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Teacher Resources
These written and visual materials are designed to be
flexible. Depending on the ages and interests of your class and the time
you have available, you may use all or only parts of the discussions and
activities suggested.
Beneath each catalog entry are three short sections entitled
"Notice," "Discuss," and "Compare." They
are cues to encourage students to begin to talk about the works of art,
express their ideas about what the art means, and realize the formal elements
making the meaning clear. Points of discussion may include, but are certainly
not limited to, adornment and regalia, symbols and attributes, icons, religious
narrative, gesture and pose, action and inaction, color, pattern, techniques
of artistic production.
Class Activities
Adornment
 Discuss
the costumes and ornaments worn by figures in Byzantine art. Are these
adornments decorated, and does the decoration have meaning? (Patterns,
colors, particular types of clothing, and jewelry were symbols of rank,
power, and wealth.)
Officials in the emperor's court wore special badges,
called tablions, on the front of their robes
to show what position they held. Ask students to draw or design in materials
at hand their own badges to wear on their chests to signify who they are
or who they would like to be. Have other students guess what the design
symbolizes and which one of their classmates made it.
You as a Modern
Emperor
Ask each student to imagine that he or she is a famous person. Keeping
in mind Byzantine iconography, ask them to think about what they would
wear, what objects they would hold, what they would sit or stand upon,
and what their expression would be if they were portrayed. With those thoughts
in mind, ask them to draw a self-portrait in the formal Byzantine style
with all the power symbols and adornment they have thought of.
Body Language
Discuss the different kinds of expressions and postures we use
to express certain feelings and reactions. How do these actions reveal
our moods?
Discuss how Byzantine artists used body language to explain
what a figure was doing and thinking.
Play charades, giving each student a folded card upon
which is written an emotion or situation such as commanding, praising,
worshipping, offering, winning, losing, and so on.
Eyewitness News
 Ask
your students to write eyewitness accounts of David
fighting Goliath. What are the various characters thinking and saying?
What might happen next?
The students can write their accounts as if they are
observers of the scene, or they may write from the point of view of one
of the characters.
As a dramatic activity, students could take the parts
of the figures, write dialogue, and act out what is happening.
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Discussion Topics
Making the invisible
visible
What is the difference between divine powers and human powers?
How can an artist show something that is spiritual and immaterial?
Discuss the ways different cultures and faiths have tried
to picture God (as a symbol or group of symbols, in human form, or as a
force of nature).
Using the beliefs and visual language of our societies,
how might we picture a deity?
Art and culture
Discuss why art is an important source of information about
Byzantine civilization.
- What are the different styles of depicting the human
figure meant to express? What kinds of beliefs are embodied in the figures?
(Think about the ways the human figure is shown in our societies. What
do the figures suggest about our beliefs?)
- What does the great variety of subject matter reveal
about the Byzantine court and church?
- What about the use of luxury materials in creating the
art?
- What does the art suggest about artists in Byzantium?
- Why did visitors and invaders from the Latin West take
so many works of art?
Cultural influences
As the style and subject matter of Byzantine art show, Byzantine
civilization greatly influenced neighboring cultures, even those that were
far away. Talk about how, in modern times, the culture of one nation can
influence others. In what ways does the culture of the United States influence
other cultures, even in nations that are far away, such as Japan and the
Russian Federation? In what ways do other cultures influence our diverse
society in United States?
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