Theodora and
attendants, mosaic on
the south wall of the apse,
San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy,
ca. 547
The figures in the Theodora mosaic exhibit the same stylistic
traits as those in the Justinian mosaic, but the artist
represented the women within a definite architecture,
perhaps the atrium of San Vitale. The empress stands in state
beneath an imperial canopy, waiting to follow the emperor’s
procession. An attendant beckons her to pass through the
curtained doorway. The fact she is outside the sanctuary in a
courtyard with a fountain and only about to enter attests
that, in the ceremonial protocol, her rank was not quite
equal to her consort’s. But the very presence of Theodora at
San Vitale is significant. She, like many other Byzantine
empresses , wielded enormous influence in the Byzantine
state. Of humble origin, Theodora, who was 15 years younger
than Justinian, initially attracted his attention because of her
beauty, but she soon became his most trusted adviser. John
the Lydian, a civil servant at Constantinople at the time,
described her as “surpassing in intelligence all men who ever
lived.” For example, during the Nika revolt in Constantinople
in 532, when all of her husband’s ministers counseled flight
from the city, Theodora, by the sheer force of her personality,
persuaded Justinian and his generals to hold their ground—
and they succeeded in suppressing the uprising. In the
mosaic, the artist underscored Theodora’s elevated rank by
decorating the border of her garment with a representation
of the three magi, suggesting the empress belongs in the
company of the three monarchs bearing gifts who
approached the newborn Jesus.
Justinian, Bishop
Maximianus, and attendants,
mosaic on the north wall
of the apse, San Vitale,
Ravenna, Italy, ca. 547.
The artist divided the figures into three
groups: the emperor and his staff; the
clergy; and the imperial guard, bearing a
shield with the chi-rho-iota ( ) monogram of
Christ. Each group has a leader whose feet
precede (by one foot overlapping) the feet
of those who follow. The positions of
Justinian and Maximianus are curiously
ambiguous. Although the emperor appears
to be slightly behind the bishop, the golden
paten (large shallow bowl or plate for the
Eucharist bread) he carries overlaps the
bishop’s arm. Thus, symbolized by place
and gesture, the imperial and churchly
powers are in balance. The emperor’s
paten, the bishop’s cross, and the
attendant clerics’ book and censer produce
a slow forward movement that strikingly
modifies the scene’s rigid formality. The
artist placed nothing in the background,
wishing the observer to understand the
procession as taking place in this very
sanctuary. Thus, the emperor appears
forever as a participant in the sacred rites
and as the proprietor of this royal church
and the ruler of the Western Empire.
The procession at San Vitale recalls but contrasts with that of Augustus and his
entourage on the Ara Pacis, built more than a half millennium earlier in Rome. There,
the fully modelled marble figures have their feet planted firmly on the ground.
Romans talk among themselves, unaware of the viewer’s presence. All is anecdote, all
very human and of this world, even if the figures themselves conform to a classical
ideal of beauty that cannot be achieved in reality. The frontal figures of the Byzantine
mosaic hover before viewers, weightless and speechless, their positions in space
uncertain. Tall, spare, angular, and elegant, they have lost the rather squat proportions
characteristic of much Early Christian figural art. The garments fall straight, stiff, and
thin from the narrow shoulders. The organic body has dematerialized, and, except for
the heads, some of which seem to be true portraits, viewers see a procession of
solemn spirits gliding silently in the presence of the sacrament. Indeed, the theological
basis for this approach to representation was the idea that the divine was invisible and
that the purpose of religious art was to stimulate spiritual seeing. Theodulf of Orleans
summed up this idea around 790: “God is beheld not with the eyes of the flesh but
only with the eye of the mind.”6 The mosaics of San Vitale reveal this new Byzantine
aesthetic, one very different from that of the classical world but equally compelling.
Byzantine art disparages matter and material values. It is an art in which blue sky has
given way to heavenly gold, an art without solid bodies or cast shadows, and with the
perspective of Paradise, which is nowhere and everywhere.
Mausoleum of Galla
Placidia, Ravenna, Italy,
ca. 425
The so-calledMau soleum of Galla Placidia,
Honorius’s half-sister, is a rather small cruciform
(cross-shaped) structure with barrel-vaulted
arms and a tower at the crossing. Built shortly
after 425, almost a quarter century before Galla
Placidia’s death in 450, it was probably originally
a chapel to the martyred Saint Lawrence. The
building was once thought to be Galla Placidia’s
tomb, however, hence its name today. The chapel
adjoined the narthex of the now greatly altered
palace-church of Santa Croce (Holy Cross), which
was also cruciform in plan. The chapel’s cross
arms are of unequal length, so that the building
has a longitudinal orientation, unlike the centrally
planned Santa Costanza), but because all four
arms are very short, the emphasis is on the tall
crossing tower with its vault resembling a dome.
This small, unassuming building thus represents
one of the earliest successful fusions of the two
basic Late Antique plans the longitudinal, used
for basilican churches, and the central, used
primarily for baptisteries and mausoleums. It
introduced, on a small scale, a building type that
was to have a long history in church architecture:
the longitudinally planned building with a vaulted
or domed crossing.
Khafre enthroned, from
Gizeh, Egypt, Fourth
Dynasty,ca. 2520–2494 bce.
Diorite, 5′ 6″ high
The seated statue of Khafre is one of a series of similar statues carved for
the pharaoh’s valley temple near the Great Sphinx. The stone is diorite, an
exceptionally hard dark stone brought some 400 miles down the Nile from
royal quarries in the south. (The Neo-Sumerian ruler Gudea so admired
diorite that he imported it to faraway Girsu.) Khafre wears a simple kilt and
sits rigidly upright on a throne formed of two stylized lions’ bodies.
Intertwined lotus and papyrus plants—symbolic of the unitedEgypt—
appear between the throne’s legs. The falcon-god Horus extends his
protective wings to shelter the pharaoh’s head. Khafre has the royal false
beard fastened to his chin and wears the royal linen nemes headdress with
the uraeus cobra of kingship on the front. The headdress covers his
forehead and falls in pleated folds over his shoulders. (The head of the
Great Sphinx is similarly attired.) As befitting a divine ruler, the sculptor
portrayed Khafre with a well-developed, flawless body and a perfect face,
regardless of his real age and appearance. Because Egyptians considered
ideal proportions appropriate for representing their god-kings, the statue of
Khafre is not a true likeness and was not intended to be. The purpose of
pharaonic portraiture was not to record individual features or the
distinctive shapes of bodies, but rather to proclaim the divine nature of
Egyptian kingship. The enthroned Khafre radiates serenity.The sculptor
created this effect, common to Egyptian royal statues , in part by giving the
figure great compactness and solidity, with few projecting, breakable parts.
The form manifests the purpose: to last for eternity. Khafre’s body is one
with the unarticulated slab that forms the back of the king’s throne. His
arms follow the bend of his body and rest on his thighs, and his legs are
close together. Part of the original stone block still connects the king’s legs
to his chair. Khafre’s pose is frontal, rigid, and bilaterally symmetrical (the
same on either side of an axis, in this case the vertical axis). The sculptor
suppressed all movement and with it the notion of time, creating an aura of
eternal stillness.