Transcript Slide 1

Gothic Art
For over 400 years the
Gothic style dominated
European art. Like big cities
today, trying to out-do each
other with sky scrapers, the
Gothic architects and artists
continually tried to out-do
each other in the size and
decoration of great Christian
cathedrals.
In the middle of the
12th century the
appearance, in the
Île-de-France, of
the new Gothic
style coincided with
the emergence of
the monarchy as a
powerful
centralizing force in
France.
From there the
Gothic style spread,
and it prevailed in
Western Europe for
200 years.
Unprecedented resources were
devoted to Christian art.
The term Gothic was introduced
in the 16th century by Georgio
Vasari, a Renaissance historian.
He attributed the style to the
tribes who had invaded Rome.
In it’s own day it was simply
called the “modern style” or the
“French Style.” Gradually it
displaced Romanesque forms.
Eventually, the International
Gothic style evolved, and was
used for all types of buildings
throughout Europe.
During the flowering of the Gothic style in the 12th and 13th century,
Europe enjoyed a period of vigorous growth. Towns became
important centers of artistic patronage and intellectual life.
Universities were established in Bologna, Italy, Paris, France, and
Oxford and Cambridge in England.
Two new religious orders
arose to serve the new urban
populations, the Franciscans
and the Dominicans.
The friars, as these monks
were called, went out into the
world to preach and minister
rather than confining
themselves to monasteries.
Crusade and pilgrimages continued
throughout the 13th century. The
benefit to Europe came with the
contact between the Europeans and
the Byzantine and Islamic world,
and the exposure of the Europeans
to the ancient writings of Aristotle.
Aristotle promoted rational inquiry
rather than faith as the path to truth.
Although this seems incompatible
with the Christian emphasis on faith
and spirituality, Thomas Aquinas
brought traditional faith together
with the new logic, and created the
basis of Catholic thought that
survives to today.
Artists and master builders saw
divine order in geometric
relationships. 13th century sculptors
created more naturalistic forms than
the Romanesque artists before them.
Gothic imagery, like Romanesque
imagery, aimed to instruct and
persuade the viewer; however, its
effects are more varied and subtle.
Scholastic logic and the new
naturalism mingle with the mysticism
of light and color to create a direct,
emotional and ecstatic experience of
the church as the embodiment of
God’s house, filled with divine light.
The first gothic
structure is the
Abby Church of
Saint-Denis in
Paris. Saint-Denis is
the patron saint of
Paris.
The Church of Saint Denis was important to the king of France
because many of the past kings had been buried there.
Abbot Suger, familiar with the latest architectural styles
throughout Europe, together with his master builder, created the
integrated whole of Saint-Denis with an open flowing space
ambulatory
transept
chapels
Sanctuary, ambulatory, and
chapels open into one
another, and the walls seem
to be made of stained glass.
The Abbey Church of SaintDenis initiated a a period of
competitive experimentation
in the Île-de-France and
surrounding regions that
resulted in ever-taller
churches enclosing
increasingly larger interior
spaces walled with evergreater expanses of glass.
Note: ribbed groin vaulting
in ceiling (page 278)
Chartres Cathedral (Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Chartres) was build
with Saint-Denis as it’s model. Built in several stages, it illustrates
both the early and the mature style of Gothic architecture.
The west portal survived a fire in
1194. Its three doors-known as the
Royal Portal-is filled with high
relief figures
Mary, the
Christ Child
and the story
of the
nativity.
Column
statues
Christ
enthroned in
majesty
The
Ascension
Column
statues
The master mason and the
builders of Notre-Dame in
Chartres brought together the
things that were to become
typical Gothic devices.
1. Pointed arches
2. Ribbed groin vaults
3. exterior flying buttresses
In Romanesque Cathedrals, the
eye is drawn toward the apse; in
Chartres, the eye is drawn upward
as well to the luminous clerestory
windows and soaring vaults
overhead.
Chartres is unique among French
Gothic buildings because it has
much of its original stained glass.
Most of it dates from between
1210 and 12 50, and was made in
the cathedrals glass workshop.
Some of the stained glass
windows tell stories from the
Bible. Others tell stories of the
saints and heroes.
