By describing the mosaics at St. Catherine’s Monastery, explain the Byzantine artists’ movement away from Greek and Roman naturalism in their depictions of religious subjects

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The artists who created the mosaics in Saint Catherine’s Monastery turned their attention to the supernatural event of the Transfiguration. There is no perspectival depth—as if the vision of Christ’s transformation obliterates the possibility of even thinking in terms of real space. Although the event depicted is highly dramatic, the participants’ gestures are stiff, lacking the natural drama of Hellenistic sculpture. The figures are highly stylized and depicted in a uniform geometric configuration, as can be seen in the repeated use of a lozenge shape to depict the thighs of the disciples. And despite being bathed in light, these figures cast no shadows. The robes of both John, on the left, and James, on the right, blow backward in identical but improbable folds. The feet of the two prophets and Christ not only look alike but are similarly positioned; the sandaled feet of the three disciples could be transferred one to the other without a problem. The artists, in other words, employed a standardized shorthand to depict the events. This hieratic style is at once formally abstract and priestly and extends to meaning as well. The mosaic at Saint Catherine’s celebrates a power that is otherworldly, just as Christ stands wholly disconnected from the ground.