Artwork analysis: Sarcophagus of Julius Bassus

 

The art piece I chose to write about is the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus.  The actual piece is being held in the treasury and the Vatican has a copy that is held in their museum.  This was an early opening to the Christianity religion and the depiction of Christ is represented as a young boy with a scroll.  Under Christ there is a depiction of a water entity that embraces roman culture.  Early expressions represented in the bible are shown on the sarcophagus along with Christ.  The way the sarcophagus was made shows the bridge between classical roman art and transition to Christianity art being developed.  The columns, arches and the material used to make this are all commonly used in roman art.  Around the mid fourth century, Christianity had attracted many through urban populations and one being Junius Bassus.  Junius was a member of a senatorial family and had held the position of praefectus urbi for Rome.  Junius was responsible for the administration of the city of Rome.  Before Junius passed away in year 359 he had fully converted to Christianity and has been inscribed on the sarcophagus.  With the sarcophagus having one of the first depictions of Christ as youthful, and beardless this in which was believed to be based on the representation of Apollo.  Then later as we see Christ now with long hair and a beard represented based off Jupiter or Zeus.

Based on information found, it is clear to see that because of the depictions and style of the art done on Julius’ sarcophagus that Christianity evolved upon.  This is interesting to learn both from the history of Christianity and how Roman culture influenced Christianity.  With different Roman gods seen in this piece with the style of Roman culture it is amazing to see how the piece expresses so much while still holding mystery. 



Dr. Allen Farber, "Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus," in Smarthistory, August 8, 2015, accessed September 15, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/sarcophagus-of-junius-bassus/ 

Comments

  1. Sara YaunSeptember 21, 2020 at 5:15 PM

    I find it is very fascinating that we are able to see how classical roman art has transitioned and developed into Christian art over the years. When this piece was being made, the thought of art evolving probably never came into consideration. And I suppose if you think about it that way, how crazy would it be that anyone could create something revolutionary and accidentally produce a whole new type of art form.

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