an underground religion so um one of the things

that christianity uses very frequently is narrative art so these are artworks that tell a story and oftentimes narrative art is telling these events described in the bible usually the new testament and it's also depicting these biblical figures largely in their own image so the historical figure of jesus christ probably looked like this he was brown however when we look at a lot of images in the united states of jesus christ or at least kind of in more of the like western european world we oftentimes see him as this like um brown-haired blue-eyed very light-skinned dude

and this is very much kind of like this this visual culture around jesus that is that he's portrayed in such a way that he is identifiable to the people who are following him so when you go to certain parts of africa for example you'll see jesus with afro-textured hair and dark skin so that's why that happens and we're going to be talking about that a little bit more later how jesus is depicted at various times in different places so around 310 ce we see emperor constantine founding the city of constantinople which was before that byzantium

and is now istanbul and basically laid the groundwork for christianity christianity becoming the primary state religion so we're going to be talking about the byzantine empire next class so i just wanted to provide some maps to give you a sense of what is happening in western europe during the late antique period so around 125 ce the roman empire is still pretty vast and extensive this is only a couple of years after trajan's absolute coverage of most of the ancient mediterranean through in the roman empire and then after that it's starting to become smaller so christianity

is originating right around here and then it's spreading outward the roman empire is starting to shrink a little bit more especially in the holy lands and then we're also seeing it pop up in western europe here as well and then the roman empire is shrinking even further and then by around 400 a.d the byzantine empire has been established um with its center in constantinople which is modern-day istanbul and turkey and christianity has very much kind of replaced and even expanded upon the territories that originally held under the roman empire so there's a couple of things

that students are required to understand and know as they pertain to the ap curriculum as a disclaimer this course is non-denominational i personally do not subscribe to any religion or theological belief myself but the way that the ap curriculum is structured really heavily favors christian artworks um so it's helpful to know certain um events that are described in the bible specifically um events that are in the new testament that pertain to jesus's life so um for those of you who don't know jesus christ who was basically like the founder of christianity was um regarding the

bible as the son of god born to mary and joseph so the story of jesus actually begins before his birth when mary is like chilling out and doing stuff and this angel appears out of nowhere his name is gabriel and he basically says uh you're going to be pregnant with the son of god and she's like okay let it be with me i consent to this so this is oftentimes referred to as the enunciation so you see this event depicted a lot in art you oftentimes just see mary like chilling out usually she's reading or

she's doing something else and then there's like an angel just like in her house and there's obviously a conversation happening between them so shortly after this mary and her cousin elizabeth celebrate their pet pregnancies in this event that's known as the visitation so elizabeth is pregnant with saint john john the baptist who will come up later so the nativity or christmas is this event where jesus is born in bethlehem you might recall a lot of these nativity scenes that you might have done in bible school or elementary school basically joseph and mary are walking around

like trying to find a place to have their baby and they end up having him in a barn so um scenes with mary and the baby jesus are frequently referred to as virgin and child images or the madonna and child image we'll be seeing a lot of those as well so shortly after this we have these three kings that are giving gifts to baby jesus and basically doting over him basically they see the star appear in the sky and they're like oh a new king has been born so they go and they give him all

sorts of fun stuff like spices and aromatics so this is something that's oftentimes called the adoration of the magi so skip forward a few years we have saint john the baptist baptizing jesus in the jordan river being the first person to be baptized and then jesus starts gathering followers this is oftentimes referred to as the calling of the apostles then jesus is going around and performing miracles he is making blind men see again he's turning two loaves and a couple of fish into enough food for 500 people he is raising the dead so he's doing

all this stuff that's basically convincing people like this dude is powerful um and we should probably listen to him so skip forward a little bit more um of course with attention comes resentment um and plotting obviously the romans are like this guy is undermining our power we should get rid of him so we have the betrayal of judas so jesus senses his death and gives saint peter the keys to heaven and establishes him as the first pope so this is oftentimes called giving the key so whenever you say see saint peter in imagery he's oftentimes

holding keys and that's why so jesus then transfigures himself into god before his apostles and he's like surprise i'm the son of god um and then we see jesus basically entering jerusalem greeted by palm fronds this event is oftentimes called palm sunday and then he shares um his last meal with his apostles um and basically says one of you is going to betray me and all of the apostles except for judas are like um i don't know who this is so this is oftentimes called the last supper after this point jesus is sentenced to death

