Early Christian

Early Christian art is the art made by or for Christians from the earliest surviving catacomb paintings of the 2nd and 3rd centuries to the end of antiquity around 600. Its first masterpieces are modest: frescoes in the underground burial galleries of Rome, with Good Shepherd figures, orant poses, and biblical scenes rendered in a quick, late-classical manner. After Christianity was legalized under Constantine (313), basilicas rose across the empire and their apses were set with glowing mosaics, while carved marble sarcophagus reliefs told scripture in continuous narrative. Artists simply reused Roman forms, portrait conventions, and workshop techniques for the new religion, and over the centuries classical naturalism steadily yielded to the frontal, symbolic manner that would define Byzantine art.

Defining characteristics

• Late Roman motifs adapted to Christian subjects: Good Shepherd, orant, Jonah
• Sketchy fresco painting in the narrow galleries of the catacombs
• Carved marble sarcophagi with continuous biblical narrative relief
• Gold-ground mosaics and jeweled liturgical objects in the new basilicas
• A gradual drift from classical naturalism toward frontal, symbolic figures

Key figures

• Constantine I (c. 272-337) — Emperor whose legalization and patronage transformed Christian art
• Pope Damasus I (c. 305-384) — Pope who promoted the martyrs and inscribed the catacombs with verse epigrams

Example works

• Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus — Unknown (359)
• Good Shepherd fresco, Catacomb of Priscilla — Unknown (3rd century)
• Christ and the Apostles (apse mosaic, Santa Pudenziana) — Unknown (c. 400)

Sources

• Early Christian - WikiArt institution

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