ABSTRACT
It must be admitted that, of the numerous European cultures whose monuments our taste considers great, Byzantine representational art was the first to discover that principle of interpreting, instead of reproducing, perceived phenomena, which in our time has come to underlie all artistic expression. But Byzantine art is not, as its casual acquaintances are inclined to suppose, a cultural entity which pursued its hieratic way unchanged or unmodified from the fourth to the sixteenth centuries of the Christian era. Many reactions to political and psychological conditions may be distinguished in it. Particularly, between the eighth and tenth centuries, there was wrought a fundamental transformation; and it was only subsequently to that time that the qualities which evoke our peculiar admiration became apparent. In place of the Hellenistic tradition, on the one hand, vainly striving to adapt itself to the uncompromising demands of greater spiritual forces than had originally produced it; and of the didactic tradition of monkish illustrators on the other; there now arose a novel method of interpreting visible objects, which was capable, thenceforth, of sustained and consistent development down to the sixteenth century. Comparison between the monuments of the fifth to the seventh centuries and those of the tenth and eleventh will reveal how radical the change that was wrought.
