The Quarterly Journal of St. Philaret’s Institute

In the Early Byzantine art already two main tendencies begin to take shape: creation of an image by old classical means with their little modification, and substitution of the classical artistic language with the stricter one far from antiquity. Both became apparent already in the VI–VII centuries. In the VI century art the strict variant of an image and style was spread wider than the classical one. This kind of style represents a special type of metropolitan art, which existed into the VII century, though not as a dominant. The other tendency – closeness to the classics – is a special feature of the VII century works. Adhesion to classical traditions would stay a permanent basic value of Byzantine art, as well as the effort to attach all possible spirituality to an image. Sometimes the two modes reached equilibrium. Usually one of them prevailed, however. Byzantine art never lost its classical foundation and its main component — the mark of the presence of the Holy Spirit.