The Art of the Early Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the last vestige of the Roman Empire, now with the eastern city of Constantinople as its capital. However, what distinguished the Byzantine from the former Roman Empire was its embrace of Christianity and the blurred line between religious and political authority to which its artworks amply testify. This course takes a look at how Christian symbolism mingles with the political and economic realities of the day and how the language of power coalesced into what would become standard iconographies for both Eastern and Western Christian art for centuries to come.