tortured and executed by being nailed to a cross this is called the crucifixion fun fact crucifixion was a method of punishment used by the romans even before this it's particularly grisly and horrible so um jesus is then removed from the cross mourned cleaned and buried this is called the lamentation and the deposition the deposition specifically refers to the removal of jesus's body from the cross there's lots of images um as well of mary holding jesus's lifeless body oftentimes in mourning these are called pieta we'll see a lot of these in art history as well um

so after a period of three days after jesus is entered he rises from the dead this is called the resurrection and then he goes to heaven which is called the ascension so all of the items that are highlighted will come up in ap artworks so i suggest that you understand these but i've included other things in between just to give you a sense of what's happening between these times to help you make sense of this if you are not already familiar with um the new testament of the bible so just to reiterate like i really

don't have any religious denomination associated with my upbringing this is the only exposure to christianity i had as a child the beginner's bible which i read like basically all the other story books in my library um veggie tales which i didn't under which i didn't realize was religious until i was a teenager and i was very shocked and then the prince of egypt one of my favorite movies which is usually affiliated with judaism so um i have a very simplified and like bare bones perception of christianity it is not intended to be offensive um or

overly simplistic i'm kind of learning along with everybody in a lot of cases when it comes to christianity so please bear with me so our first ap artwork of unit 3 is the catacomb of priscilla so i mentioned previously that the ancient christians basically had to operate in secret because they were being persecuted by the romans so they were even what was so interesting is that the christians were even spreading christianity and these beliefs within the capital of the roman empire which is of course rome and they were doing it underground in these areas called

the catacombs so the catacombs were this series of tunnels and kind of underground pathways underneath the city of rome that span for over a hundred miles so people don't really go down there unless they are burying someone so it was the perfect hiding place and it was a perfect place to set up these first kind of underground churches so the catacombs contained the tombs of several popes particularly the early popes as well as christian martyrs so oftentimes you'll see churches and chapels erected in places where christians were martyred so that means that they were killed

for being christian or they died for their beliefs in some way and it's basically designated as a holy site and there's a church built there usually to honor them so the poor were placed in lokili which are these simple niches oftentimes you'll find the remains of several people in just one or one niche while the richer christians were buried in cubicula or mortuary taples in these very ornate sarcophagi that are very similar to the ones that we saw at the tail end of the roman empire so this is the greek chapel right here one of

the things that you'll immediately notice about the greek chapel is the painting on the wall it is very very similar to the paintings that we know of that were found in the city of pompeii so it's this pompeian style where there's lots of reds and yellows that are being used oftentimes there's these alternating motifs of squares and rectangles and then in some areas you have kind of like more narrative paintings that are describing a particular event it's kind of difficult to perceive in this image but the painting is not super refined when we look at

the house of fawn or we look at the house of the vetti for example which are two houses in pompeii it is very obvious to art historians that the people who created these murals had access to lots of wealth because the paintings are very high quality however the underground christian religion was not particularly wealthy um so they had to kind of rely on what they had you also have to imagine that there's not a lot of natural light down here so it's going to be a little bit more difficult to paint so it's um not

as high of a quality something that you might have been um you might have seen an ancient like an ancient roman house of a rich person so this is suggesting that the resources are limited so inside the greek chapel it's called the greek chapel because the inscriptions on the wall are in greek so this was the like quote-unquote street language of rome um not too many people in rome proper actually spoke latin that was mostly a language that was spoken by the um aristocrats and members of the ruling class whereas greek was a lot more

common and widespread so these are some examples of early christian sarcophagi you'll notice that they're very similar in form to the ludovisi battle sarcophagus that we saw last unit right here where we have these figures that are grouped in large numbers tightly packed together oftentimes the proportions are not entirely naturalized so we're seeing a lot of these traditions from like the late roman empire carrying over into early christian art and if you're familiar with the new testament in particular in some parts of the old testament you can see some of these narratives playing out so

we have the adoration of the magi here here's mary and jesus and the three kings who are giving him stuff and then there's a couple of narratives down here of different events from the bible i think this is david and the lions and then we have adam and eve right here so there's a couple of other things within the catacombs priscilla that you should know this is the orance fresco which is so named for this figure who is in an orating position so he has his hands outstretched as if he's speaking so he's an orator

