André Grabar
Early Christian Art: From the Rise of Christianity to the Death of Theodosius.
Odyssey Press, 1968. The Arts of Mankind. First edition. Translation by Stuart Gilbert and James Emmons. 325 pages.
Large-format volume, measuring approximately 9.25" x 11.25", is bound in red cloth, with stamped gilt lettering to spine and publisher's emblem stamped in gold on front cover. Book is new. Price-clipped dust jacket is in fine condition.  Illustrated throughout in black-and-white and color, including fold-out plates, plus fold-out map at rear. Volume is housed in cardboard slipcase (9.25" x 12").
This is the ninth volume of this series.
"The beginnings of any historical movement are bound to be mysterious. So it is with Christianity, and so it is with Christian art. Into the ordered world of late classicism came the arresting voice and disturbing gaze of men "heavy with a conscience" for whom art was only a medium to a higher truth. André Grabar, the foremost living authority on the subject, traces the emergence of this art from its pagan background and shows the social and spiritual forces that governed its growth. The actual process of this growht was infinitely complex. Many of the conventions of Roman art were retained, adapted to a new iconography and combined in startling ways with elements from the Eastern Mediterranean and Persia. At first an "underground" movement (literally, since the earliest surviving works are those of the catacombs), Christianity won toleration and, finally, official support in the early 4th century. During the reign of Constantine, art that was specifically Christian, the building and adornment of churches, began to dominate Europe, preparing the way for the glories of Byzantine and later periods.
"Early Christian Art" covers a vast area (from Spain to Syria) and a vast theme (since content and meaning are here inseperable from expression). Chatpers are devoted to to painting and sculpture during the persecutions, to the great Roman basilicas and Old St. Peter's, to the mosaics of Santa Constanza (which began as a pagan tomb and ended as a Christian church) and to the haunting and still too little known sarcophaguses of the 4th century. The book also includes a sectionon ancient texts relating to art, a chronological table and a glossry-index, and the whole work, together with the companion volume, "The Golden Age of Justinian," is the fruition of a great scholar's life-work, presented in a way that only the most modern techniques can make possible."