Fascinating to see the realism of these portraits degrade toward the end of the empire....pic.twitter.com/wHOMHduxUQ
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Does anyone know what’s going on here? Is it a Western Empire/Eastern Empire thing?
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Short version is that it's a change in artistic conventions that you see in the third century. (IIRC it originated at the Empire's periphery.) It happens in both Western and Eastern Empires as idealized and naturalistic ceases to become the convention.
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Thanks for weighing in with some actual knowledge! Do you know if artists/minters were still generally _capable_ of the same level of realism? It sounds like you’re saying ppl just preferred a more stylized depiction, but I can’t help wonder if they actually lost something.
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It’s not an East vs West thing. Constantius Chlorus and Constantine, for example, were British. I often see the suggestion that portraits became less about the person more about the iconography of office, don’t know how true that is.
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Here’s a defaced image of priestess from Gaul in AD 400, which suggests to me that the classical style was still possible for artists of that time. After 405, things fall apart pretty dramatically.pic.twitter.com/mooJZD1jas
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My guess would be the Diocletian reforms. A generalized image for interchangeable emperors. The empire was now a tetrarchy. Debasement and reduction in minting quality was also an issue, by the Byzantine era coins were so thin they could be folded with two fingers.
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Christianity fought classical art to the maximum. They destroyed temples and statues alike. Talented artists were murdered. Art schools and academies closed. Harsh truth that nobody admits due to political correctness.
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Smaller pool of skilled craftsmen?
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Interesting!
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following.
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It reflects recreational drug use of each period in question. I thought everybody knew that!
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