page_title: Early Christian art and architecture
section_title: Christian art after 313
hierarchical_section_title: Early Christian art and architecture / Christian art after 313
caption_attribution_description: Plate of a golden set with Christian themes (Saint Peter, Virgin Mary in orant pose, Saint Paul). Probably from a catacomb in Rome, 4th CE. Catalog II collection Wolf n° 66. On display at the Landesmuseum Württemberg.
context_page_description: Early Christian art and architecture or Paleochristian art is the art produced by Christians or under Christian patronage from the earliest period of Christianity to, depending on the definition used, sometime between 260 and 525. In practice, identifiably Christian art only survives from the 2nd century onwards. After 550 at the latest, Christian art is classified as Byzantine, or of some other regional type.
  It is hard to know when distinctly Christian art began. Prior to 100, Christians may have been constrained by their position as a persecuted group from producing durable works of art. Since Christianity was largely a religion of the lower classes in this period, the lack of surviving art may reflect a lack of funds for patronage, and simply small numbers of followers. The Old Testament restrictions against the production of graven images may also have constrained Christians from producing art. Christians may have made or purchased art with pagan iconography, but given it Christian meanings, as they later did. If this happened, "Christian" art would not be immediately recognizable as such.
  Early Christianity used the same artistic media as the surrounding pagan culture.
context_section_description: With the final legalization of Christianity, the existing styles of Christian art continued to develop, and take on a more monumental and iconic character.  Before long very large Christian churches began to be constructed, and the majority of the rich elite adapted Christianity, and public and elite Christian art became grander to suit the new spaces and clients.
  Although borrowings of motifs such as the Virgin and Child from pagan religious art had been pointed out as far back as the Protestant Reformation, when John Calvin and his followers gleefully used them as a stick with which to beat all Christian art, the belief of André Grabar, Andreas Alföldi, Ernst Kantorowicz and other early 20th-century art historians that Roman Imperial imagery was a much more significant influence "has become universally accepted".  A book by Thomas F. Mathews in 1994 attempted to overturn this thesis, very largely denying influence from Imperial iconography in favour of a range of other secular and religious influence, but was roughly handled by academic reviewers.
  More complex and expensive works are seen, as the wealthy gradually converted, and more theological complexity appears, as Christianity became subject to acrimonious doctrinal disputes. At the same time a very different type of art is found in the new public churches that were now being constructed.  Somewhat by accident, the best group of survivals of these is from Rome where, together with Constantinople and Jerusalem, they were presumably at their most magnificent. Mosaic now becomes important; fortunately this survives far better than fresco, although it is vulnerable to well-meaning restoration and repair. It seems to have been an innovation of early Christian churches to put mosaics on the wall and use them for sacred subjects; previously, the technique had essentially been used for floors and walls in gardens. By the end of the period the style of gold background had developed that continued to characterize Byzantine images, and many Early Medieval Western ones.
  With more space, narrative images containing many people develop in churches, and also begin to be seen in later catacomb paintings. Continuous rows of biblical scenes appear (rather high up) along the side walls of churches. The best-preserved 5th-century examples are the set of Old Testament scenes along the nave walls of  Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.  These can be compared to the paintings of Dura-Europos, and probably also derive from a lost tradition of both Jewish and Christian illustrated manuscripts, as well as more general Roman precedents. The large apses contain images in an iconic style, which gradually developed to centre on a large figure, or later just the bust, of Christ, or later of the Virgin Mary. The earliest apses show a range of compositions that are new symbolic images of the Christian life and the Church.
  No panel paintings, or "icons" from before the 6th century have survived in anything like an original condition, but they were clearly produced, and becoming more important throughout this period.
  Sculpture, all much smaller than lifesize, has survived in better quantities.  The most famous of a considerable number of surviving early Christian sarcophagi are perhaps the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus and Dogmatic sarcophagus of the 4th century. A number of ivory carvings have survived, including the complex late-5th-century Brescia Casket, probably a product of Saint Ambrose's episcopate in Milan, then the seat of the Imperial court, and the 6th-century Throne of Maximian from the Byzantine Italian capital of Ravenna. 
  Manuscripts
  Quedlinburg Itala fragment – 5th-century Old Testament
  Vienna Genesis
  Rossano Gospels
  Cotton Genesis
  Late Antique mosaics in Italy and Early Byzantine mosaics in the Middle East.
caption: Gold glass from the catacombs, with Saint Peter, Virgin Mary in orant pose, Saint Paul, 4th century
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