Major points in this module:

Emperor Theodosius I divided the Roman Empire between his two sons. The eastern half became the Byzantine Empire and the western half, sometimes known as Latin Christendom, devolved into many small countries. The split continued along linguistic, religious, and artistic lines. Greek became the dominant language of the Byzantine Empire and the people practiced Orthodox Christianity. Latin was the unifying language of the West and the people practiced Catholic Christianity.
Early Christian theologians were uncomfortable with realistic representations of God, people, and nature. They felt that realistic representations of people and the natural would lead to the worship of images. Early Christian artists moved away from naturalistic representation to counter this fear.
The Byzantine Empire strictly governed the kinds of images that could be produced in the empire. Like the early Christian theologians before them, the empire was concerned about the worship of images and that God might punish the empire for improper use of images. This fear turned into a period of violent clashes between those who rejected and supported the use of religious images known as Iconoclasm. After Iconoclasm, religious councils governed the production of images within the empire. Artists were only allowed to represent certain subjects in art and they had to represent them in a traditional way.
Artists in the West were not restricted in the kinds of images they could make. They were free to experiment with style, subject matter and media.
In the Late Middle Ages, artists were interested in creating visionary experiences with works of art. To create convincing visionary experiences, artists returned to realistic representations of people and the natural world.

Key Works

Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus
The Court of Justinian
Hagia Sophia
Stavelot Triptych
Rottgen Pieta
Giotto's Lamentation from the Arena Chapel
Shiva as Nataraja from the Chola Dynasty