Christ Pantokrators of Ravenna

Isn't this interesting?  Here we've got a Christ with purple hair.  The artist who made his mosaic took the imperial purple color of the robe and used for His curls.  This purple is the true imperial purple that was made from murex shells. Of course, this mosaic is made of glass cubes.  In later times the Byzantines created a substitute for murex dye that was a dark red.  No one except the Emperor was allowed to wear it. Our course there was no limitation on purple being used in paintings and mosaics like this. From a distance the purple hair reads brown.

Some other interesting things about this mosaic, the cubes of the face are all stone,even the red ones.  They are different shades of marble and limestone.  The halo of Christ has really big jewels and pearls.  Sometimes in Ravenna pearls are rendered with mother-of-pearl, but not here.  Notice how big and round the eyes areSee the reflection of the red glass on the finger of Christ?  He is sitting on a lyre-back throne that is hung with a green silk drape.  The finials on the corners are golden pine cones.  For the next 900 years Byzantine artists would depict him on a similar throne.  The wide-set green cubes of the curtain are set in green painted plaster.  The red glass bottle would have held scented oils or rose water. The thin top made it easier to dispense the oil by hand when it was used to anoint someone.  If it isn't a bottle then it is a glass scepter.The throne is set with  big red silk pillow.  Christ is dressed in a tunic and himation.  The tunic has wide bands of gold.  This is the "official" outfit of Christ henceforth.  The artist has used naturalistic shading in the gold of the clothing and the footstool.  This technique dies out soon after this.  Notice how the perspective of the footstool is accurate as wellChrist is attended by angels.  Notice how small the heads are.  This was a mistake and not intentional.  I think someone did the drawings before the mosaic was done.  The outlines of the face were done without the features of the faces.  When the mosaic artists laid the cubes it was apparent they had been designed too small.  It was too late to fix it.

Mosaic workers often divided their work with the top artists with the most experience doing the most important figures entirely - like Christ.  Less talented artists or apprentices did clothing and the faces of less important figures. In these mosaics there are 23 figures of virgin women martyrs on one side and 26 men on the opposite.  There are fewer women because their procession ends with three famous figures of the 3 magi - presenting gifts to Christ and Hs mother.  Their faces all look the same - especially the women.

The men are more varied because many of them have gray hair and beards.The female martyrs carry heavenly crowns of martyrdom. Each saint has her own inscription identifying each one of them.  The artists have varied the hair color and styles.  They also changed the clothes and jewels.  Some hands are covered while others are bare.

When I was six or seven my grandmother gave me a Time-Life book "The Glory of Christmas" and a record that came with it on Christmas. This mosaic of one of the female saints was the first Byzantine work of art I had ever seen.  I can still remember the wonder I felt looking at the glittering mosaic.  I had never heard classical music either so that record was my first exposure to it.  The next day in my kindergarten class I made my first Byzantine angel in white tissue paper, gold foil and glitter.  In the next few days I made dozens of them.  The school ran out of gold foil. I memorized the carols on the record and taught some kids in my class to sing them. One of the songs we learned was "Dona Nobis Pacem" - not having any idea what it meant.  Our kindergarten was in the basement of a church so I took my friends upstairs to sing "Dona Nobis Pacem" in it - over and over again as loud as we could.  Suddenly we heard people applauding - there was a meeting in the church that we hadn't noticed.

That was the start of my passion for art and love of Christmas music - especially Renaissance and Baroque.  The nest Easter I started painting images of saints on eggs.The men are all dressed in white tunics and himations.  The clothing is all made of just a few colors of mosaic made of marble and stone cubes.  The men are of all ages. Their hands are covered and uncovered.

This church, Saint Apollinare Nuovo, was erected by the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great as his palace chapel during the first quarter of the 6th century. This Arian church was originally dedicated in 504 AD to "Christ the Redeemer" Arian Christians believed that Christ had only one nature - human - and was not born human-divine as Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches believe.

