A Visit With the Byzantines

 Last Wednesday I paid another visit to the Cleveland Museum of Art.  It is fortunate I did, because on Friday the museum once again closed due to escalating Covid19 cases and a stay-at-home advisory in Cuyahoga County.

As on my previous two visits, I focused on just a few galleries rather than skimming through the entire museum.  I have always loved our art museum, but by taking my time to look at everything and read the descriptive information, I am gaining an even deeper appreciation for the depth and quality of our great museum.

I began my visit with the rooms devoted to the art of the Byzantine Empire.

In A.D. 330 the Roman emperor Constantine moved the capital from Rome to the Greek city of Byzantium located on the Bosporus Strait which separates Europe from Asia.  The city was renamed Constantinople in honor of the emperor.  (Today it is the Turkish city of Istanbul.)  By 395 the increasingly unstable empire was split into Western and Eastern halves.  By the late 5th century the Western Roman Empire had fallen to barbarian invaders.  The Eastern Roman Empire however lasted another 1000 years until Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.  It was only after its fall, that scholars began to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire as the Byzantine Empire... after the ancient city of Byzantium. 

The museum's collection of Byzantine treasures shows how the splendor of ancient Rome continued in the east for centuries after the Western Empire's fall.

This gold pendant, part of a necklace which may have belonged to an imperial family member, was made shortly before Constantine moved his capital to Byzantium.  In the center is a coin with Constantine's image and around it are mythological figures.

 These earrings, from the early Byzantine period, are made of gold, pearls and emeralds.

This silver wine pitcher would have graced the table of a wealthy family.

An entire case full of household objects is known as the Wade Silver Treasure (named for early museum benefactor Jeptha Wade).  They came from the home of a well-to-do family in what is now Syria.

The throve of silver includes this bowl with a beaded rim...

...a pitcher with a trefoil (three-part) spout...

...and an oil lamp with a horse's head handle and a lampstand.

These fragments of mosaic floors date from the 5th century and were found in northern Syria.

This fragment of a wall hanging from 5th century Egypt shows a sea nymph.

Before the empire had split in two, Christianity had become the official religion.  The church in the Byzantine Empire was headed by the Patriarch of Constantinople rather than the Pope in Rome, and evolved into the Eastern Orthodox Churches of today.  Many of the items in the collection are religious art.

This ivory plaque of the Virgin and Child comes from 10th century Constantinople.

This marble altar front may come from Ravenna, Italy.  The Byzantine Emperor Justinian the Great in the 6th century sought to restore the old empire.  He conquered the barbarian Ostrogoths and brought Italy under his control.  Ravenna became a provincial capital and was a center of Byzantine culture.

The silver liturgical vessels sitting on the top of the altar are most likely from Syria.  Such church treasures were often buried to hide them from the Arabs who invaded Syria in the 7th century.

This ivory and wood box from 10th century Constantinople is decorated with Old Testament scenes from the story of Adam and Eve.

These religious icons, done in tempera paint and gold on wooden panels, date from around 1450, just years before the last remnant of the Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottoman Turks.

From here our journey through art history will continue with the Dark Ages and Medieval periods of Western Europe.