Tree of Jessie, west façade, Chartres
Cathedral c. 1150-1170. Stained glass.
Any stained glass
window is meant to
be viewed and
experienced from
inside the building
Rose and Lancets,
north transept,
Chartres
Cathedral.
The relic at Chartres Cathedral
is a veil that is believed by
many to have been the veil of
Mary, the mother of Jesus.
It drew many pilgrims to see it
and the Cathedral grew, partly
because of this attraction.
The Bishop of Paris couldn’t be
outdone by Abbot Suger or the
Cathedral of Chartres, so, on a small
island in the Seine River, the
cornerstone for a church, now known
simply as Notre-Dame, was laid in
1163.
Notre-Dame barely survived the French Revolution…statues
associated with royalty were beheaded, and the revolutionaries turned
it into a “Temple of Reason”. But it was soon returned to religious
use. In 1804 Napoleon was crowned as emperor in Notre-Dame, and
in 1944, Parisians gathered here to celebrate the liberation of Paris
from the Nazis.
Other important
building was going
on as well as
Chartres and NotreDame in Paris.
The Cathedral of Reims was the
coronation church of France,
while Amiens was a commercial
center and had relics of John the
Baptist.
The Annunciation
The Visitation
On the façade of Reims Cathedral, we can see the work of three
different artists. The angel was done by an artist who became known
as the Master of the Smiling Angels
Sainte-Chapelle, built to house the relics
collected by the King of France, became
the epitomy of a new Gothic style called
Rayonnant or Court Style because of its
association with the royal courts of
London and Paris.
Paris also became famous
for painting and illustrating
books. Books ranged from
practical manuals for
artisans to elaborate
devotional works illustrated
with exquisite miniatures.
This page from a Moralized
Bible, shows Louis IX and
his mother, Queen Blanche
of Castile with a scribe and
an illustrator.
The style and colors of this
manuscript were inspired by
Stained glass windows.
In the late 13th century, a new kind of book became popular among
those who could afford them. These books were called Books of Hours
because they contained special prayers to be recited at the canonical
“hours”, literally around the clock.
This tiny (3 ½” x 2 ½”) Book of Hours was a present from king
Charles IV of France to his wife Queen Jeanne d’Evreux. The artist
chose to use grisaille with delicate touches of color added. The form
of this book is Joys and Sorrows of the Virgin.
Betrayal
and
Arrest of
Christ
The
Annunciation
The
Queen
Sculptors also began to fill a
growing demand for small
religious statues for homes,
personal chapels, and as
donations to favorite churches.
This statue served as a reliquary
for hairs said to have come from
the head of Mary.
Her young, sweet face
anticipates a type of ideal beauty
that emerged in the late 14th and
15th centuries in France, Flanders
and the Germanic lands.
As the Gothic style spread outside of France, it became an
international style taking on innovative regional forms.
Salisbury Cathedral in England is an ideal representative of English
Gothic architecture.
Note double transept and cloister.
Typically English is the park
like setting and the attached
cloister.
In contrast to French façades
which suggest the entrance
to paradise, English façades
like the one at Salisbury
suggests a wall around
paradise.
The tall spire was added
about 100 years after
Salisbury Cathedral was
completed.
Reminiscent of the
Romanesque interiors is the
use of color in the
stonework. The columns are
a darker stone than the rest
of the nave.
Originally, the stonework
was painted and gilded.
Three paintings of Salisbury
Cathedral by English landscape
artist, John Constable.
Like the French, the English also made richly decorated books.
In the Windmill Psalter, the
beginning letter B fills the
first page as a densely
interlaced Tree of Jesse.
The message on the first two
pages of this Psalter is Beatus
ver qui non abit (“Happy are
those who do not follow the
council [of the wicked]”)
An E, the second letter,
occupies the top of the right
page and is formed from
large tendrils that escape
from the delicate background
vegetation to support
characters from the story of
the Judgment of Solomon.
The rest of the opening
words appear on a banner
carried by an angel
At the top of the E is a
windmill which gives the
Psalter its name.
The English also became
renowned throughout
Europe for their pictorial
needlework.
Using gold and colored silk
thread, they created images
as detailed as the painters
produced in the
manuscripts.
