In this essay I will compare and contrast using contextual factors two murals. The first is Emperor Justinian, Bishop Maximus and Attendants, a mosaic on the wall of the Sanctuary in Italy from the Byzantine era. The second being Raphael 's School of Athens, found on the wall of the Apostolic Palace, Rome painted during the Renaissance.
Emperor Justinian, Bishop Maximianus and Attendants, was created for religious purposes, as was a lot of the art produced during the early Byzantine Empire. In 324 CE Constantine ‘ the Great’ was a Christian emperor who set up Constantinople, originally Byzantine, a city in the east as another city to rule Christianity from, alongside the capital Rome. This was soon to be known as the Byzantine Empire. Constantine …show more content…
The buildings interior goes back into the distance behind them. The archway of the steps framing the painting and the figures within is decorated itself with smaller paintings and patterns. All the figures are believed to be representative of greek philosophers. The two most central figures being Plato and Aristotle. Plato, a philosopher and teacher from classical Greece, is on the left and shown as an older man, more wise and holding his book, ‘Timaeus’, which focuses on the ‘beauty he observes in the universe’(Zyel, D. 2013 para.1).Plato points up towards the sky which goes with his stance on the idea that reality is eternal and unchanging (Khanacademy.org para.3). Which is what they believed was the meaning of life in the medieval times. In contrast Aristotle on the right is shown as a younger more handsome man looking at his teacher holding his ‘Nicomachean Ethics’ which looks at the ‘nature of the good life for human beings’ (Moschella, M. 2000 para.1). He holds his hand down cause he believes that the only reality is the one in front of you, which is how the people during the renaissance liked to live. Also in the painting is Pythagoras who believed everything could be explained with mathematics, Ptolemy and Zaroaster who worked with the movement of the planets and how them moved around the earth. All the significant philosophers up to the time the painting was painted all in one place, whether they lived the same time or not just emphasised the paintings theme of the ‘branches of
Emperor Justinian, Bishop Maximianus and Attendants, was created for religious purposes, as was a lot of the art produced during the early Byzantine Empire. In 324 CE Constantine ‘ the Great’ was a Christian emperor who set up Constantinople, originally Byzantine, a city in the east as another city to rule Christianity from, alongside the capital Rome. This was soon to be known as the Byzantine Empire. Constantine …show more content…
The buildings interior goes back into the distance behind them. The archway of the steps framing the painting and the figures within is decorated itself with smaller paintings and patterns. All the figures are believed to be representative of greek philosophers. The two most central figures being Plato and Aristotle. Plato, a philosopher and teacher from classical Greece, is on the left and shown as an older man, more wise and holding his book, ‘Timaeus’, which focuses on the ‘beauty he observes in the universe’(Zyel, D. 2013 para.1).Plato points up towards the sky which goes with his stance on the idea that reality is eternal and unchanging (Khanacademy.org para.3). Which is what they believed was the meaning of life in the medieval times. In contrast Aristotle on the right is shown as a younger more handsome man looking at his teacher holding his ‘Nicomachean Ethics’ which looks at the ‘nature of the good life for human beings’ (Moschella, M. 2000 para.1). He holds his hand down cause he believes that the only reality is the one in front of you, which is how the people during the renaissance liked to live. Also in the painting is Pythagoras who believed everything could be explained with mathematics, Ptolemy and Zaroaster who worked with the movement of the planets and how them moved around the earth. All the significant philosophers up to the time the painting was painted all in one place, whether they lived the same time or not just emphasised the paintings theme of the ‘branches of