Transcript Chapter Six The Gothic and the Rebirth of Naturalism

Chapter Six
The Gothic and the Rebirth of Naturalism
Civic and Religious Life in an
Age of Inquiry
The Gothic Style
• Gothic was originally a derogatory term adopted in sixteenth-
century Italy to describe the art of northern Europe, where, it was
believed, classical tradition had been destroyed by Germanic
invaders, the Goths
• In its own time it was known as opus modernum (modern work) or
opus francigenum (French work)
• Gothic represented a new standard of beauty in Western
architecture and decoration—intricate stonework soaring ever
higher to create lofty interior space, classical models of
naturalistic expression, and polyphonic music that was
accompanied by a new instrument—the organ
Abbott Suger and the
Abbey of Saint-Denis
• Suger began work on the royal Abbey of Saint-Denis in 1137,
painting the 300-year-old walls with gold and precious colors
• Next he added twin towers and a triple portal and surrounded the
back of the ambulatory with a circular string of chapels, all lit with
stained-glass windows
• This light, “by virtue of which,” Suger wrote, “the whole world
would shine with the miraculous and uninterrupted light,”
proclaimed the new Gothic style
Ambulatory Choir
Abbey Church of Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis, France
1140-44
Moses Window
Abbey Church of Saint-Denis
•
The best-preserved
of the original
stained-glass
windows at SaintDenis
• Moses was a prominent
theme at the royal
Abbey because his
leadership of the
Israelites was the
model for the French
king’s leadership of his
people
Chartres Cathedral
• The Cathedral of Notre-Dame at Chartres, located in the heart of
France’s grain belt, was the spiritual center of the cult of the Virgin
(Notre Dame means “Our Lady”)
• Soon after the first building phase was completed, between 1140 and
1150, pilgrims thronged to the cathedral to pay homage to what the
Church claimed was the Virgin’s tunic, worn at Jesus’s birth, believed
to possess extraordinary healing powers
• In fact, when a fire in 1194 destroyed the cathedral’s original structure,
a few stained-glass windows, including one of the most beautiful,
known as Notre-Dame de la Belle Verrière (“Our Lady of the Beautiful
Window”) and the tunic of the Virgin survived
West Façade, Chartres Cathedral
ca. 1134-1220
The different designs of the two towers reflect the Gothic dismissal of Romanesque
absolute balance and symmetry as well as the growing refinement of the Gothic style.
Stained Glass
• The innovative engineering that marks Gothic architecture freed the
walls of the need to bear the weight of the structure; it also freed the
walls to contain glass
• The purpose of the stained-glass programs in all Gothic cathedrals was
to tell the stories of the Bible in a compelling way to an audience that
was largely illiterate
• The windows were donated by the royal family, the noblemen, and by
merchant guilds
Notre-Dame de la Belle Verrière
Chartres Cathedral
Central portion, 12th century; surrounding angels, 13th century
Rose Window and Lancets
North Transept, Chartres, ca. 1150-80
• A rose window is a round
window with mullions
(framing elements) and
traceries extending outward
from its center in the
manner of a rose’s petals
• It is symbolic of the Virgin
Mary in her role as the
Mystic Rose—the root plant,
it was believed, of the Jesse
Tree
The Tree of Jesse Window
Chartres, ca. 1150-70
• Jesse trees are a common
motif in 12th- and 13thcentury manuscripts,
murals, sculpture, and
stained glass
• Thought to represent the
genealogy of Christ, since
they depict the Virgin
Mary as descended from
Jesse, the father of King
David
• Jesse trees were important
in the cult of the Virgin in
establishing Mary’s royal
lineage
Gothic Architecture
• Key among the innovations that contributed to the goal of elevating
the souls of the worshippers to the spiritual realm was rib vaulting
• Rib vaulting allowed for the massive stonework of Romanesque style
to be replaced by an almost lacy play of thin columns and patterns of
ribs and windows, all pointing upward in a gravity-defying crescendo
that carries the viewer’s gaze toward the heavens
• Chartres’s nave is 120' high, Reims’s nave is 125', and Beauvais’s, the
highest, is 157', the equivalent of a 15-story building
Rib Vaulting
• Rib vaults are a form of groin
vault
• They are based on the pointed
arch, which can reach to a
greater height than a rounded
arch
• The principles of rib vaulting
were known to Romanesque
architects, but Gothic architects
used these techniques with
increasing sophistication
Flying Buttresses
• Flying buttresses extend away from the wall, employing an arch to
focus the strength of the buttress’s support at the top of the wall,
