HST 319 Cultures of Imperial Power visits Byzantium Exhibit

13/02/2009

HST 319 Cultures of Imperial Power visits Byzantium Exhibit

This week Dom's class visited the Royal Academy to see the Byzantium 330-1453 exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts. The exhibit reflected many of the themes discussed in class: is empire a good or bad phenomenon (Voltaire and Ruskin); the significance of empire (the empire stretched from Ravenna in Italy to Thebes in Egypt and spanned 1000 years); the relationship between power and religion; propaganda and imperial policies (San Vitale); how the culture of the colonised can impact on an empire (the transformation of pagan Rome into a Christian state); why empires are formed (witnessed by the Norman or Venetian pillaging of the Byzantines); and how empire can impact on peripheral peoples and states, with Byzantine art and architecture being copied in Venice, Serbia, Moldavia, Russia and Armenia.

Link to this page: http://www.richmond.ac.uk/n/706.aspx