Byzantine Art [antikvár]

he art of Byzantium has played a specific part in the evolution of world art. Its importance lies in the fact thatitconveyed to the modern world the heritage of classical antiquity; merged the efforts of the different peopJes composing the Empire, in a single art creation process; and found exceptionally powerful forms of expression for the aesthetic ideals of its time. The main features of Byzantine art, monumental as well as applied, appear at their best in the works of the mid-medieval period (the IXth -Xllth cent.). It was the time when perfect harmony of form and content was achieved in artistic productions; when the problem of synthesis of the different branches of art was successfully solved; and art grew into a powerful factor of ideological - mainly religious - pressure brought to bear upon much wider spheres of society than ever carae within the scope of its influence in the epoch of classical antiquity. The museum collections of the Soviet Union comprise numerous monuments of Byzantine art; taken as a whole, these monuments give a more complete idea of the process of its evolution than do the collections found in the possession of any other individual country. Not only paintings, but alsó works of artistic craftsmanship are well represented: gold- and silverware; objects in bronzé; articles of jewellery and glyptics; ivories, enamels, embroidery. etc. The abundance of monuments which have found their way into the museums of the U.S.S.R., is due to a number of causes. The existence of historical and cultural connections between the peoples inhabiting the present territory of the Soviet Union, and the Byzantine state, was the most important. of these causes. The southern districts of the Crimea, with Chersonese (in the area of the city of Sebastopol), as the main bulwark of Byzantine domination in the Crimean territories, had once förmed part of the Byzantine Empire. Excavations in this region, started in 1827, have been continued up to the present time, and are still going on, with the State Hermitage and the Moscow State History Museum among the participating bodies. The works have yielded a multitude of articles of jewellery; numerous bone carvings; small icons in bronzé and stone, of considerable artistic value; and a variety of specimens of glazed pottery. Gold and silver objects of Byzantine workmanship have alsó been discovered in Central Russia and in the Ukraine where they were brought by nomád tribes in the first centuries of our era. The Urals region where most of the silver vessels dating from the VIth-Vllth cent. have been found, used to be connected with Sassanian Persia and Byzantium by trade routes. The history of Ancient Russia, especially after the adoption of Ghristianity, was closely linked with that of Byzantium; and objects of Byzantine workmanship were disseminated over a vast territory; penetrating as far as Kiev and Novgorod, Vladimír and Moscow. Fragments of Byzantine textiles have been found in the Northern Caucasus, and in the Transcaucasian regions. Quite recent is the discovery, by Soviet archaeologists, of objects of artistic craftsmanship of Byzantine manufacture; glassware in the city of Dvin (the Armenian SSR) and Novogrudok (the Byelorussian SSR); and a wonderful ivory comb, in the Khazar fortress of Sarkéi on the Don River (known at later periods as the Russian town of Belaya Vezha). In Russian annals and other monuments of literature cases are recorded of Byzantine icons being brought to Russia as imports. Silk textiles of Byzantine work, sometimes richly embroidered, were in use as materials for robes of state worn by Russian tzars, and for vestments for the higher clergy. Objects of value brought to Russia as gifts from the partiarchs of Constantinople; and others, supposedly forming part of the dowry of the Byzantine princess Sophia (Zoé) Palaeologue who married Tzar Ivan III; were preserved in the treasury of the Moscow Kremlin. The rich collection of Georgián and Byzantine enamels now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Tbilisi, comprises objects from Georgián and Svanetian monastic