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The Road to Byzantium: Luxury Arts of Antiquity.

[Hermitage Rooms at Somerset House; Courtauld Institute of Art]

// London: Fontanka Publishers. 2006. 192 pp. ISBN 0-9543095-6-5-3 (hardback); ISBN 0-9543095-6-1 (paperback)

Eds.: Frank Althaus and Mark Sutcliffe.

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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.

The works on display here 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. 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 – undoubtedly the work of a Greek craftsman, depicting classical Greek mythological scenes, and yet 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.

Contents

Acknowledgements. — 6

Forewords.

Professor Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director, State Hermitage Museum;
Dr Deborah Swallow, Director, Courtauld Institute of Art. — 9

Map. — 11

Robin Cormack. The Road to Byzantium. — 13

Anna Petrakova. The Beauty of the Human Body in Ancient Greek Vase-Painting. — 21

Andrei Alekseyev. Greco-Scythian Antiquities: A History of Excavation in Southern Russia. — 31

Anna Trofimova. Classicism in the Roman Portrait: The Ages of Augustus and Hadrian. — 39

Vera Zalesskaya. The Classical Heritage in Byzantine Art. — 49

Marlia Mundell Mango. Silver in Changing Contexts. — 59

Ruth Leader-Newby. Classicism and Paideia in Early Byzantine Silver from the Hermitage. — 67

Antony Eastmond and Peter Stewart. Ancient Classicism in Retrospect. — 75

Illustrations. — 82

Catalogue Introduction and Historical Timeline. — 120

Catalogue. — 126

Greek Vases. — 126-129

Treasures from the Barrows. — 130-137

Roman Portrait Sculpture. — 138-139

Roman Luxury Arts. — 140-149

Coptic Textiles. — 150-155

Byzantine Silver. — 156-159

Beyond Byzantium. — 160-161

Byzantine ‘Minor Arts’. — 162-165

Pereshchepina Treasure. — 166-168

Middle Byzantine and Later Art. — 169-170

Byzantine Metalwork. — 171-173

Byzantine Lead Seals. — 174-179

Bibliography. — 180

Index. — 187

This book has been published to coincide with The Road to Byzantium: Luxury Arts of Antiquity, an exhibition held in the Hermitage Rooms at Somerset House, London, from 30 March to 6 September 2006, and jointly organised by the State Hermitage Museum and the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Front cover: Plate with a Silenus and a Maenad (detail) Constantinople, AD 613-629/30 (cat. 85).

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