by Jon Lackman | 21 June 2006 | Ancient, Museums
An exhibition review from Richard Dorment in The Telegraph: “The Road to Byzantium: Luxury Arts of Antiquity is about the persistence of the classical tradition. Its thesis is simple: that classical art, which originated with the Greeks in the fifth and fourth centuries BC and is always said to have ended with the fall of Rome in the mid-fifth century AD, in fact continued for another 1,000 years – not in the West but in the East. If until now art historians have failed to recognise this, the reason is simple. Christianity was the official religion of the Byzantine Empire. When we think of Byzantine art we think of religious imagery – icons of Christ and the Virgin, or churches glittering with mosaics of Christian saints and martyrs.”
