Baptismal Aesthetics In-Between: Reflections on the Interplay of Text, Rite, and Image in the Sanctuaries of Ravenna

Abstract

Baptism is the sacramental celebration of Christian initiation. Paul’s letter to the Romans, which is central to the understanding of baptism, characterizes this sacramental event as a dying with Christ and the beginning of a new existence. This new mode of existence gains an aesthetic-performative form in the liturgical rites. The design of the liturgical spaces can then be understood as “petrified rites”. The imperial church basilicas and baptisteries of the Byzantine period in Ravenna bear particular witness to such petrified manifestations of liturgy. What took place in the liturgical rites found an aesthetic counterpart in the interior design and in the rich mosaic art of the ancient buildings. The Ravennese color-intensive wall and ceiling motifs substantiate in a sensuous way the eschatological aesthetic, which is opened to believers through baptism. Biblical texts, architecture, rite, and pictorial program thus form an aesthetic ensemble whose elements mutually illuminate each other and only gain their full depth of meaning in the context of this performative dynamic. This contribution analyzes the interplay of these different registers, based on some selected examples of Ravenna’s sacred buildings, and explores how the baptismal event is conveyed in them as an aesthetic access to the world.

Keywords

• sacraments
• liturgy
• theology
• byzantine art
• Ravenna
• mosaics