Pagan Influences In Early Christian Art

Our Art History class moved into Early Christan art today and I saw something rather unusual.

Early Christan/Byzatine art has a very heavy influence from indigenous pagan beliefs simply because the people making the art had the artistic vocabulary of pagans but they were now expressing Christian beliefs.

Once the professor presented this though, several students took grave exception to this. Several of them were older individuals, people you'd think would have a little more world-wisdom. They protested profusely that art from that era would have these influences because, ostensibly, putting them with figures such as Christ would basically be heresy so they wouldn't have done it.

Why do you think certain people take such horror in the idea that art from that period and beyond have been influenced by what came before it?

Hoplite said:

Our Art History class moved into Early Christan art today and I saw something rather unusual.

Early Christan/Byzatine art has a very heavy influence from indigenous pagan beliefs simply because the people making the art had the artistic vocabulary of pagans but they were now expressing Christian beliefs.

Once the professor presented this though, several students took grave exception to this. Several of them were older individuals, people you'd think would have a little more world-wisdom. They protested profusely that art from that era would have these influences because, ostensibly, putting them with figures such as Christ would basically be heresy so they wouldn't have done it.

Why do you think certain people take such horror in the idea that art from that period and beyond have been influenced by what came before it?

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They are genuflecting.

winston53660 said:

They are genuflecting.

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???

I was under the impression that genuflecting was a physical act, not a mental one.

Hoplite said:

???

I was under the impression that genuflecting was a physical act, not a mental one.

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I mean it in a mental sense. In there minds they are bowing to the image. People like me that went to art school take liberties that way some times.

Umm...maybe my not being a Christian convolutes my understanding of this, but I was under the impression that that was technically idolatry.

Hoplite said:

Umm...maybe my not being a Christian convolutes my understanding of this, but I was under the impression that that was technically idolatry.

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Well I guess technically it could be. IMO they are giving the image an over amount of respect, they are taking it to heart vs understanding the visual language.

Sorry I gotta go cook dinner

I think Christians have always had a hard time recognizing Pagans and their influence. The Church was once all about power, and sharing that power was simply not an option.

But today, Christians are probably the most maligned religious group out there. I can understand the reaction when an Art teacher makes absolute statements about early Christianity.

I think he looked at (or, more likely, presented) it all wrong. Saying "Pagan" art influenced "Christian" art has all the subtly and intricacy of a three legged rhinoceros. There are countless influences on "Christian" art and what is "Christian" art is, to start, another whole debate in of itself. Running around making categorical statements that "Pagan" influences are rampant is almost as tactless as saying Pagan includes (I'm presuming) all pre-Christian religions. Hopefully, he refrained from saying all Christian art has explicitly Pagan influences (I doubt Syriac churches took from Pagan religions rather than, say, Judaism, for example) but he is generally right. Merely, he needs to know how to present it.

StandUpChuck said:

But today, Christians are probably the most maligned religious group out there.

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I seriously doubt that.

I can understand the reaction when an Art teacher makes absolute statements about early Christianity.

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The problem is that it's pretty true. Artists in pre-Christian times had a very specific vocabulary for expressing different concepts and ideas. These had bee developed in a very pagan world and once Christianity came on the scene, the same ideas still had to be depicted but they didnt have time to develop a Christan art vocabulary to express Christian ideas without using pagan imagery.

Hoplite said:

I seriously doubt that.

The problem is that it's pretty true. Artists in pre-Christian times had a very specific vocabulary for expressing different concepts and ideas. These had bee developed in a very pagan world and once Christianity came on the scene, the same ideas still had to be depicted but they didnt have time to develop a Christan art vocabulary to express Christian ideas without using pagan imagery.

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I don't think you or I are qualified to say with certainly that one definitely influenced the other. You had a discussion in class today based on the opinion of one person. If you're that passionate about it, research it and reach a hypothesis for yourself.

Saying the Christians didn't have time to develop their own art vocabulary is kind of foolish. I think you can do much better than that to make your point (or your art teacher's point).

Paganism influenced pretty much everything about Christianity. There's nothing much unique in the bible. Mostly stories that have been told before with different names of the people involved.

StandUpChuck said:

I don't think you or I are qualified to say with certainly that one definitely influenced the other. You had a discussion in class today based on the opinion of one person. If you're that passionate about it, research it and reach a hypothesis for yourself.

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We already have examples such as the idea of "the good Shepard" which is a pagan idea. In the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, we see Jesus standing on a figure that we can identify as a deity of the sky and that Jesus is standing on it is a metaphorical expression of "this man rules the world." We have the Black Madonnas in Egypt, images of the peacock and grapevine showing up in early Christian artworks, and Greek and Roman architectural influences.

Saying the Christians didn't have time to develop their own art vocabulary is kind of foolish.

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I heartily disagree. Different cultures have different means of artistic expression. For instance, for us green very much means fertility, plant life, growth, and the environment. Now we're used to the usage of the color in that context but if some massive change were to come along, say all plant life wiped out, we would still use green to depict the idea of foliage and life even though we didnt see it anymore and we would continue to do so until our artistic vocabulary changed to suit our current condition. Green would then take on a different meaning depending on what people assigned to it.

I think you can do much better than that to make your point (or your art teacher's point).

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I think it's a very valid point, regardless of who made it. I think it's laughable to say that Christian artwork appeared in a vaccuum when we can clearly trace the lineage of artistic styles prior to it stretching back almost to the inception of the idea of "art" and as such it's logical to assume that Christian art fell into this progression as well.