The church was reconsecrated in 561 AD, under the rule of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, who reconquered Italy and brought it back into the empire. These wars in Italy devastated the countryside nd the cities, leaving much of the country a desert. The basilica was renamed in 856 AD when relics of Saint Apollinaris were transferred from the Basilica of Saint Apollinare in Classe because of the threat posed by frequent raids of Arab pirates from the Adriatic Sea.

Its apse and atrium underwent modernization at various times, beginning in the 6th century with the destruction of mosaics whose themes were too overtly Arian or which expressed the king's glory, but the mosaics of the lateral walls, twenty-four columns with simplified Corinthian capitals, and an ambo are preserved.

On some columns in the mosaics, images of arms and hands can be seen, which are parts of figures once representing praying Goths and Theodoric's court, deleted in Byzantine times. The church was damaged in WWI and the baroque apse was destroyed.  It was restored many years later.  The mosaics had to be repaired after WWI and after WWII.

The floor level was raised about three or four feet in the renaissance because the water table had risen, which has changed the proportions of the interior, making it seem somewhat squat.  The original columns stood on taller bases.

The apse mosaics were destroyed in the eighth century in an earthquake. There are no rrcords telling up what they represented, but most certainly Christ would have appeared in the apse.  Later the apse was extended and decorated in the Baroque style.Here we see Christ in Glory at the Second Coming. From the latter part of the fourth century, a still beardless Christ begins to be depicted seated on a throne on a dais, often with his feet on a low stool and usually flanked by Saints Peter and Paul, and in a larger composition the other apostles.  Here Christ is shown on a celestial throne represented as a ball of blue light.  He is flanked by two angels a saint Vitalis, to whom the church was dedicated and a cleric presenting a model of the church.

Here we see Christ holding the scroll with Seven Seals.  In the Book of Revelation, the Seven Seals are the seven symbolic seals that secure the book or scroll that John of Patmos saw in his apocalyptic vision. The opening of the seals of the document occurs in Revelation Chapters 5–8 and marks the Second Coming of the Christ. In John's vision, the only one worthy to open the book/scroll is referred to as both the "Lion of Judah" and the "Lamb having seven horns and seven eyes".

The seven seals contained secret information known only to God until the Lamb/Lion was found worthy to open the book/scroll and to look on the contents.  Christ is offering a crown of martyrdom to Vitalis.

Notice how the angels have placed their hands on the shoulders of Vitalis and the cleric holding the model of the church.  In the ceremony of the Imperial court two guards held your shoulders like this when you were lead into the presence of the emperor.The church was begun by Bishop Ecclesius in 526, when Ravenna was under the rule of the Ostrogoths and completed by the 27th Bishop of Ravenna, Maximian, in 547 preceding the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna.  It was built as an octagonal, domed church.  Originally the church was completely clad in colorful marble revetment, but much of it was removed by the Emperor Charlemagne around 795 to adorn his Palatine Chapel in Aachen, Germany.

It does not appear that the entire interior of the church was completed with mosaics.  The mosaics of the apse were repaired and restored several times in during Byzantine rule in Ravenna.  The image of Saint Vitale was repaired along the lower third of his robes and the image the bearded Christ Pantokrator in the center of the apse arch was replaced in the 8th century due to an earthquake.  Below you can see this image in the arch.

This image of Christ dates from the last years of the fifth century - almost 300 years earlier than the Pantokrator in the last picture - and is located in the Archbishop's Chapel on the first floor of the bishops' palace in Ravenna.  The chapel was built by Peter II after he became archbishop in 495, a year after Theodoric's conquest of Ravenna. Peter, an Orthodox bishop, had a close relationship with Theodoric, the Ostrogothic king of Italy, despite his being an Arian heretic. The mosaics date from the original construction.  This is the only surviving private chapel from Late Antiquity.  It is small and isolated from the rest of Ravenna.  It was possibly used as a baptistery as well as a chapel.Above is Christ between the Apostles Paul and Peter in the eastern arch.There are two arches with mosaics of Christ in the chapel.  Above is the western arch. Christ is shown here between the Apostles James and Thomas.  On the far right is Matthew.The chapel's vaults - a Theophany - were meant to represent the light-filled heavens. This lavish interior was praised for generating its own light.