Byzantine Artand Islamic Art

The Islamic picture is illuminated, has brighter, lighter colors; there is yellow, light red, peach, pink, light blue, and bright brownish tones, green, white, cream and orange. There is one part of the painting, located at the bottom, in the right hand corner, that has black, maybe it is because the painter wants to emphasize, give importance to that area. The Byzantine painting is simpler; it has fewer amounts of shapes and difficult drawings. Instead, it is more natural, not so geometrically perfect, the shapes aren't the square, triangle or circle, is like painted with inspiration. It has people on it, so it gives emphasis to them, trying to make faces the most accurate as possible, while the background has less importance, shapes, colors. The painting doesn't have so much detail on it. Meanwhile the Islamic piece is geometrically perfect, has a lot of details, it has straight lines, squares, rectangles, triangles, etc. It has a bigger amount of components, drawings, it's more accurate, and it is organized and understandable. The joint of all the components make it a more complex piece of art. Only describing the use of shapes and colors in an art piece, we can reach to a lot of conclusions about their origin.
             Every artwork has purpose and function. The Byzantine image is an icon. Icons are religious, sacred images of God, the Virgin, and saints, which laity worshipped. Icons can be large or small and are made of many different materials; enamel, ivory, gold, and wood, as well as being panel paintings. What is important is that the icon shares the likeness and therefore the sanctity of the sacred person portrayed. That is the purpose of this piece of art. The Byzantine picture is trying to communicate all the people of the empire, the importance of religion inside it. The artwork itself has the holy figures that reveal to us important moments of the religion. It is supposed made by a person from the clergy of the Orthodox Church to the citizens of the empire, to laity, with the purpose of converting people into believers of Christianity.