At
the north-west side of the old city walls of Istanbul, we can find
Kariye Camii or, to use the Byzantine name, Moni Choras (Chora
Monastery). A place dedicated to worshiping God but also a place
decorated with sophisticated wall paintings 
and mosaics. (following the
style of the Macedonian School of painting).
The mosaic depicting Christ with Virgin Mary is the epitomy of
Classicism, a direct predecessor of the Renaissance - It's worth
mentioning that Classicism
and ancient Greek culture were always present among Byzantine high
class, therefore we can't speak of any "Renaissance" in Byzantium.
Notice the kindness and humanistic ethos of the faces, the fragile flesh
-the pink cheeks in particular, the eyes that stare straight into the
soul. There is a similar mosaic in Saint Sophia -maybe created by the
same workshop. The wall paintings, most famous of which the
"Resurrection", share the same humanistic spirit with harmony in
movements, rythm of the limbs behind the soft pale tunics. A little
further, in the "Last Judgement" an angel is holding a scroll that's
unfolding and looks like a nautilus shell. and on the shell's spiral,
pinned are the Sun, the Moon and the Stars, an indirect reference to the
infinity of the universe!
http://www.choramuseum.com
