Byzantium as Christian Antiquity

Abstract

During the 20th century the scholars constantly addressed the problem of the heritage of Classical Antiquity in Byzantine culture. We can discern three major approaches, which continue to develop nowadays. Some scholars (Kurt Weitzmann, Hugo Buchthal, Hans Belting, Josef Strzygowski, Cyril Mango) were primarily concerned with the search for antique spolia or quotations, models and copies. The greatest attention was paid to the periods of the so-called renaissances, Macedonian and Paleologan, when the appeal to the past had a programmatic character. Scholars such as Otto Demus, André Grabar, Viktor Lazarev, Richard Krautheimer, Alexei Komech, Robert Ousterhout and others, put forward the peculiarity of Byzantine culture. They concentrated on transformation and rethinking of classical traditions in the art and architecture of Byzantium and the ‘Byzantine Commonwealth’. Other scholars, such as Ernst Kitzinger and Olga Popova were more inclined to view the whole Byzantine millennium as the continuation of the classical tradition spiritualized by Christianity. It is the latter approach that we adhere to. In the present paper we would like to show on specific examples that throughout centuries Byzantine art and architecture stood fast on the base inherited from Antiquity upon which Christianity was engrafted. The union gave for this ancient civilization the new impulse for growth and the new direction for development still bearing fruit nowadays.