CHRISTIAN IMAGES: ROMAN ART

Artistic production has been important to Christianity--in both positive and negative ways--since the movement first spread out from its Galilean roots into the Roman Empire.  Christianity had a talent for adapting its cultural expression to the dominant artistic idiom; this makes sense, of course, since Christianity perceived itself as a "universal religion," not bound by ethnic or cultural particularity.

Some of our earliest Christian art comes from the winding passages and chambers under Rome known as the catacombs.  These were burial chambers underneath the city, and were often decorated with meaningful scenes from life and afterlife.  A common image was that of Jesus as the "good shepherd," guiding souls into a peaceful afterlife:

While the image of Christ as "good shepherd" has a foundation in the Gospel of John, the visual cue of "good shepherd"--carrying his lost sheep over his shoulders--was a common image of the Roman god Mercury, who carried souls to the underworld after death.  While part of the explanation for this overlap of visual imagery may be practical (that is, the professional wall painters employed a set palate of images from which Christian mourners had to choose), there is also a sense of integrating "known" cultural signs into a new, universal system of belief.

The interiors of churches, from antiquity in the Middle Ages, provided the most common and significant site for the elaboration of Christian art.  Images of Jesus, stories from the Bible, saints' lives, all served to imbue the sacred space of Christian worship with deep spiritual significance.

These complex mosaic images come from late antique churches (fifth through seventh centuries), and are meant to invoke the mystery, history, and materiality of Christian identity:

This scene of Jesus' baptism by John comes from a baptistery in the northern Italian city of Ravenna.  The baptismal font is located directly below this dome mosaic:  the Christian being baptized would be looking up at this paradigmatic moment of initiation.  Surrounding Jesus are the apostles, signifying the continuing history of Christian identity:  from Christ's baptism to the founding of churches around the world.  At left, a detail of the mosaic showing Jesus, John, and the Holy Spirit (in the form of a dove).

The walls of churches came alive with such delicate, light-filled images made of tiny pieces of glass. the mosaic was a complex, expensive, and impressive art form throughout the ancient Roman world. It was most often used as a form of decoration in the homes of the most wealthy Romans. By bringing the brilliance of the mosaic into the Christian church, the "house of God" was made as splendid as any Roman mansion.  This intersection of human value and divine worth sometimes allowed for less "saintly" figures to appear on the church walls, such as this image of the Emperor Justinian (also from the city of Ravenna):

Here the emperor Justinian is represented as approaching the altar of the church, accompanied by soldiers on his right and the bishop and priests on his left.  The intersection of material culture and spiritual piety also allowed for the integration of political and divine authority.

continue the slide show