The Iconography of Early Christian Roman Art

Abstract

Focusing on works of art produced in the third and early fourth centuries, this chapter considers works in four media—sculpture, painting, mosaic, and textile—in order to illuminate how artists working for Christian patrons adapted and ultimately transformed earlier Roman visual traditions. While some traditional Roman media such as sculpture went out of fashion in the period, iconographies were transferred from three- to two-dimensional forms such as mosaics, which became popular in church interiors. Christian image programs in spaces of worship as well as burial used visual strategies such as typology, the comparison of events from the Old and New Testaments, to present statements of belief, including the hope for salvation after death. Many of the images of “Christian art” were also popular with pagans and Jews but took on particular meanings in the context of spaces used by Christians.