In this lecture, Anthony Kaldellis explains the role of Hellenistic art during the Byzantine era. For centuries, Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, was the largest and most impressive open-air museum of classical art in the world. To adorn their capital, emperors selected and imported the best surviving pieces of classical sculpture from the Aegean region. Kaldellis explores the cosmic and imperial messages that their contemporary architectural arrangements conveyed, before they were irretrievably lost in fires and wars.
This lecture, coordinated with and supported by Dumbarton Oaks, accompanies the National Gallery of Art’s exhibition Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World, on view from December 13, 2015, through March 20, 2016.