Twofold is the background of the Byzantines’ views on art, mainly the visual arts: (a) the aesthetic ideas of Greek antiquity, namely the late Platonic tradition (where the role of art is to lead the way toward spiritual beauty), and the analysis of works of art in the rhetorical texts of Late Antiquity. The Byzantines imitated the ancient Greek aesthetic vocabulary (especially in the description of works of art) and when needed they transformed it (especially in the theory of image). (b) The early Patristic thought, particularly the Cappadocians and Pseudo-Dionysius, in which the Byzantines found a warranted Christian attitude toward art and an elaborated theory of beauty.
One of the problems about studying Byzantine aesthetic views is the absence of specific treatises and the need to reconstruct it using texts of different genres and, more precariously, from the works of art. There are numerous Byzantine texts whose significance for aesthetics is indiscernible because of their titles. They are (a) texts that deal (exclusively or not) with art, like for instance (1) the apologetic texts against ancient Greek art, (2) texts on the theory of image and (3) descriptions of works of art (ekphraseis); and (b) texts with occasional references to issues of art and art theory with variant content (theological, historical, philosophical, rhetorical, literal) and written for various purposes and for different audiences during a period of ten centuries.
World History