the section most prone to collapse from the outward pressure of
the vaulted ceiling
• They allow for even lighter buttressing and more windows
• They also create a stunning visual spectacle, arching winglike from
the building’s side as if defying gravity
Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Paris
Flying Buttresses, 1211-90
Gothic Sculpture
• In a little over a hundred years, Gothic sculptors had begun to
reintroduce classical principles of sculptural composition into
Western art
• The jamb sculptures on the portals at Chartres and Reims mark a
distinct advance in the sculptural realization of the human body
• By 1245 to 1255, the sculptures are the most fully human, the most
natural since Roman times
Jamb Statues
West Portal, Chartres Cathedral, 1145-70
• Figures from the Hebrew Bible
considered to be precursors of
Christ
• Fully rounded and occupy a
space in front of the column
itself
• Decorative patterns at the
bottom are reminiscent of
Islamic design in Spain
The Radiant Style
• By the middle of the 13th century, the Gothic style in France had
been elaborated into increasingly flamboyant patterns of repeated
traceries and ornament that have come to be called the Rayonnant
or radiant style
• This style was closely associated with the court of Louis IX (r. 1226-
70), considered throughout Europe to be the model of perfect rule
• Because of his insistence on treating people fairly, his abolishment
of serfdom and private wars, and his reform of tax structure, he was
something of a saint. In fact, the Church later beatified him as Saint
Louis
Sainte-Chapelle, Paris
Interior, Upper Chapel, 1238-48
 Louis’s most important
contribution to the Church
and to the history of Gothic
architecture
 Ratio of glass to stone is
higher than in any other
Gothic structure, bathing its
viewer in light
 Walls decorated in red, blue,
and gilt, with golden stars
shining down from the deep
blue of the delicately vaulted
ceiling
Civic and Religious Life in
Siena and Florence
•
By the thirteenth century, Italian life and politics were dominated by
two prominent city states: Siena, in the mountainous southern region
of Tuscany, and Florence, in the region’s richest agricultural district
•
Since Charlemagne’s time, the two cities had been fierce rivals. Siena
was a Ghibelline city, which sided with the emperor, and Florence was
a Guelph stronghold that supported the pope
•
Siena and Florence, both republics, were fierce rivals
Central Italy in about 1494,
Showing the Republics of Florence and
Siena and the Papal States
Siena
• In 1125 Siena established itself as a free commune (a collective of
people gathered together for the common good), giving it an
immense advantage over its feudal neighbors
• Its government, as was Florence’s, was controlled by arti, or guilds
• Leading the way in Siena were the merchants, who dealt in wax,
pepper, and spices, as well as Flemish cloth, shoes, stockings, and
belts
Ambrogio Lorenzetti,
Allegory of Good Government: The Effects of
Good Government in the City and Country
Fresco, Sala della Pace, Palazzo Publico, 1338-39
Florence
• By the twelfth century, Florence was the center of textile
production in the Western world
• The city’s bankers and moneylenders made Florence a vital player
in world trade. Florence was Europe’s bank, and its bankers were
Europe’s true nobility
• Florentine bankers invented checks, credit, life insurance, and in
1252 introduced Europe’s first single currency, the gold florin
Tuscan Religious Life
•
Even though the guilds, associations of people with likeminded,
often occupation-based interests, exercised power in the cities,
nothing influenced the people more than the Church
•
Civic leaders engaged in building projects for the new urban
religious orders: the Dominicans, founded by the Spanish monk
Dominic de Guzman (ca. 1170-1221), and the Franciscans,
founded by St. Francis of Assisi (ca. 1181-1226)
•
The Dominicans and Franciscans were both mendicant orders:
they neither held property nor engaged in business, relying on
community contributions to support them
Franciscan and Dominican Churches
Florence
Santa Croce is a Franciscan church built on
the eastern side of the city
Santa Maria Novella was commissioned by the
Dominicans and was built on the western side
of the city, underscoring the rivalry between
the two orders
Growing Naturalism in Painting
•
Because they put themselves under the protection of the Virgin,
Siena and Florence began competing to prove who could paint her
more naturally
•
One of the first artists to break from the Byzantine tradition was
Siena’s Duccio di Buoninsegna
•
His Mary has a real body under her robes, and his Christ Child
seems to be an actual baby, and a slightly chubby one at that.
