Cathy's Art Diary

Nice little exhibition at the Barber Institute of Fine Art looking at the history of Byzantium through its coins and seals. There was a good timeline of the empire in coins with the real coins and enlarged pictures of them so you could see the detail. It showed how depictions of the emperors moved from being in military dress to civilian. It also showed how sometimes emperors were shown with their successors   or empress regents with their sons. The show looked at the iconography on the coins showing how Christianity started to be seen in the images however pagan imagery carried on alongside it for a long time. It also looked at how the coins were made moving from dies in the early years to casting later on and the show included some glass weights used to check the metal content of the coinage. The show included seals made of lead rather than wax which were used to authentic official documents. Closes on 18 March 2018  

Stunning exhibition at the Royal Academy bringing together objects from the Byzantine Empire. As soon as you walked into exhibition you are struck by a sense of gold and richness. The first rooms presented the history and then they looked at themes. Interesting themes included the way that the early Byzantine Christians set the iconic traditions for Christian art even till today. It looked at how the bearded image of Christ took precedence and how many of the now standard images developed. It was fascinating to see early Annunciations and to realize they were working out how to show this. I was also fascinated by the room which looked at the relationship between Byzantium and Italy. As well as looking at the objects the Venetians stole from Constantinople it also looked at artistic elements which they took. Best of all had to be the room of icons. There were all so luxurious but also had a real sense of peace. However I will say that this is in some ways a very annoying exhibition. Ma...