International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Zoja Bojić
University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW, Australia; 
[e-mail]
Greek and Roman Landscape and the Byzantine Art
Not much of the imagery of landscape (weather alone or as part of larger compositions) in the 
arts of the European antiquity is preserved. An analysis of the texts of the five art historiographers 
of antiquity: Vitruvius (De Architectura, 1
st
century BC), Pliny the Elder (Historia Naturalis, 1
st
century AD), Philostratus the Elder (Eikones, 2
nd
century AD), Philostratus the Younger (Eikones, 
3
rd
century AD) and Callistratus (Descriptiones, 3
rd
or 4
th
century AD), reveals the existence of 
possible categories of landscape in Greek and Roman art history that correspond to the preserved 
visual material. Among such categories are landscape as an allegory, landscape as a sign, vistas, the 
unknown (and imaginary) landscape and the ideal landscape. 
Representations of landscape in Greek and Roman art are not exclusive to painting - several 
sculptural examples can be seen as personification of a landscape. Amongst them are the preserved 
sculptural representations of the river Nile, the Ocean and others. This tradition, described by 
Philostratus the Elder as a painterly tradition, in the Byzantine art practice can be seen in some of 
the imagery of the River Jordan and other allegorical imagery. 
Landscape as a sign in Greek and Roman art, also described by Philostratus the Younger and 
Callistratus, is perhaps best observed in the imagery of larger compositions, such as the numerous 
preserved examples largely dating from the 1c BC to the 4th c AD of the imagery of Orpheus 
playing music to mesmerised beasts within a landscape that is only indicated. In the Byzantine art, 
such indications of a landscape can be traced in the imagery of compositions such as Entry into 
Jerusalem and others. 
The preserved imagery of the Roman vistas described by Pliny, and Vitruvius and Philostratus 
the Elder’s descriptions of the Greek/Hellenistic vistas can be traced in the Byzantine imagery 
of representations of the urban environment of Jerusalem. Similarly, the landscape interspersed 
with the genre-scenes as described by Pliny and preserved in the Pompeiian painting, features in 
the imagery of the many diverse monuments of the Byzantine art to especially great effect in the 
glimpses of a rustic landscape. 
The Byzantine imagery of unknown, imaginary landscape (by itself, or featuring monstrous 
creatures) appears to be part of a long tradition of Greek and Roman art described by Vitruvius and 
Philostratus the Elder and including Pompeiian painting with the episodes of Ulysses’ travels and 
with other unknown and imaginary landscapes.
The tradition of the representations of ideal, ethereal landscape embraced to a great significance 
in Byzantine art can be observed in many Greek and Roman artworks. These include the negative 
space of numerous Greek vases especially from the 5c BC, several examples of reliefs of the imperial 
columns, and some examples of Pompeian art. The writings of the five art historiographers of 

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antiquity, especially of Philostratus the Elder, provide much material for understanding the construct 
of an ideal landscape. 
Significantly, these authors’ descriptions of the ideal space are directly correlated with their 
descriptions of the representations of another construct – that of time - in the visual arts.
This paper examines this heritage of landscape imagery from the European antiquity as 
reflected in the corresponding monuments of the Byzantine art.

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