Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

902 30. the visual arts
of Justinian, or even to more than a century later. The sixth century
remains the most likely. On the whole, the production of mosaic pavements
was given up in the sixth century, and marble or tiled floors succeeded
them. 36
Similarly, the ivory production of this period has encouraged more
debate about chronologies than interpretations. 37 The series of consular
diptychs (up to 540), those of the fifth century mostly from Rome and of
the sixth century mostly from Constantinople, were produced within a
political framework but influenced the production of Christian imagery,
and were objects which soon passed into the hands of the church, recycled
in several ways.
iii. ‘the age of justinian’
The fifth century established the nature of early Christian church art.
Although historians of iconoclasm have sought to find traces of opposition
to the proliferation of images in this period, and no doubt there were
critical eyes and attitudes, yet it is best seen as a period of amazing artistic
enterprise, particularly in the developing east. 38 Constantinople was no
doubt jerry-built in its original growing stage, but the gradual acceptance
of the permanence of the city as a capital meant the expansion and elaboration
of the arts. Architectural sculpture flourished with the continued
exploitation of the Proconnesian quarries, and it has even been suggested
that the effects of polished marble revetments in the churches, with the hint
of natural pictorial images trapped inside the stone, influenced the aesthetic
of this period and encouraged imaginative abstraction. 39
The key church type during the fifth century was the wooden-roofed
basilica, but by a century later the domed church was emerging as the prestige
form of ecclesiastical architecture, and this development must have
caused churchmen to think even more about the appropriate kind of
imagery for interior spaces of this kind. The development of a new architecture,
often sponsored by the emperor, resulted in such striking buildings
as Sts Sergius and Bacchus (around 530) and St Sophia (532–7), and these
influenced other buildings, such as the throne room of the Chrysotriklinos
in the Great Palace or, further afield, San Vitale at Ravenna. Equally grand
was the church of S. Polyeuktos at Constantinople, built in the 520s (but by
the twelfth century in ruins). Its patron, Anicia Juliana (who earlier had
commissioned the grand Dioscorides manuscript), proclaimed her imperial
descent in a poem sculpted on the walls of the church. The ostentatious
sculpture and (probable) domed plan might again be seen as an
36 Maguire (1990). 37 Volbach (1976) and Cutler (1985). 38 Murray (1977).
39 The extreme statement is by Onians (1980).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008