It is customary to distinguish early Christian painting of the West or Latin part of the late Roman Empire from the Christian painting of regions dominated by the Greek language and to consider the latter as proto-Byzantine. The Western strain of early Christian painting may be said to have ended with the collapse of the empire in the West at the end of the 5th century. In the East, until the 6th and even the 7th century, painting in many regions followed the paths traced by Christian painting at its beginnings. Exceptions to the above schematization are Doura-Europus and early ...(100 of 73439 words)