The main characteristics of Byzantine culture

Byzantine culture has its unique aspects, which can be summarized as follows:

First, the Byzantine Empire inherited the political system and legal system of the former Roman Empire.

Second, the Byzantine Empire had a strong Greek cultural tradition.

Thirdly, the orientalization of Byzantine culture is also very obvious.

Fourth, Byzantine culture is deeply branded with Christianity.

Byzantine art is characterized by abstraction and distortion, which is the result of the long-term influence of Christian religious concepts and oriental mysticism. Ancient Greek and Roman art attached importance to getting creative inspiration from nature, taking the natural state of all things in the universe as the source of beauty, and taking the proportion of truth, harmony and nature and people's natural feelings as the standard of beauty.

Byzantine art thinks that the external image is secondary, the real and natural form is secondary, the core of art lies in expressing some abstract spirit and embodying sacred feelings, and the purpose of art is to inspire people's religious inspiration. Therefore, realistic art was hidden by Byzantine artists, and attached importance to the abstract meaning expressed by simple lines and colors. Proportion can be unbalanced, because proportion should give way to lines; Colors are not necessarily rich, because monotonous colors can express abstract meanings better. Works of art are not for intuitive appreciation, but for inspiring thoughts, thinking through "unimportant" works of art, and making people look for intangible things hidden in tangible works of art.