Christian art Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Christian art is the first major category of art produced in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. While the Western Empire's political structure essentially collapsed after the fall of Rome, its religious hierarchy, what would become the modern-day Catholic Church, was as vital as ever, and began the Christianization of the Goths. As a stable European society emerged during the Middle Ages, the Church led the way in terms of art, using its resources to commission paintings and sculpture dedicated to the glory of God.The development of Christian art in the Byzantine empire (see Byzantine art) continued the Hellenistic trends previously known. The controversy over the use of graven images and the crisis of Iconoclasm led to a standardization of religious imagery still apparent in Eastern Orthodoxy.
Some religious artwork could be quite pornographic. Tortures in hell, for example, provided titillation for the supposedly celibate priesthood, wheras images of Saint Sebastian were used for homoerotic purposes.