Byzantine architecture

Conditions for the development of Byzantine architecture:

Geographic conditions. Near the confluence of the Bosphorus into the Sea of Marmara, on the promontory of the peninsula, washed from the north by the waters of a deep bay – the Golden Horn – had long been the site of the ancient Greek city of Byzantium. In 324 A.D., Emperor Constantine the Great founded a new imperial capital there – New Rome – later Constantinople. In the 11th century, the possessions of the Byzantine Empire covered part of the Apennine Peninsula, Asia Minor to the foothills of the Caucasus, the Balkan Peninsula, and the northern coast of Africa. According to its geographical position, Byzantium was the main crossroads of cultural, political and trade routes between East and West, a powerful synthesizer of eastern and western cultural and spiritual values.

Conditions for choosing materials. The Byzantine architects continued the traditions of Ancient Rome in the development of arched-vaulted structures, however, due to the lack of the necessary materials for preparing concrete, the concrete technique was not widespread. Brick and stone are the main materials of the empire’s monumental buildings. Both the walls and vaults were made of baked bricks, as well as bricks with stone pads. The Byzantines used both rectangular bricks and a large square plinth measuring 40x40x45 cm.

As a rule, the wall was erected from alternating layers of plinths and masonry. At the same time, from the outside, the void between the stones was filled with cementum – a solution mixed with crushed bricks. Thus, the characteristic striping of Byzantine buildings was formed. The roof was made of shingles or lead sheets laid directly on the roof. The ceilings were most often vaulted or wooden.

The architectural details of ancient temples, for example, columns, could also serve as materials.

Religious conditions. While in the Western Roman Empire, where Christianity also became the official religion, the state and the church existed autonomously, in Byzantium, from the very beginning, there was a tendency towards the merger of political and church power. The ancient biblical motive of God’s creation of the world from nothing became the core of an irrational worldview. To the first Christian thinkers who formed the worldview of Byzantine society, the Lord seemed to be a great artist, creating the world like a huge work of art according to a predetermined plan. The entire system of aesthetic ideas of early Christians was based on this main postulate. Here was the dividing line between ancient and medieval aesthetics.

Cultural and historical conditions. After the collapse of the Roman Empire in 395 into Western and Eastern, the official adoption of Christianity by the imperial government (313) and its recognition as the state religion, feudal relations were strengthened in Europe. The Western Roman Empire fell under the blows of the barbarians and experienced a long decline. Constantinople became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium, which became a cultural center. Byzantium withstood the onslaught of the barbarians and turned into a powerful state with a strong centralized power, based on the might of a mercenary army and the authority of the Christian Church. Different peoples participated in the creation of a high artistic culture in Byzantium by the force of arms and ideology.

The Byzantines called themselves Romans and were considered the heirs of the ancient Romans. However, Greek was soon established as the official state language, and the Byzantines were heirs of the Greco-Hellenistic culture to a greater extent than the Roman.

Social conditions. The public life of Constantinople is focused not so much on forums as in circuses and the porticoes of temples. In the Christian feudal Constantinople, there was no longer the social life that took place in the Greek city-states and Rome in the times of the republic and the development of the empire.

Periods of the development of the architecture of Byzantium:

Early Byzantine (V – VIII centuries AD) – the formation of dome structures and compositional principles of centric structures takes place;

Constructions: Μονή της Χώρας (Chora Monastery) (IV century AD); Church of Sts. Apostles at Constantinople (IV century AD); Church of st. Sergei and Bacchus in Constantinople (6th century AD); Cathedral of st. Sophia in Constantinople (6th century AD); Church of St. Irina in Constantinople (6th century AD); Church of st. Vitaly in Ravenna (6th century AD);

Middle Byzantine (VIII – XIII centuries AD) – the development of a cross-domed structure;

Constructions: Cathedral of St. Mark in Venice (IX veins AD); Kapnekarea in Athens (ΧΙ century AD).

Late Byzantine (XIII-XV centuries A.D.) – builders abandon the construction of large monumental structures and erect small buildings with polished, graceful architecture.

Constructions: St. Catherine (the turn of the XIII-XIV centuries); Church of Sts. Apostles in Thessaloniki (ΧΙV century A.D.)

Common features of Byzantine architecture:

1. More tangible folk trends in architecture and art;
2. Active fusion of arts that had different origins.
3. Combination of constructive and artistic techniques of antiquity, oriental experience, motives of Slavic, Transcaucasian and even Turkic architecture.
4. Significant vertical tendency of structures.

