Engaged with Byzantine and Medieval Art

Art that engages with Byzantine and Medieval art—Christian art produced between the 4th and 15th centuries in the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe—and finds inspiration in the religious icons, elaborate altarpieces, gold-leaf mosaics, and stained glass windows produced during this era. Driven by a sense of nostalgia for the religious clarity of the Medieval era, a return to Medieval Gothic architecture, known as the Gothic Revival, began in England in the late 1740s and spread globally. A century later, the Pre-Raphaelites mimicked the sharp focus of Medieval and Early Renaissance painting, while the Viennese Secessionist artist Gustav Klimt paid homage to the ornate patterns of Byzantine mosaics in his iconic painting The Kiss.