so this is located over a family tomb niche and it's painted to fit into the arch of the wall so this is very similar to the tympanum release sculptures um or not the temp the pediment relief sculptures that we're seeing in ancient greek and ancient roman artwork where the figures are kind of squeezed to fit into these dimensions here so the figure in the center is standing whereas the figures on the left and right are either sitting or their children so they're going to be smaller um and they're also painted in such a way that

they're in high contrast and they're standing out from the surface of the wall so um on the left we have a teacher with children and on the right we have a woman and her child this could possibly be mary and jesus but scholars are not entirely sure this is the good shepherd fresco right here so this was another fresco that was found in the catacombs of the priscilla here is one of those um loculi niches right here you can actually see the human remains you can see a couple of skulls and a femur or two

um so that a lot of the human remains are actually still there so this is the good shepherd fresco and it depicts christ in a more frugal pastoral setting as a shepherd so you've probably heard of this refrain like christ is the good shepherd so that's oftentimes referring to the fact that like he he thinks of his followers as a flock of sheep and that they sometimes wander a stray and then the shepherd kind of brings everybody back into the flock the story is depicted in loon nets so lunettes are these half moon shaped niches

that go around the central image and these oftentimes depict events from the old testament including jonah and the whale which i will talk about a little bit later so again we're seeing these elements of narratives that are being placed inside of these locations okay so there's going to be a lot of architecture vocabulary in this unit and i want to introduce it to you sooner rather than later but not completely overload you so we have two different church plans that we talk about um in this unit and then there's also like a hybrid of the

two that we'll talk about later when we get to ohio sofia so this is an axial plan so you've seen the word axial plan before i'm referring to items like the um temple of aminron hypocel hall so that basically is referring to there's one central axis going straight up and down and things are relatively symmetrical on both sides of the axis okay so here's the axis going this way so i have highlighted the words that you should definitely know for ap art history when it comes to church architecture vocabulary so the entrance of the church

is referred to as the narthex when you enter past the northx you get into the main body of the church this central column right here that leads to the apps is called the nave and then there's oftentimes two smaller columns that are flanking the nave and these are called isles or side aisles when we look at basilica plan churches that are early in the curriculum you will not see transepts as often but as we move forward in the history of christianity you start seeing churches incorporate transepts which are these um areas of the church that

are created to um manifest a more cruciform shape to the church you'll notice what's super convenient is that these churches are oftentimes shaped like a cross which is a um a motif that is heavily associated with christianity because of the crucifixion so oftentimes um the sermon is happening in this area right here oftentimes this is where the lectern and the pulpit are these are not particularly significant terms when it comes to art history um and then there is the apps which contains the altar so this is kind of like the terminal end of the church

right here so this is our next work this is santa sabina and this is an axially planned church but you'll notice that it does not have transepts there's kind of like these two areas right here that are kind of like vestigial transepts but they're not quite there um what you'll notice about santa sabina is that it's very long and resembles the basilica opia that we saw in the form of trajan so this was very intentional again a lot of motifs from the from ancient rome were carried over into early christian artwork in particular because like

why we reinvent the wheel if we don't have to so we see christians adapting the roman basilica this long hallway with side aisles as we see right here into this congregational building that is used for worship so this is an axia plan the nave is serving as the primary fixture of the building so that's again the central column right here what's interesting is that the columns that are between the nave and the side aisles you'll notice that the corinthian so these columns were actually stolen from the temple of juna which was in this particular location

uh prior to the construction of this church so they basically just took them and stuck them in the new building so this is this actually happens a lot where a group will come in and they'll see stuff from an old monument or like an old fixture and they'll be like it's free real estate right it's free real estate so they basically take those things from the old building and incorporate them into the new again why reinvent the wheel if we already have columns made right so this is called spoolia it's basically a fancy word meaning

recycling you'll notice that the roof of this building has a flat coffered ceiling so remember coffers are those little niches that are carved out to reduce the weight of the ceiling we saw them in the parthenon the walls of the basilica are also relatively thin they're just thick enough to support the weight of the roof this is a very moderately sized church they start off very small and then as we progress especially to the gothic era they get massive and it's at that point where we get cathedrals and the interiors are very dark and the

walls are very high but for the purposes of this kind of construction where you're not building very tall the walls don't need to be very thick so in terms of how congregation would happen basically the men were allowed to convene in the nave and then the women were relegated to the side aisles so congregations and worship were very often times segregated by gender