Why did the Byzantines neglect statues? It's really bad

>>504785
> It's really bad for their image through contemporary eyes

They really didn't care

>>504785
Good relief sculptures are far, far harder to do than free standing ones. You've just been culturally conditioned to see one as a symbol of the glorious Roman Empire and the other as that of a degenerate Byzantine Empire superseded by glorious western European civilisation.

>>504800
Anyhow, statues were always a major motif in the ancient world so it's weird how they stopped doing it between the Renaissance. Is it really because of muh Idols?

>>504809

From what I hear, that's doubtful. Supposedly the reason why art became less realistic in late antiquity was due to the spiritual world being seen as more important than the physical. It wasn't important for the statues to look lifelike and features were exaggerated in order to draw attention to certain areas of the sculpture/mosaic/what have you.

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>>504808
Even if that's true, it doesn't really explain why the decrease.

>>504819
Some less-naturalistic statues popped up towards the end of Rome proper, but like I told the other guy, it doesn't quite explain the decrease.

Maybe a better way to put it is that they deliberately didn't want art to be lifelike, which a third-dimensional human-sized statue perhaps was by definition?

>>504785
Fuck contemporary eyes

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>>504840
Looking at a list of Emperors, interestingly the last bust coincides with Rome's demise.

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>mosaics look bad
This is what plebians actually believe

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there was a shift in artistic practice from around the 4th century onwards which is owed to a number of factors. the crisis of the 3rd century would have severely limited artistic output, due to a lack of patronage with money being diverted to fund the military and obviously a lot of actual conflict. without active art production, the knowledge of that production wasn't effectively passed on to new artists, if there were any actual skilled artisans around. that isn't to say it ceased entirely -- coins, plates, and early christian art, all demonstrate knowledge of classical art. a notable work in this time is the arch of constantine, which shows the use of classical sculpture (some of which is actually literal re-use, using scenes from arches of the 'good emperors' like trajan, marcus aurelius, to make) but also combines it with a new idea of how art should function. this idea most likely came from the near east, which had been a spiritual influence by way of mystery religions (mythras, isis, etc.) and an artistic influence on relief, where figures would face the viewer directly, possibly to depict an idea of 'presence' -- something that would be used in the creation of byzantine icons

then of course suddenly constantine moved everything christian to constantinople, so artistic practice develops here separately from the west.

additionally icons were used primarily to decorate the intimate spaces of churches which would have been an inappropriate space for any sculpture (compare romanesque churches, which were bigger and had sculpture -- albeit not very classical -- confined to decoration of tympani, jambs, and other out-of-the-way spaces). mosaics could curve around domes, in apses, etc. they were also made of far more expensive materials than sculpture, which was more fitting to the spiritual nature of christ and that was more important to the byzantines than sculpture, which would have instead implied his human form (franciscans used classical technique for this)

>>504918
comment got too long

anyway also yes it would have been idolatrous -- also an influence from the east. even icons got changed during the iconoclasm. you see some byzantine churches with just a big cross used to represent christ in the designated space where christ pantokrator would have been in previous churches

>>504930
in any case sculpture didn't entirely die out. it was still used in the west in romanesque and gothic periods. mostly not to classical standard but it was used none-the-less

>>504876
I'm sure they were gorgeous, but they don't compare to statues

>>505439
quite literally they didn't compare. apples and oranges

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>>504785
A couple of reasons. One was because, from the early medieval period onward, the hip new thing was relics and ritual objects.

Another was that Christianity didn't share the Hellenic origin of monumental works like statues and tributary columns, instead it began humbly with small carvings, small panel paintings and other portables.

As for the naturalism vs abstract debate, that's another story.

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>>504876
to be fair mosaics looked somewhat better during antiquity

>>504876
Just in comparison. Did you see the sexy statue thread a couple days ago?

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>>504785

The 7th century called. It wants you to take that back.

Moreover there is plenty of written evidence that full-scale statuary continued to be made by the Byzantines well into the 8th and 9th centuries and beyond (especially in Constantinople - many of these statues survived into the 15th and 16th centuries, with many being melted down by the Ottomans) - however, many of these statues seem to have been bronze and thus, as with Hellenistic bronze statues, they have not survived. They also didn't have an equivalent of the Roman Republic/Empire copying their works in stone.

>>504876
Why is Jesus always making this ninja sign with his hands in Byzantine art

>>504785
>Why did the Byzantines neglect statues?
they didn't
often though they are thrown in with other Roman statues however they are much different stylistically

either way iconoclasm and Islam did a lot to ensure a lot of such prominent works were destroyed.

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>>504918
also important to note is the rise in vernacular art of great quality

while statues and other expensiv epeices begin to disappear, we see things like grve portraits or small scale carvings take a dramatic rise in quality, likely due to a larger middle-class and artists basically taking any commission to survive.

like pic related is on par with latter Renaissance works

with the Empire becoming more compartmentalized, art became far more "local" rather than an international thing where ideas and artists could travel easily.

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>>507567
the quality varied lot, in some cases you get really masterful works, while in others the faces look alien and wonky, it shows that even within a single province techniques were not widespread.

often you can tell that a number of works are by the same artist over their lifetime.

it should also be noted that Roman ideas towards art were much different from latter Italian ones

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>>507525
Because it's the true Sign of the Cross REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>504840
According to your picture everyone had downs syndrome which seems like a good reason for the shitty artwork.

>>504819
>Another was that Christianity didn't share the Hellenic origin of monumental works like statues and tributary columns, instead it began humbly with small carvings, small panel paintings and other portables.

>Supposedly the reason why art became less realistic in late antiquity was due to the spiritual world being seen as more important than the physical. It wasn't important for the statues to look lifelike and features were exaggerated in order to draw attention to certain areas of the sculpture/mosaic/what have you.
>Maybe a better way to put it is that they deliberately didn't want art to be lifelike, which a third-dimensional human-sized statue perhaps was by definition?

This is what i was taught in art history, my art history teacher told us, if he ever hears the "they didn't know how to draw/paint/sculpt" argument he would fail that person instantly. And then showed us realistic animal drawings from neolithic caves that were in motion, and tolled us they basically had to draw those in almost complete darkness based on memory, and explained that their purpose was too "fertilize" mother earth, and that the caves represented mother earths vagina, to put it bluntly and it was all pretty cool to know actually.