Christian art and stuff

What's with Christian Art?

     Christian art took place after the classical art where in nudity started. As time goes by, artists developed new skills and ideas in creating artworks like sculptures, paintings and architectures. To begin with; Christian art is all about Jesus and Christianity itself. Artworks from this period can be found in most churches located in different places where people practiced the tradition of Christian culture. But always keep in mind that their artworks were not just about Jesus Christ but also about the churches and basilicas they have. There are 3 different infrastructures for the place of their worship namely the churches, cathedrals and basilicas. But what are the differences between them? --- Cathedrals are those where bishop's throne can be found, churches are lead by priests while the basilicas are dedicated or named after their saints. Way back then, Christianity was not allowed for their religion, so they came up and built a place where they can hid their artworks from their enemies. They built catacombs or the underground graveyards that served as their hiding place for them and even for their artworks depicting Christianity. But as Constantine, their ruler, accepted their religion, churches were built freely and extravagantly exposed, because of their thirst for freedom, Christians decided to built churches expensively and creatively they even painted murals showing some scenes happened from the Bible. One good example of an artwork of this kind was the Sarcophagus which was made up of marble with carvings of events from the old testament to the new testament of the holy Bible.

     In the early Middle Ages, there comes the Islamic art, where in people came up with a religion called "Islam" which means submission to God's will. Muslims called their Bible Koran and their leader of prayer as "Imams". They also believed that sculptures are of Satan's work so they don't believe in saints and gods but Allah. In Romanesque art, there are four major evangelists that mostly appear in their artworks namely St. Mark (lion), St. Luke (bull), St. Matthew (man), and St. John (eagle). The term "Romanesque" refers to a long range of styles from the regional variants in Western Europe. Because of the relative prosperity of Christianity, there was an enormous serge in building churches, cathedrals and monasteries. They also contributed to a revival of architectural sculpture and the ornamentation of Christian buildings. Besides, this era has so much architectures with different form of artistic styles that one can appreciate much.

     Christian art is the third era where in artists focused on the scenes happened on the Bible. It showed that people spent so much time in order to come up with great artworks to acknowledge and give worship to God. From my own experiences, I think I haven't done any kind of art that focused on religion except for a fact that I created homework back in my high school days that tackles about the importance of being a God-fearing individual. Maybe in the present, Christian art hasn't affected me in terms of doing illustrations but at least now I can somehow adapt ideas that I have learned about the different styles and perceptions of the artists that contributed lots of artworks from this era.Now that I'm quite familiar with the Christian artworks such as their churches, basilicas, monasteries, sculptures and their paintings, I can now tell myself that every people has different beliefs that they practiced on their daily living and the past civilization has something to do with the style of art that we have in the modern time.

     

Let's Start From the Beginning

                                          Ancient Vs. Classical

                Art for me is like life, it’s a cycle and it evolves through time. It all began on the early civilizations happened thousands of years ago. People strive to live and discover new things and new ways of living. They started to seek for shelters to keep them warm, they work hard to feed themselves and they live their lives just how they want to. In Ancient art, there are 3 eras which are the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic. Each era has its own contributions and evolutions. Weather affects the people and how they live, at first, as the ice glaciers melt it gets colder that is why people look for places where they can live with enough heat that may warm them. As time goes by they learned to migrate and change their locations for better sustenance of their daily necessities. Naturalism was practiced by the artists from the ancient art while it’s realistic for the classical. Ancient has the Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia, Assyria and Persia while the Classical has the Greek and Roman.

                Ancient artists sculpts, paint and built architectures for their gods and soldiers, they also used the animals around them as their subject matter. They have idols and places for the deceased and they also have sculptures for their warriors and created their own form of writing. Babylonia, for instance created their law which was called as the “code of Hammurabi” that served as one of their greatest contributions in art. Ancient art also has the Ziggurat that was built by the Sumerian and the pyramids by the Egyptians. While in the Classical art, there comes the Greek and Roman art. They don’t have much difference in terms of art because Roman art come up a new idea from the ideas of the Greek art. Greek and Roman artists practiced realism that can be seen from their artworks, and most of their artworks are sculptures of nude figures of people. Why nude? Because it is believed that nudity is the costume used by an artists to portray emotions. Greek has 3 different styles in terms of architecture: the first one is the earliest and simplest style which is called Doric, the second one is the Ionic or smaller temples and the Corinthian which is not widely used by the Greek but it is beautiful as usual. The only difference between Roman art and Greek art is their subject matter, for the Roman is realistic figures of people and anything that can be seen in reality while in Greek art is their gods which they prefer making one  from bronze.

                Ancient vs. classical, actually I admire both of them, why? Because they’re all part of the evolution of art and they’re just the beginning, there are still more eras that we will encounter few weeks from now. From simply knowing the different artworks from ancient to classical made me feel different, I can now distinguish the difference and the styles of the architectures that I have seen, unlike before I can’t even recognize and appreciate the styles of any artworks that I’m seeing. I’m also thankful to the artists from these eras because they come up with wonderful ideas. From Prehistoric to Hellenistic, it made no difference, from then up to the present, it only shows that people are creative even thousands or millions of years have passed. Art as their passion that triggers their imagination.

WELCOME 2013