Byzantine

The art of the Eastern Roman Empire, centred on Constantinople, from the sixth century to its fall in 1453, and the icon tradition it handed on to Russia, the Balkans and Crete. Its aim was not to imitate the visible world but to show the eternal one: saints and emperors stand frontal and still, with large eyes, against shimmering gold that stands for heaven, in mosaics such as those of Ravenna and Hagia Sophia and in painted icons on wood. Forms follow fixed types handed down from master to pupil, which is why a fifteenth-century Russian icon by Andrei Rublev and a Cretan icon of the 1500s still belong to it. This label also covers the post-Byzantine icons of Russia and Crete.

How to tell it apart: gold backgrounds, flat frontal figures with elongated faces and large eyes, inscriptions and no real perspective; Gothic painting, in the West, gives figures more movement and emotion.

244 works in the quiz. Play a round on Byzantine.

Artists

El Greco · Andrei Rublev · Cimabue · Theophanes the Greek · Russian icons · Byzantine art · Dionisius · Simon Ushakov

Best-known works

“Trinity icon” — Andrei Rublev, 1412
“Theotokos of Vladimir” — Russian icons, 1125
“Black Madonna of Częstochowa” — Byzantine art, 1382
“Our Lady of the Don” — Theophanes the Greek, 1382
“Our Lady of Kazan” — Byzantine art, 1572
“Christ Pantocrator (Sinai)” — Byzantine art
“Our Lady of Perpetual Help” — Byzantine art
“Theotokos Fyodorovskaya” — Byzantine art, 1239
“Blachernitissa” — Byzantine art
“The Angel with Golden Hair” — Russian icons
“Zvenigorodskiy chin” — Andrei Rublev, 1420s
“Barberini ivory” — Byzantine art, 525 AD
“The Mocking of Christ” — Cimabue, 1280
“Ustyug Annunciation” — Byzantine art, 1130s
“Theotokos of Bogolyubovo” — Byzantine art, 1157
“Blessed Be the Host of the King of Heaven” — Byzantine art, 1550s
“Blessed Sky” — Byzantine art, 1682
“Nicopeia” — Byzantine art
“Our Lady of the Sign” — Byzantine art, 1100s
“Icon of the Virgin Mary Paramythia” — Byzantine art, 1300s
“Battle of the Novgorodians with the Suzdalians” — Russian icons
“The Archangel Michael (icon)” — Byzantine art, 1300
“The Saviour's Transfiguration” — Theophanes the Greek, 1403
“Bulgarian epigraphic monuments” — Byzantine art, 1200
“Khitrovo Gospels” — Russian icons, 1390s
“Vzyskanie pogibshih” — Byzantine art
“Mother of God.” — Byzantine art, 1147
“Cambrai Madonna” — Byzantine art, 1340s
“Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels and Prophets. ˋSanta Trinità Maestà´” — Cimabue, 1290–1300
“Umilenie-Psk-Petsch” — Byzantine art, 1520