The architectural character of Byzantine architecture.

In Byzantium, there were 2 types of religious buildings: a domed basilica and a cross-domed church. Byzantine culture is associated with the image of the sky, because since the era of antiquity, space, the universe, perfection was embodied in the form of a circle.

The main idea of the Byzantine church is verticality, which is expressed in the grouping of small domes around the main, central dome, which attracts the viewer’s eye. While the main idea of the ancient Christian basilica is horizontal, long rows of columns direct the gaze to the altar semicircle that closes the nave.

In the middle Byzantine period, the basilica was replaced by a new type of church – a cross-domed one.

Thus, a hierarchy of spaces arises in the temple. The lightest place in the temple is the under-dome zone, as the distance from which the temple gets closer, darker and lower. This whole system of vaults is very tectonic and is visible from the outside, because the vaults face the facades with their ends. In Greece, tiles were laid mainly in the plane of the vault without rafters. The most interesting temples of the middle Byzantine period are temples in which the lower parts of the dome pillars are replaced by four thin marble columns, thanks to which the multi-tiered vaults hang overhead, held in the air, as if by a miracle.

The cross-domed church has not one apse, but three. In the central apse, there is an altar, and on either side of it there is an altar and a deacon, each of these premises should have its own exit to the temple and, in addition, they should be connected to each other behind the iconostasis. All these aisles are used by priests during divine services. Important and secret rituals of worship are performed behind the iconostasis. They are hidden from the eyes of the parishioners. And the pulpit at which the priest reads the Gospel should be in the most prominent place, under the dome, in a stream of light, but not too far from the altar, from where the Gospel is taken out for reading. The cross-domed church is the most convenient for such a service.

In the VIII century, an iconographic canon of Byzantine art was formed, providing for a strictly defined character of the depiction of saints, and quite accurately indicating the location of biblical scenes in the interior of the temple. A clear hierarchy is formed here: the dome is dedicated to Christ, the prophets and apostles are placed in the drum of the dome. There are evangelists on the sails. As a rule, the Mother of God is located in the conch of the apse. On the walls are scenes related to 12 major Christian holidays. On the western wall, where there was an entrance to the temple, there was a scene of the doomsday. Thus, for the believer, the Christian temple was not just a beautifully decorated place for conducting rituals, it was a cosmos – a clearly and correctly organized space of eternal radiant truth.

Byzantine buildings.

Church of st. Irene in Constantinople, built by Constantine the Great, was destroyed and rebuilt several times. It is interesting in that it has retained the shape of a three-nave basilica, with an eastern apse and an atrium in front of the western entrance.

It has a dome raised on a high drum, which is cut through by windows to illuminate the interior of the temple and is considered one of the oldest examples of such a ceiling.

To the west of it is a second dome, slightly smaller. Both are supported by massive brick pillars that replace part of the columns of the usual three-nave basilica. The alternation of three or four columns with powerful pillars was due to the increased resistance of the building to earthquakes.

Vitali Church in Ravenna. Represents two concentric rectangles in plan. This is a martyrium – that is, a temple dedicated to the martyrs. It is a centric octagonal temple of San Vitale in Ravenna, in everything similar to the Church of Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople, except that the altar part is larger here, and the inner octagon is enclosed not in a square but also in an octagon.

Even without going inside, we feel the hierarchical composition. The central part, rising, wider, lighter, more voluminous and lateral zone. The altar apse that opens into the inner octagonal space, crossing with its side walls an annular gallery between both octagons. The other seven sides of the inner octagon are cut by semicircular escedrames with columns, which support the upper galleries or choirs, which are customary in the East, but relatively rare in Italy. The dome, made of pottery jugs, is protected from the weather by a wooden roof, which differs from the ancient Roman and many Byzantine domes, where the roof lies directly on the outer surface of the vault.

The interior of the temple, decorated with marble, columns, relief, mosaics. In the conch of the apse, the image of Christ is placed, he sits on the heavenly sphere, surrounded by angels.

