Byzantine Art Timeline

Minor arts were exceptionally important in Byzantine culture. Ivories, caskets, hardstone carvings, enamels, glass, jewelry, metalwork, and figured silks were produced in large quantities, often continuing and adapting late Roman practices.

Image source: Byzantine art

The reign of Justinian saw major imperial patronage and the production of monumental religious and imperial art. Byzantine art frequently combined these themes, including depictions of emperors within churches.

Image source: Justinian I

Byzantine silk production began after silkworms were imported from China in the late sixth century. Figured silks became part of the luxury arts produced in large quantities throughout the Byzantine era.

After the Age of Justinian, the empire underwent political decline. Many of Justinian's conquests were lost during crises involving the Avars, Slavs, Persians, and Arabs, affecting the conditions for artistic patronage.

As the empire's military situation improved in the ninth and tenth centuries, patronage of art and architecture increased. This revival supported renewed production of churches, images, manuscripts, and luxury objects.

Image source: Macedonian Renaissance

The Macedonian emperors presided over a period of increased artistic and architectural patronage. Their era is associated with the renewed vitality of Byzantine cultural production.

Image source: Macedonian dynasty

Byzantium suffered severe dislocation after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 and the subsequent loss of Asia Minor to the Turks. The political crisis shaped the conditions under which later Byzantine art developed.

Image source: Battle of Manzikert

The Komnenian dynasty began with the reign of Alexios I Komnenos in 1081. The Komnenoi brought stability to the empire and supported a major twelfth-century recovery in political and artistic life.

Image source: Komnenos

Between 1081 and 1185, energetic Komnenian campaigning restored much of the empire's fortunes after earlier crises. The resulting stability encouraged continued Byzantine artistic and architectural production.

The sack of Constantinople by Venetian and French knights of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 created a profound crisis for Byzantine political and cultural traditions. The disaster marked the beginning of the conventionally defined Late period of Byzantine art.

Image source: Sack of Constantinople

During the half-century of Byzantine exile after the sack of Constantinople, the last great flowering of Anatolian Hellenism began. This period preserved and developed Byzantine cultural traditions outside the occupied capital.

Image source: Empire of Nicaea

The Byzantines regained Constantinople in 1261 after their period of exile. Although the empire recovered its capital, it returned as a severely weakened state confined largely to the Greek peninsula and Aegean islands.

Image source: Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologos dynasty

The Late Byzantine period ended with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. This event also marked the conventional end of the Byzantine era properly defined.

Image source: Fall of Constantinople

Venice's Basilica of St. Mark, begun in 1063, was based on the great Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. Its design demonstrates the transmission of Byzantine architectural forms beyond the empire.

Image source: St Mark's Basilica

Venice came to control Byzantine Crete by 1212. The island later became an important setting for the continuation and transformation of Byzantine artistic traditions under Western influence.

Image source: Kingdom of Candia

Byzantine artistic influence on Europe was in steep decline by the fourteenth century, if not earlier. Byzantine scholars who migrated west nevertheless continued to play an important role in other areas of Renaissance culture.

The decline and fall of the Byzantine Empire, together with long-standing cultural and commercial ties with Italian city-states such as Venice and Florence, contributed to the migration of Byzantine scholars to Italy. Their influence remained important during the Renaissance.

Image source: Greek scholars in the Renaissance

In Venetian-ruled Crete and Rhodes, Byzantine traditions in icon painting survived under increasing Western influence. The Cretan School became the most vigorous post-Byzantine school and exported many icons to Europe, including works connected with El Greco.

After the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans, Russia became the center of the Orthodox world. Byzantine cultural heritage had already spread widely to Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, and Russia through Orthodox Christianity.

Image source: Succession of the Roman Empire

After Constantinople fell in 1453, art produced by Eastern Orthodox Christians living in the Ottoman Empire was often called post-Byzantine. Icon painting and church architecture preserved major Byzantine traditions.

The term Neo-Byzantine came to describe art and architecture from the nineteenth century onward. The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire encouraged renewed appreciation of Byzantium among artists and historians.

Image source: Neo-Byzantine architecture

Eastern Orthodox churches have remained protective of Byzantine traditions in the form and content of images. Modern Orthodox depictions of the Nativity of Christ, for example, vary little in content from those developed in the sixth century.

Image source: Eastern Orthodox Church