DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29898#0452
416
BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE.
Pakt II.
therefore be extremely convenient if the term “ Greek architecture ”
could be used for the style of the Greek Church from that time to the
present day.
If that term be inadmissible, the term “Sclavonic” might be
applied, though only in the sense in which the Gothic style could
be designated as Teutonic. Both, however, imply ethnographic dis-
tinctions which it would not be easy to sustain. The term “ Gothic
happily avoids these, and so would “ Greek,” but for the danger of its
being confouncled with “ Grecian,” which is the proper name for the
classical style of the ancient Greeks. If the employment of either of
these terms is deemed inadvisable, it will be necessary to divide the
style into Old and ISTew Byzantine—the first comprehending the three
centuries of transition that elapsed from Constantine to the Persian
war of Herachus and the rise of the Mahomedan power, which entirely
changecl the face of the Eastern Empire,—the second, or Neo-Byzan-
tine, including all those forms which were practised in the East from
the reappearance of the style, in or after the 8th century, till it was
superseded by the Renaissance.
Thus divided, the true or olcl Byzantine style might be regarcled as
the counterpart of the early Romanesque or debased Roman style,
except that, owing to the rapid developmenfc in the East, the former
culminated in the erection of Sta. Sophia (a.d. 532—558); the Eastern
Empire thus forming a style of its own of singular beauty and perfec-
tion, which it left to its Sclavonic successors to use or abuse as their
means or tastes dictated. The Western Empire, on the contrary, was
in a state of decay ending in a clebacle, from which the Romanesque
style only partially emerged cluring the reign of Charlemagne and his
successors with a new revival in the 11th century.
Though the styles of the East and the West became afterwards
so distinctly separate, we must not lose sight of the fact, that during
the age of transition (324-622) no clear line of demarcation can be
traced. Constantinople, Rome, and Ravenna were only principal
cities of one empire, throughout the whole of which the people were
striving simultaneously to convert a Pagan into a Christian style,
and working from the same basis with the same materials.1 Prior
to the age of Constantine one style pervaded the whole empire.
The builclings at Palmyra, Jerash, or Baalbec, are barely distin-
guishable from those of the capital, and the problem of how the
Pagan style could be best converted to Christian uses was the same
1 The domical construction of the i
vaults of the two great cisterns erected
by Constantine, the Binbirderek, or thou-
sand-and-one columns, and the Yeri
Batan Sera'i, both in Constantinople,
suggests that thcre already existed in
the East a method of vaulting entirely
different from that wliich ohtained in
Rome, and which may have been a tra-
ditional method handed down even from
Assyrian times.—Ed.
BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE.
Pakt II.
therefore be extremely convenient if the term “ Greek architecture ”
could be used for the style of the Greek Church from that time to the
present day.
If that term be inadmissible, the term “Sclavonic” might be
applied, though only in the sense in which the Gothic style could
be designated as Teutonic. Both, however, imply ethnographic dis-
tinctions which it would not be easy to sustain. The term “ Gothic
happily avoids these, and so would “ Greek,” but for the danger of its
being confouncled with “ Grecian,” which is the proper name for the
classical style of the ancient Greeks. If the employment of either of
these terms is deemed inadvisable, it will be necessary to divide the
style into Old and ISTew Byzantine—the first comprehending the three
centuries of transition that elapsed from Constantine to the Persian
war of Herachus and the rise of the Mahomedan power, which entirely
changecl the face of the Eastern Empire,—the second, or Neo-Byzan-
tine, including all those forms which were practised in the East from
the reappearance of the style, in or after the 8th century, till it was
superseded by the Renaissance.
Thus divided, the true or olcl Byzantine style might be regarcled as
the counterpart of the early Romanesque or debased Roman style,
except that, owing to the rapid developmenfc in the East, the former
culminated in the erection of Sta. Sophia (a.d. 532—558); the Eastern
Empire thus forming a style of its own of singular beauty and perfec-
tion, which it left to its Sclavonic successors to use or abuse as their
means or tastes dictated. The Western Empire, on the contrary, was
in a state of decay ending in a clebacle, from which the Romanesque
style only partially emerged cluring the reign of Charlemagne and his
successors with a new revival in the 11th century.
Though the styles of the East and the West became afterwards
so distinctly separate, we must not lose sight of the fact, that during
the age of transition (324-622) no clear line of demarcation can be
traced. Constantinople, Rome, and Ravenna were only principal
cities of one empire, throughout the whole of which the people were
striving simultaneously to convert a Pagan into a Christian style,
and working from the same basis with the same materials.1 Prior
to the age of Constantine one style pervaded the whole empire.
The builclings at Palmyra, Jerash, or Baalbec, are barely distin-
guishable from those of the capital, and the problem of how the
Pagan style could be best converted to Christian uses was the same
1 The domical construction of the i
vaults of the two great cisterns erected
by Constantine, the Binbirderek, or thou-
sand-and-one columns, and the Yeri
Batan Sera'i, both in Constantinople,
suggests that thcre already existed in
the East a method of vaulting entirely
different from that wliich ohtained in
Rome, and which may have been a tra-
ditional method handed down even from
Assyrian times.—Ed.