Mary’s knee especially asserts itself, the drapery, falling in long,
gentle curves, much more natural looking than the rigid, angular
drapery of earlier Byzantine works
Duccio di Buoninsegna, Maestà
Tempera and gold on wood, 7'  13' 6¼", 1308-11
Simone Martini’s Maestà
•
Martini had worked on the cathedral Maestà as Duccio’s
apprentice from 1308 to 1311
•
Martini’s Maestà, situated in a public building overlooking the
works of civic administration, is even more naturalistic
•
The Virgin’s crown signifies her status as Queen of Heaven. Jesus
holds a parchment that reads, “Love Justice, you who judge the
earth”
•
Her porcelain-white skin, tinged with pink, gives her complexion a
realistic tone. She embodies a standard of beauty absent in
Western art since Classical times—the physical beauty of the flesh
as opposed to the divine beauty of the spirit
Simone Martini, Maestà
Fresco, 25'  31' 9", ca. 1311-17
Cimabue, Madonna Enthroned
with Angels and Prophets
Tempera and gold on wood, 11’7 ½” x 7’4”, ca. 1285
•
Even before Duccio became
active in Siena, Cimabue, the
leading painter in Florence,
had produced a large-scale
virgin for the altarpiece of the
Church of Santa Trinità
•
Although the Byzantine roots
are clear, most important are
Cimabue’s concerns for spatial
volume and treatment of
human figures with
naturalistic expressions
•
The Virgin’s right foot is
propped upon the throne in
an almost casual position
Giotto, Madonna Enthroned with
Angels and Prophets
Tempera and gold on wood, 10' 8"  6' 8¼", ca. 1310
•
According to legend, Cimabue
discovered Giotto, a talented
shepherd boy, and tutored him in
painting. The pupil soon
surpassed the teacher
•
Giotto’s Madonna Enthroned with
Angels and Saints is a remarkable
shift toward naturalism
•
Colors gradually and continuously
blend from light to dark around
the contours of his figures and
their draperies, recreating the
realistic appearance of shadows
Arena Chapel
•
Arena Chapel was the family chapel of the Scrovegnis,
moneylenders who were known for their flagrant usury. The
chapel seems to have been penance for the family’s sins
•
Giotto painted virtually every space in the barrel-vaulted chapel
with buon fresco, the technique of painting on wet plaster
•
He painted with scenes from the life of the Virgin and the life of
Christ. These are dramatic paintings—possessing a psychological
intensity and emotional immediacy that involve the viewer
directly in the scene
Arena Chapel, Padua. The Life of Christ
and the Virgin Frescoes
Giotto, 1305-06
•
The top of the vault is a
starry blue sky, painted
with lapis lazuli
•
On the back wall above the
door is a Last Judgment,
showing Enrico Scrovegni,
the patron, offering a
model of the chapel to the
Virgin
Giotto, The Lamentation
Fresco, 78½"  73"
 One of the most moving scenes,
focusing on the real pain felt by
Christ’s followers upon his death,
rather than the promise of
salvation that is symbolized
 Jesus in the left-hand corner
shows Giotto’s deliberate
abandonment of the balance and
symmetry of Byzantine art
 Giotto was the first artist since
antiquity to depict figures from
behind, contributing to the sense
of realism
Giotto, Adoration of the Magi
Fresco, 78½"  73"
•
Giotto comes close in
rendering the wooden shed in
perspective
•
Giotto apparently modeled
the star after Halley’s Comet,
which made one of its regular
appearances in 1301
•
Giotto had probably never
seen a camel; these have blue
eyes and cows’ feet
Dante’s Divine Comedy
•
The poem, begun in about 1308, records the travels of the
Christian soul from Hell to Purgatory and finally to salvation in
three books—the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso
•
Dante, the leading character in his own poem, is led by the
Roman poet Virgil through Hell
•
Many of the characters who inhabit his Hell are Florentine
political figures. Dante himself was a Guelph, but when the
Ghibellines seized control of the city, in 1302 Dante was
banned from Florence
Plan of Dante’s Inferno
•
Inferno composed of nine
descending rings of sinners
undergoing punishment, each
more gruesome than the one
before it
•
Among the lowest are the
Guelphs and Ghibellines from all
over Tuscany who betrayed their
cities’ well-being

At the very bottom is Satan
chewing on the worst of all
traitors—Judas (thought to have
betrayed Jesus) and Brutus and
Cassius (assassins of Julius
Caesar)
Domenico de Michelino,
Dante and His Poem
Fresco, Florence Cathedral, 10' 6"  9' 7", 1465
Petrarch (1304-74)
•
One of Boccaccio’s best friends
was the itinerant scholar and
poet Francesco Petrarca, known
as Petrarch
•
Petrarch rediscovered the
forgotten works of the Roman
orator and statesman Cicero
•
Petrarch’s greatest work was a
book of over 300 poems, the
Canzoniere (“Songbook”),
inspired by his love for Laura
Christine de Pizan (1364-ca. 1430)
•
Educated at the French court
•
When her husband died, she
needed to support three children,
a niece, and her mother, so she
became the first female
professional writer in European
history
•
In her Book of the City of Ladies,
she attacked male misogyny by
recounting the accomplishments
of women throughout the ages in
an allegorical debate between
herself, Lady Reason, Lady
Rectitude, and Lady Justice