Editing Christian art (section)

===Beginnings===
{{main|Early Christian art and architecture}}
[[File:VirgenNino.jpg|thumb|250px|Virgin and Child. Wall painting from the early [[catacombs]], Rome, 4th century.]]
[[Early Christian art]] survives from dates near the origins of Christianity, although many early Christians associated figurative art with pagan religion, and were suspicious or hostile towards it. Over time, this lessened. But large free-standing sculpture, the medium for the most prominent pagan images, continued to be distrusted and largely shunned for some centuries, and virtually up to the present day in the [[Orthodox world]].<ref>[[Hans Belting|Belting, Hans]], ''Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image Before the Era of Art'', p. xxii, 1994, Chicago University Press (English trans.), ISBN 9780226042152, [https://books.google.com/books?id=kuWm7jVWFiEC google books]</ref>  The oldest Christian sculptures are small [[relief]]s from [[Roman sarcophagi]], dating to the beginning of the 2nd century.  The largest groups of Early Christian paintings come from the tombs in the [[Catacombs of Rome]], and show the evolution of the [[depiction of Jesus]], a process not complete until the 6th century, since when the conventional appearance of Jesus in art has remained remarkably consistent.

Until the [[Constantine I and Christianity|adoption of Christianity by Constantine]] Christian art derived its style and much of its [[iconography]] from popular [[Roman art]], but from this point grand Christian buildings built under imperial patronage brought a need for Christian versions of Roman elite and official art, of which [[mosaic]]s in churches in Rome are the most prominent surviving examples.  Christian art was caught up in, but did not originate, the shift in style from the classical tradition inherited from [[Ancient Greek art]] to a less realist and otherworldly hieratic style, the start of [[gothic art]].