Dome of the Rock

the dome of the rock is in Jerusalem and is a muslim mosque, built to mark the spot where Muhammad left earth and the hill where Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac. It is built in Byzantine style, its dome is made of wood and covered in gold leaf. the exterior was once covered in mosaics, now in tiles.

Islam and Alhambra

Islam spread as rapidly as Christianity. from islam we get our Arabic numerals (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9). they also used columns and vaults, but had a unique style and used stucco. Alhambra in Spain is a huge palace known for its gardens.

Byzantine Paintings

Icon mean religious image or symbol, iconic images were more about religion than about aesthetics. Byzantine paintings were colorful, emotional and used lots of gold leaf. they painted Jesus as a man baby and used ineffective draping. everybody had halos around their heads and had elongated fingers and bodies. They strove for beauty and essence, not realism.

St. Basil's

St. Basil's is a Cathedral in Moscow that took 5 years to build, it is highly influenced by Byzantine architecture. The "onion domes" are actually called kokoshnikis.

st. marks

the largest and grandest church of the 2nd golden age is St. Mark's Cathedral, it is a Renaissance(rebirth) of Byzantium. It was built to house St. Mark's body. outside there are mosaics and 2,643 colored marble columns which were brought from Constantinople. Inside there are tons o mosaics and Venetian glass. At one point there were 4 bronze horses above the doorway, the original Greek bronzes were brought inside though. the horses up there now are just replicas.

Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia means church of holy wisdom, it was built in Constantinople in 532-537 AD. they solved the structural problem of putting a dome on a rectangle by using triangular pendentives on all corners of the inside. the four towers around the hagia Sophia are called minarets, which are bell towers that call the Muslim people to prayer. the church split in 726, two groups were created. the "Iconoclasts" believed there should be no images of anything and the "prevservationists" wanted to keep all images already made, but didn't want to make new ones. either way, there was no art created for over 100 years. so instead of art, the produced a lot of churches.  

history of byzantine empire

in 337 Constantine dies and Rome splits. the west declines, but the east was great and became known as Byzantium. Emperor Justinian is the ruler, we know this time for its beautiful churches(basilicas). this style of architecture began near and in Constantinople and spread throughout Europe, through the 5th and 6th centuries. The Byzantine tradition extended for well over 1000 years.