I. ICONS AND ICONOCLASM
From Greek eikon (image). Strictly portrait of Christ, Mary or the Saints. Earliest icons from Saint Catherine, Mount Sinai, Egypt

--Virgin and Child between Theodore and Saint George, St. Catherine, Mount Sinai, Egypt, 6th-7th century
--Bust of Christ, St. Catherine, Mount Sinai, Egypt, 6th-7th century

Characteristics of Icons:
1. veneration of images replaced that of relics
2. prescribed rituals of veneration, proskynesis, placing candles (e.g. mosaic of Leo VI before Christ, Hagia Sophia, Constantinople, late 9th century)
3. acheiropoietai, not made by human hands
4. magical properties, served as Palladium, an image that provided security for entire community when placed above city gate as the Icon of Christ above the Chalke Gate of Imperial Palace in Constantinople (destroyed but possible prototype for many images of Christ, e.g. Christ on coin of Justinian II, 692-95) 

Iconoclast Controversy 754-843
1. Iconoclasm (image breaking). Imperial policy beginning with Leo III and Constantine V; Iconoclast Council of 754 banned all figurative images in churches

2. Iconodules or Iconophiles (image lovers). Empress Irene. Empress Theodora and the "Feast of the Orthodoxy", March 11, 843. 

--Virgin and Child Enthroned, apse mosaic, Hagia Sophia, Constantinople, before 867, restored by Theodora, inscription "The image which the impostors had cast down here, pious emperors have again set up." 

II. SECOND GOLDEN AGE OF BYZANTINE ART 

Macedonian Emperors (Macedonian Renaissance), University of Constantinople reopened (closed during iconoclast controversy); renewed interest in Greek classics. 1054 Pope in Rome excommunicated Patriarch in Constantinople.

Painting: Manuscripts, Panels and Frescoes 

Imperial scriptoria, humanism and a conscious return to classical models.
--Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus, made for Basil I, c. 880, Ezekiel in the Valley of the Dry Bones
--Paris Psalter, David Composing the Psalms, early 10th century, author portrait, personifications of Melodia, Echo, Bethlehem
--Angel Appearing to Joseph, fresco, Castelseprio, Italy, 800-850, Byzantine style in Italy during Iconoclast period.
--The Vladimir Madonna, twelfth century, painted wood panel (Moscow)

Middle Byzantine Architecture and Decoration

The Byzantine Monastery, lavra, Rule of St. Basil (330-49).

--Monastery Churches at Hosios Loukas, Greece (The Katholikon, 1011-1022 and the Church of the Theotokas, 10th century); cross-in-square plan, naos, squinches, domes, barrel vaults, groin vaults.

--Saint Mark's, Venice, begun 1063.

--Church of the Dormition, Daphne, 1080-1100. Church as "icon in space" (Demus).
1. Dome as cosmos (Pantocrator--Christ as World Ruler, see also the Pantocrator from apse mosaic of Monreale, Sicily, late 12th century)
2. squinches as paradise (narrative scenes of Christ's life--at Daphne, they represent the 12 Feast Days of Byzantine Calendar);--Crucifixion, 1090-1100
3. piers and walls as terrestrial world for rank and file saints.
4. worshipers at floor level

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