The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (81 page)

(1591/2–1624).
Dutch painter and engraver, nicknamed ‘Geestige Willem’ (Witty Willem ). He was active in his native Rotterdam and in Haarlem, where he was closely associated with Frans
Hals
. Although his surviving output as a painter is tiny, he is one of the most interesting artists during the first years of the great period of Dutch painting. His pictures of dandies, fashionable ladies, topers, and lusty wenches are among the most spirited Dutch
genre
scenes, and instituted the category known as the ‘Merry Company’ (
Merry Company
, Boymans Mus., Rotterdam). His engravings are more numerous, and include genre scenes, fashion plates, and etchings of the Dutch countryside. He had an important influence on painting in Haarlem. His son
Willem the Younger
(1625–70) was also a painter. An example of his very rare work—a landscape—is in the National Gallery, London.

 
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Byzantine art
.

Art produced in or under the influence of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire; it was founded in AD 330 by the emperor Constantine (the first Christian emperor) and ended in 1453 when his capital Constantinople (originally named Byzantium) was captured by the Turks and under the name of Istanbul became the capital of the Ottoman Empire. The split between the Western and Eastern Empires became permanent in 395, when each adopted a separate ruler, and after the Western Empire was overrun by barbarians in the 5th cent. the Byzantine Empire became the great upholder of Christianity and of the cultural traditions of Greece and Rome. Byzantine territories varied greatly in extent; at one time they covered almost the entire Mediterranean basin, but from the 7th cent. many provinces were lost, first to the Arabs and later to the Turks. However, Byzantine art extended beyond the political or geographical boundaries of the Empire, penetrating, for example, into the Slav countries, and in certain areas—where the Eastern Orthodox Church flourished—its tradition continued long after the collapse of the Empire.
Byzantine art was, above all, a religious art. It was serious, otherworldly, and conservative, and the Byzantine artist did not aspire to freedom of individual interpretation but was the voice of orthodox dogma. The choice of subjects and the attitudes and expressions of figures were determined according to traditional schemes charged with theological meaning. In the domes of churches, for example, Christ was usually shown as ruler of the universe (the Greek term is Pantocrater, meaning ‘all-powerful’). Although Byzantine artists produced panel paintings, frescos, manuscript illuminations, ivories, enamels, textiles, jewellery, and metalwork of high quality, Byzantine art is seen at its finest and most typical in the mosaic decoration of churches. Mosaics were applied to all available surfaces of the interior, the luminous shimmering of the colours and the remote, implacably staring figures creating—in the finest works—a truly awe-inspiring effect, raising the art to unprecedented levels of grandeur and expressive power. Figures are flat and arranged frontally, occupying a spiritual dimension rather than a realistic space. Also typical of Byzantine art is the
icon
, which usually represented the head of Christ, the Virgin and Child, or a particular saint, although there are also much more complex figure groups of subjects such as the Crucifixion. Icons tended to become cult images, and the view that this was idolatrous led to the various outbursts of iconoclasm (‘image-breaking’), particularly in the 8th and 9th cents., when many figurative works were destroyed and artists had to revert to ornamental forms or symbols such as the cross. The austere conventions of Byzantine art were eventually challenged by the less ritualistic, more naturalistic ideals of artists such as
Giotto
and
Duccio
.

 
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(1823–89).
French painter. The winner of the
Prix de Rome
in 1845, he ranked with
Bouguereau
as one of the most successful and influential academic painters of the period and one of the sternest opponents of the
Impressionists
.
The Birth of Venue
(Musée d'Orsay, Paris) is his best-known work and typical of the slick and titillating (but supposedly chaste) nudes at which he excelled. It was the hit of the official
Salon
of 1863, the year of the
Salon des Refusés
, and was bought by the emperor Napoleon III, who gave Cabanel several prestigious commissions.

 
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cabinet painting
.

Term applied to small
easel
paintings intended to be viewed at close range. It has no precise limits, but is often applied, for example, to 17th-cent. Dutch
genre
paintings, which were usually painted to fit into unpretentious bourgeois interiors.

 
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See
SCOTTISH COLOURISTS
.

 
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