He hands over a wreath, a symbol of holiness, to the martyr, Vitaly of Milan, to whom the temple is dedicated. The meaning of Christ is emphasized – his figure is placed strictly frontally and is the axis of symmetry of this image. Gold smalt was chosen not for the clothing of Christ, but for the background – to depict the ideal, radiant space of the upper world. In the face of Christ, all the typical signs of Christian art are manifested – huge eyes; this speaks of spirituality. There are two large mosaics on the walls of the apse under the conch. They show the solemn entrance to the temple of the emperor and empress. This is one of the most famous Byzantine mosaics: Emperor Justinian surrounded by courtiers. All the figures are depicted strictly frontally and majestically. They are equal in height, stand side by side, as if a living wall is the personification of the power of the state and the strength of its head. These monumental figures, lined up in one row, become like a colonnade. This is also facilitated by light flowing clothes, the folds of which resemble flutes. The “columns” support the konkha – an interesting visual metaphor, Christ literally has support in his subjects. The emperor is the pillar of not only secular but also religious order.

The Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople (Agia Sophia – the Wisdom of God) was built by order of Justinian in 532-537. On the site where two churches of the same name used to stand: a wooden-roofed basilica built in 360 by Constantine the Great and a church built by Theodosius in 415. The architects of the new temple were Anphimius from Tralessa and Isidore from Miletus.

It is surrounded by a large number of outbuildings and supports, since the structure is very unstable.

The sail dome is perhaps the oldest of all such domes. The plan is a central square space, bounded by four massive pylons, which are connected by semicircular arches and support the dome. The four pillars are oriented along the line of the transverse arches, fixing them. The longitudinal arches are supported by two semi-domes, which solve the problem of expansion. To repay their own tension, each of these half-domes is surrounded by three small attached vaults.

On the east and west sides, this main square is adjoined by semicircular spaces, into which open eskedras of a smaller diameter, with a semi-dome overlap. To the north and south of it, two-story galleries are arranged, and the upper floor is intended for women and was called a gynek. The side parts complement the overall shape of the plan almost to a square.

The vaults that transmit the thrust to each other are arranged in cascades. The two half-domes that support the central dome are lower than it, and the small conchs covering the half-domes are even lower.

The narthex, adjacent to the western part of the temple and intended for the catechumens, was a vast space.

Above it is a second floor, which is open from the side of the temple and forms a choir.

On the north and south sides of the temple, opposite the four pylons, creating their continuation, massive buttresses are arranged, cut, both in the lower floor and in the upper, with double arches. These buttresses perceive the thrust of the main supporting arches of the dome from those two sides where there are no half-domes.

The plan of Hagia Sophia is completely subordinate to the construction of the dome system, which is familiar here.

To build a dome of this size, the building materials must be extremely lightweight. In Rome, during the construction of the Pantheon, this problem was partially solved with the help of pozzolana – a material of volcanic origin, which, when mixed with limestone and water, gave surprisingly strong and at the same time lightweight concrete. Anthimia and Isidore had to find a suitable replacement for it. They ordered special bricks, lighter than usual, and laid them on a mortar, which in number prevailed over the thickness of the brick. For the solution, they used unsalted river sand and lime, from which calcium silicate was formed. The fact that the brick and mortar are made of the same material allows them to combine with each other much stronger.

The square structure was covered with trumpets, a cylinder was placed on them, and a dome was placed on the cylinder.

The four main pylons are made of stone and the rest of the structures are made of bricks. The pylons on which the dome rests are partially hidden behind arcades, so the visible supports seem insignificant; according to the historian Procopius, who witnessed the construction of the temple, the dome “seems to be suspended from a chain to the sky.”

To illuminate the temple, 40 small windows are arranged in the lower part of the main dome. Windows also cut through both half-domes adjacent to the main dome, east and west, as well as small half-domes above the escedrames. Light enters through 12 windows in each of the longitudinal walls, north and south.

Domes and semi-domes are covered with lead roofing, which is attached to wooden blocks, which are enclosed directly on their outer surface.

The walls and pylons are lined with multi-colored marble slabs attached with metal brackets. The floors were also laid out in various marbles, while the domes and vaults were decorated with glass mosaics depicting sacred subjects on a gold background.

Some of the columns taken from the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, brought from the Temple of the Sun at Baalbek. Christians begin to treat antiquity barbarously. They cut out details, columns, etc. from ancient temples. and use them in the construction of their temples.

There are 107 columns in the temple.

The type of capitals is predominantly pyramidal or cubic, that is, their general shape resembles an inverted truncated pyramid or a cube with rounded lower corners. Many of them have small Ionic volutes at the corners and are covered with a flat, cut into the background of the capital, ornamentation of fine work.

When the Emperor Justinian first entered the temple, he exclaimed, “Glory to God who deigned me to build a temple!!!! I have surpassed you, Solomon !!!!”

After the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks, Sophia of Constantinople was turned into a mosque. Four beautiful minarets were added to it to call believers to prayer.