The Road to Byzantium offers a striking new perspective on the art of the Greek, Roman and Byzantine worlds. It focuses on the luxury arts, mostly objects made for wealthy patrons from precious materials such as gold, silver and ivory. Such works were commissioned to exalt their owners and to impress and delight others. They continue to fulfil that role today.
These items tell a story of extraordinary continuity, showing how classical Greek styles and imagery from the fifth century BC still influenced the art of Byzantium more than 1500 years later. It is a story of diversity and geographical diffusion, exploring the influence of classical art on cultures as far apart as the Mediterranean, the northern Black Sea region and Central Asia. Above all, these works tell a story of transformation and adaptation, revealing the ways in which classical motifs and pagan imagery were often assimilated into later Christian art, sometimes in the most unexpected and unusual forms (a statuette of the Greek god Dionysos, for example, inscribed with the words of a psalm).
The Road to Byzantium’s remarkable geographical and historical scope is superbly illustrated by more than 160 works of ancient and Byzantine art from the rich collections of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. These range from Attic red-figure vases and Roman portrait busts to Coptic textiles and Byzantine silverware. Of particular interest are the finds from tombs and burial sites in the northern Black Sea region, including the dazzling gorytos (quiver) cover from Chertomlyk, recovered from the tomb of a Scythian aristocrat far to the north of the Black Sea. Such objects illustrate how ideas first developed in the fifth century BC were admired, copied, challenged and reinterpreted by peoples of different cultures and religions in ways their first creators could never have imagined.
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