Paleochristian art. It is the one developed by the first Christian civilizations and somewhat later, especially from the fourth century , will be the art protected and made by order of the ecclesiastical hierarchies. From a stylistic point of view, it is a Roman art of low antiquity. Therefore, it is not an original art, but it is the art that existed in the lower Roman Empire but that is adapting and transforming itself according to the needs that arise in the development of Christian worship.
Summary
[ hide ]
- 1 Stages
- 2 Extension
- 3 Christian Art in hiding. 3rd century
- 1 Architecture
- 1.1 Domus Ecclesiae
- 1.2 Cimeterios (cemeteries)
- 1.2.1 Areae
- 1.2.2 Catacombs
- 2 First Christian iconography
- 4 Early Christian Architecture after the Edict of Milan
- 1 Ecclesiastical architecture
- 5 Paleo-Christian Figurative Arts
- 1 Paleo-Christian mosaics
- 1.1 Mosaics of the Mausoleum of Santa Constanza
- 2 The Paleo-Christian Sarcophagi
- 1 Paleo-Christian mosaics
- 6 Source
- 1 Architecture
Stages
It comprises from the end of the 2nd century to the 6th century and can be divided into two major periods:
The end of the second and third centuries, years in which the Christian communities remained in semi-secrecy.
As of the year 313, date of the Edict of Milan , at which time the Christian Church was given freedom of worship , which was to become one of the great economic and political powers of the time.
Extension
The extension of early Christian art is very large, the same as that of the Roman Empire in this period. Its limits would reach, in the north, from the British Isles to the Crimean Peninsula ( Russia ); to the south, the Sahara desert ; to the west the Atlantic Ocean and to the east the Euphrates River .
Christian art in hiding. 3rd century
Architecture
Christian communities at the time of early Christian art needed two types of locations for their religious activities: domus ecclesiae and cimeterios
Domus Ecclesiae
It is the equivalent of a current parish. They did not have a special shape because normally a normal two-story Roman house was used, adapting it to the functions they needed by dividing it with partitions.
The domus ecclesiae used to have rooms for the celebration of the Eucharistic act, banquets, baptisms, others for the doctrinal formation of priests to catechumens or neophytes (not baptized), administrative rooms and even housing for the priest.
The room for the Eucharist used to have a large size and was divided into two parts by an arch or a door because the catechumens could not see but could hear the Consecration, so they had to retire to the second part of the room (catechumenate ) upon arrival of that part.
These parishes are interchangeably called Domus ecclesiae or Tituli. The two most important parishes that are preserved are the Titulus of San Martino al Monte (Rome) and the Titulus of Dura Europos (Syria).
Cimeterios (cemeteries)
In this period of Christian art and architecture there were two types of burial: the areae and the catacombs.
Areae
They are found in practically the entire Empire since it was the usual type of cemetery among Christians.
They were made up of tombs covered by slabs with the particularity that many graves had a table, or else, in the cemetery there was a room near the graves with these tables, due to the funerary meals that were celebrated after burial in the cemetery .
Other wealthier communities had, instead of an enclosed area, a colonnaded portico on one side of the cemetery where the tables were arranged.
More elaborate tombs were granted to certain people in the community, considered holier or more dignified, not only covered by slabs but by small architectural monuments that consisted of small quadrangular or trilobular burial mounds no more than 2 meters high called cellae.
Sometimes even these cellae were considered insufficient and higher circular buildings were built and covered by domes that are the beginning of the mausoleums. They had this shape because they were inspired by the heroa (small domed circular buildings that served to commemorate the events or death of a pagan hero).
Catacombs
The catacombs are only found in areas of soft rock: Rome , southern Italy (Naples and Sicily) and in North Africa .
Christians used to appropriate land near roads where they located their cemeteries after consecrating them.
In the persecutions that were made against the first Christians, the Romans used to loot these cemeteries. To avoid this, the Christians took refuge in an official Roman funeral institution called Collegia Salutaria, which provided society, among other things, with places to bury their dead. In this way the authorities could not go against their own institution and loot Christian tombs, so at a certain point they forbade this institution to cede lands to Christians.
Thus, when the ceded lands were filled with burials, the Christians were forced to drill underground galleries in those places to bury their dead. This system makes the closest to the surface not the most recent, as is often the case, but the oldest (the archaeological levels are reversed).
The name “catacomb” comes from the San Sebastián cemetery, near the Tiber River. To access it, you had to go down a slope until you reached a hollow (ad catacumba) and from there that name spread to other cemeteries, although there was no hollow.
The use of the catacombs lasted until the 4th and 5th centuries, long after the legalization of Christianity. The reason why they continued to be used at times when Christians could count on ample burial spaces without fear of persecution is because the faithful wanted to be buried near the early Christians, many of whom died as martyrs.
First Christian iconography
The first Christians used images of a symbolic nature to represent fundamental aspects of their doctrine.
The images in the domus or in the catacombs will not appear until the third century because Christianity, which is based on the Old Testament , is a doctrine that denies the image of divinity.
The iconographic emergence of the third century, which also appears in the same way in very distant places, was due to a unification of criteria due to the insistent request of Christian members that what is explained to them appear in images
Many of these members are Christian Romans who were used to religious scenes being performed.
There is a hypothesis by which this iconographic emergence of the third century took place as a reaction and fight against a rival religion that does use the image as a means of dissemination: Judaism .
This hypothesis is reaffirmed because the Dura Europos synagogue is full of images from the Old Testament, which after having carried out the carbon 14 test it has turned out that it is a little older, although almost contemporary, than the domus ecclesiae found in that city. .
But it is important to highlight that Christian iconography is not newly created, although the content is new. It collects the images of Roman art that had a moral content (the Romans had begun to worry about the afterlife and they begin to give representations of virtues, scenes of moral content, etc.) and sublimate them to a divine content.
