In the transition from the period of Roman art to Christian art, it is very important to not only notice the change in style of human portrayal in sculptures and paintings, but also the use of symbolism to effectively convey messages about what each culture valued and felt was important. In Roman art, humans were portrayed in an idealistic form, which emphasized the importance of physically perfect bodies that had defined muscles and chiseled faces that tended to lack emotion. As artwork progressed to become more religious in context, humans were portrayed with less defined bodies and more prominent emotion on their faces. The most interesting examples of art from the very middle of this transition are set apart because they include human forms that resemble the Roman ideals of a human but also contain much Christian symbolism within the content of the artwork.
An example of a Roman sculpture from the high classical period is The Scraper, see above. This statue exemplifies a human in its idealized form and also in a stance that really engages the audience. This particular stance is only characteristic of Roman statues in that time period, but not of earlier statues as much. This is also a sign that Roman art is moving toward a more emotionally connected portrayal of its subjects rather than a distanced portrayal. An example of a piece of work done during the middle of the transition between Roman and Christian art is the Sarcouphagus of Judas, which actually shows examples of both Roman and Christian iconography. In one part of the sculpture, Jesus is shown riding into town on a steed instead of a donkey. This is not historically correct, but it would have been the proper custom for him to ride in on a horse if he had been a Roman ruler. A piece of work that also exemplifies Roman and Christian tradition is the narrative piece shown above in which Jesus is shown having his first bath. Although there is nothing in scripture about this, it would be a custom that would only take place if Jesus had actually been born a Roman ruler. As the artwork moves from Roman to Christian, the biggest change that occurs is the use of symbolism to represent events entirely separate from the action going on in the painting. An example of this is in the painting Mary and the Angel. The lily that is painted in this picture is actually a symbol of the crucifixion of Christ, which obviously doesn’t occur until many years after the subject matter represented in this painting.
