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In the year 286, Emperor Diocletian began to formalize a division of the Roman Empire into two parts.
It was never utopia.
Itwascentered on an estuary, where commerce, philosophy, and art flowed into the capital, Constantinople.
It died in 1453, when Constantinoples gigantic guarding walls were breached by the Ottomans.
To walk the remains of these walls today is a humbling reminder of how powerful this empire was.
He is enshrined within a yellow-red grid, exhibiting a frontality that is both post-Egyptian and premodern.
It is almost its own art form.
The modern concept of race is turned on its head.
Lady of Carthageis a mosaic that defies Cato the Elders supposed demand that Carthage must be destroyed.
She is a North African woman in robes who holds a scepter and has her hair piled high.
She is a deity, a ruler, and a warrior all in one.
Also noteworthy was a sixth-century painting of the Virgin with child.
This was made almost a thousand years before perspective was supposedly invented in 15th-century Florence.
This miracle of art tells us that many cultures discovered perspective, not only the West.
A wooden bridal chest is inlaid with 21 ivory panels of fine calligraphic curves.
Goddesses take pleasure in themselves, and a wonderful polymorphous sexuality underlies it all.
The labels let you track materials from all over the world.
This is because getting around was easy.
Egypt to Constantinople might take 16 days by ship; Carthage to Rome was a five-day trip.
Finally, there were the great illuminated manuscripts, icons, and bibles.
The sun shined brighter in these galleries.
We saw a style of figuration rise to eternal heights and graphic resoluteness and intensity.
We saw Byzantium rise again and anew.
