A-H 322 Byzantine Art and Civilization
Description and Response Exercise
Here is a description which I thought was particularly effective among those you submitted. The text appears in regular color, my comments in red to highlight the strengths (~ indicates where I made a check -- I don't seem to have a normal-sized one for composing this webpage -- to show a good point made). Note which comments and points relate to your strengths and to the points that I suggested that you will want to improve in your subsequent writing.
The mosaic decoration of the dome of the Baptistery at Ravenna is a piece which immediately caught my eye. The dome is covered totally in an intricate mosaic with three distinct tiers to it. All sections are lavishly detailed. There is also a sense of swirling movement, due to the tier with the apostles. Nice opener; it sets up the composition as a whole as well as creating a sense of your interest in it (appropriate to this assignment).
The lowest, and largest in diameter, is a series of faux architectural pieces. ~ Eight sets of three niche groups march around this lowest ring. The central niche of four groups hold s books, possibly the four gospels,~ on bookstands. The other four centers hold altars. The flanking niches of each group are filled with what look to be chairs and fences around little gardens. The objects in the niches are all set in place so that they appear to recede into space, as do the imaginary compartments themselves. You can vary sentence structure and eliminate too much use of forms of "to be" by expressing in terms of what the artist does here (ex: The artist sets the objects in the niches in such a way that they appear...)
The second register consists of a large ring that holds the twelve apostles. Each figure is standing but has been posed in a way that makes it appear that they are all about to begin walking, well put frozen in that initial step. Each apostle is dressed or "wears" to keep in simple present tense, active voice in loose, flowing robes and is holding a red colored ring, perhaps a crown ~ of some sort. The figures stand between what appear to be columns made of foliage. The apostles are set or "appear"-- spt, active voice again against a dark background to set them off from the rest of the composition. The head of each apostle is in front of the ring of white draped bunting that rings the central register, giving an even greater illusion of depth to the already curved surface.
The central section is a circle, which contains a representation of the baptism of Christ. At the center of the dome, this section is not only the composition's center, but it sits directly over the Baptistery's center: the baptismal font itself. very important relationship -- good that you noticed, connected This is the lightest section in color (gold background) and it leaps out at the viewer because of this. St. John, concentrating on the baptism ceremony itself, is the only figure in the composition that is not looking down on the viewer. The figures of Christ and St. John are smaller (or again, "The artist has made the figures of...") than the figures of the apostles, but their placement in the center makes up for this. It is also possible that this was the artist's effort to reinforce the illusion of depth in the composition. - Robert Neureither
Excellent description: systematic, sufficiently detailed, and concisely interrelated, and a very fine sense of your personal response, too (this section is omitted here). You write very well, capturing the organization AND the spirit of the work without dullness, and with some great insight.
Notice how the writer begins with the overall composition, giving us a quick sketch of the whole into which we can fit the details he goes on to describe. He then moves from outer ring of the composition toward the center; it would have been possible to work in reverse, but setting the progression up this way builds to a kind of dramatic climax that fits the significance of the iconography of the central medallion, with the Baptism of Christ. Note that the writer does not go into so much detail at this stage that the reader gets bogged down: we get a sense of the medium (mosaic), some of the main colors (but by no means all of them), and what the organization and main images in each ring are.
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