Still, new images were also created to indoctrinate and explain Old Testament scenes and content.
At the beginning of Christian iconography, symbols are used mainly due to the tradition of prohibiting the descriptive image, but gradually the iconography will begin to become narrative. Some of the most important symbols are:
- The Good Shepherd: represents a male, young figure, dressed as a shepherd, who carries a lamb on his shoulders and, generally, with one hand holds the legs and with the other a jug of milk or something else related to livestock. Represents Christ the redeemer. It is not original, it comes from the Greek muscophore, which was the young man who carried the animals in the sacrifices, the bearer of the offerings. It is a symbol of worship. This image was taken by the Romans for one of their most beloved gods: the cryophore Hermes, who was the moral image of the protector god. This symbol occurred mainly in the 3rd century.
- The Philosopher Christ: is represented as a classical philosopher (short tunic, short hair and sandals), with a teaching attitude towards the masses (it gives a feeling of being close to the people). Always hold a book. The philosopher for Roman society was, by his training, close to divinity. It represents both Christ the philosopher and Christian doctrine as authentic philosophy. It is very common in the third century, especially in sarcophagi.
- The Fisherman Christ: is related to Baptism. It is the Christ who is weighing the souls (the fish) from the waters of baptism. It comes from a pagan moral symbol whose moral charge is unknown. Sometimes next to him there is a scene from the New Testament in which John, a large figure, places his hand on the head of Christ, a tiny figure, since it represents a child because the Liturgy of that time calls it “puer “, child, to the catechumen at the moment of baptism.
Sometimes a dove appears since in the Gospels it is said that at the moment when John was baptizing Jesus the heavens were opened and the Spirit of God fell in the form of a dove and a voice sounded saying “This is my Son well loved. ” It supposes a reaffirmation of the Holy Trinity.
- The agape or Eucharistic banquet: it is inspired by the type of Greco-Roman banquets (semicircular table, diners resting on divans, etc.). There are always dishes but not with bread but with fish, since the fish is an acrostic symbol of Christ.
- Souls in Paradise: it is the icon of the beyond. It is about the Good Shepherd surrounded by landscape and animals (heavenly garden). There are always goats, which represent the indomitable soul that managed to reform itself, and sheep, which symbolize the clean soul.
- The praying person: it is a figure with both hands up. It comes from pagan iconography, in which it represented piety. In Christianity it appears converted into the soul that gives thanks to God (of praise) or the suppliant soul, it depends on the context.
Paleo-Christian architecture after the Edict of Milan
The year 311 was an especially significant date to explain the change that was to take place in Christian art, from a typical art of poor and semi-clandestine communities to a monumental and rich art.
On this date the first edict of tolerance was promulgated, the Edict of Valerius Augustus, although the Edict of Milan , of the year 313, of the same tolerant character that allows Christian worship without any kind of restrictions , will have more importance .
Both were promulgated by the Emperor Augustus Valerius, but when the Emperor Constantine acceded to the throne there is a change, if possible, more favorable for the Christian church since a large part of the Constantine family is going to convert to Christianity and even speculates on whether the emperor himself had been converted at the end of his life
This process of dignification of Christianity culminates in the year 380 when Emperor Theodosius proclaims the Christian Church as the official church of the Empire.
As of the year 313, the high dignitaries of the Church will gradually become authorities of the Empire. In this way, the ecclesiastical hierarchies will come to occupy important positions in the public administration and the Christian Church gradually becomes an institution of power closely linked to the emperor and the imperial administration.
As a consequence, the Christian liturgy began to adopt characteristic elements of the imperial protocol. It is going to be solemnized and, consequently, it is going to need a new artistic vocabulary that equates Christian buildings with the great public buildings, palaces and temples of Roman society.
In this new stage, Christian art is financed by the high clergy and by the patrician classes and even by the emperors themselves. As a consequence of this high economic power, we find an art with a tendency to very considerable luxury and made, therefore, with especially expensive noble materials.
The main manifestations of this art are going to be two: the ecclesiastical architecture and the monumental painting that is going to be reflected through the mosaics (musivaria, the art of mosaics).
Ecclesiastical Architecture
The main problem facing the Church at the moment is to find an architectural model to carry out its liturgical celebrations with all pomp.
Obviously it has many types of buildings around it that can inspire them, such as the Roman temples themselves, but this idea is soon discarded due, on the one hand, to purely religious approaches (reminiscences of unwanted pagan religions …) and on the other hand because in the Roman temples do not enter the crowd, but in Christian celebrations they do.
Thus, everything seems to indicate that they are inspired by the basilica, a rectangular building divided into naves by columns that used to have a raised head with respect to the rest finished off in an exedra.
Paleo-Christian Figurative Arts
Apart from architecture, early Christian art has two of its most important artistic manifestations in mosaics and funerary sculpture of tombs.
Paleo-Christian mosaics
Mosaics of the Mausoleum of Santa Constanza
The oldest surviving mosaic decoration is that found in the annular vault of the Constantine mausoleum from the second half of the 4th century.
It is a decoration of branches (allegory of the Eucharist) presided over by the bust of Constantine. In the four spandrels there are scenes related to the vintage. It is fully Christian for the symbolism of the branches, for the birds that appear immersed between them, which symbolize the soul, and for the vintage scenes, which represent autumn and the seasonal rhythm that represents eternity.
The Paleo-Christian Sarcophagi
In contrast to the sarcophagi of the third century that only offered specific aspects of Christian doctrine, in those of the fourth, fifth and even sixth centuries it is observed that the sarcophagus tries to summarize the basic principles of Christian doctrine in its entirety. Sarcophagi are read from left to right, and if they have two records, the top record is read first and then the bottom one.
