Reply To: Artistic Conventions

[Jessi Willeto]

The shift from realism to the sort of abstract art that they did during the Byzantine era mostly came out of the intense symbolism that the Christians and Jews wanted to incorporate into their artwork. As they were not meant to worship any icons or graven images, it would be inappropriate if they focused on getting the anatomical detail of the images portrayed rather than the narrative and symbolism. Also, as iconoclasm was going on, they simply did not have the time to focus on perfecting anatomical detail, as they had to do art in secret or in hiding. I think since there was no time for perfection it created a style unique to Byzantium in which soon became the root of medieval styles.