Looking at the life of Christ

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the development of cyclical narrative images depicting the "Life of Christ" in Christian art. The focus of my study is on the formats, usages, and theological significance of the Christological cycle in the late 9th, 10 th, and 11th centuries. The cycle appears almost simultaneously and with similar aspects in the Eastern Roman Empire under the Macedonian Renaissance (867-1056) and in the Western Roman Empire under the Ottoman Renaissance (919-1024). These Renaissances renewed the classical styles and iconographical types of imagery from the Late Antique/Early Christian period of the third through sixth centuries. My work will first trace the evolution of the cycle of Gospel images to their earliest known models and discuss the importance of original sources. The origins of cyclical narrative of the life of a deity will also be considered, as this type of imagery appears to develop with Christianity.