The art came to be known
as opus anglicanum
(English work).
One prominent embroiderer who is
known to us is Mabel of Bury St.
Edmunds who worked for Henry
III. She created religious and
secular pieces, and was paid in
money and rich gifts.
None of Mabel’s work has been
identified, but it must have
resembled the embroidery seen on
the Chichester-Constable chasuble.
Three Marion scenes -The Annunciation,
The Adoration of the Magi, and The
Coronation of the Virgin - are arranged in
three registers surrounded by arches and
twisting branches sprouting oak leaves
with seed pearl acorns.
Vestments glittered
in the candlelight
amid the other
treasures of the altar.
Such gold and jewels
on garments often
made them so heavy
that the wearer had
to have help to move.
The 13th century was a time of political division and economic
expansion for the Italian peninsula. The pope had emerged as a major
political force and so was in conflict with the kings of France and
England.
Italy was divided by pro-papal and pro-imperial factions. Northern
Italy was divided into several wealthy city-states controlled by a few
powerful families. There was chronic internal strife as well as
conflict with one another.
Great wealth and growing individualism promoted art patronage in
northern Italy. Artisans began to emerge as artists in the modern
sense.
Although their methods and working conditions remained largely
unchanged, they now belonged to powerful guilds with wealthy
townspeople, nobles, and civic and religious bodies as patrons.
In 1338, the Sienna city council commossioned Lorenzetti to paint a
room called the Sala della Pace (Chamber of Peace) in the city hall.
The theme for the room was the contrast between the affects of
good and bad government on peoples lives.
Positive artistic achievements of this work include;
1. Over all visual coherence, keeping all parts of the mural
intelligible.
2. He created a feeling of accurate scale in the relationship between
the figures and their environment.
The elegant court style
seen in manuscript
illustration and
embroideries also
influenced gothic panel
painting.
Large scale painting on
wood panels for
altarpieces proliferated
throughout Europe in
the 13th century.
Two very important schools of Italian Gothic painting emerged in
Sienna and Florence, rivals in this as in everything else.
Duccio di Buoninsegna transformed the tradition in which he
worked by synthesizing Byzantine with northern Gothic influences
Duccio and his studio assistant painted a huge altarpiece for Siena
Cathedral known as the Maestá (Majesty) Altarpiece.
The central panel alone was 7 feet by 13 feet, and it had to be
painted on both sides because it stood in the center of the sanctuary.
Duccio has combined a softened ItalioByzantine figure style with the relaxed
relationship between the figures and their
setting that is characteristic of French Gothic
art.
In Florence, the transformation
began somewhat earlier than in
Siena. Duccio’s counterpart in
Florence was a painter known by his
nickname, Cimabue.
He is believed to have painted Virgin
and Child Enthroned for the main
alter of the Church of the Santa
Trinitá (Holy Trinity) in Florence.
More than 12 ½ feet high, it set a
precedence for monumental
altarpieces.
The multiple vantage points and the
well observed faces are elements that
enliven the picture.
A student of Cimabue was an
artist known as Giotto.
Giotto shared his teachers
concern for spacial volumes,
solid forms and warmly
naturalistic human figures.
In Virgin and Child Enthroned,
Giotto has:
1. Let light and shadow play
across the figure of Mary
2. Shown figures peering
through the canopy of the
throne
3. Created the sense that the
figures are three
dimensional, occupying real
space.
Giotto’s
masterpiece is the
frescoed interior of
the Scrovegni
family chapel in
Padua. The chapel
is also known as
the Arena Chapel
because of an old
Roman arena close
by.
Events in the life of
the Virgin Mary
Frescoes
on the
north wall
of the
chapel
Page 302
The first panel is the Marriage at Cana when Jesus changed the
water to wine recalling that his blood will become the wine of the
Eucharist or communion.
The second panel is the raising of Lazarus,
a reference to the Resurrection.
In the third
panel is the
depiction of
the
lamentation
over the
body of
Jesus.
Giotto
rendered his
figures with
dark
shadows and
highlights of
paint mixed
with white
The fourth panel is
the Resurection.
With this sculptural
modeling, Giotto was
able to convey a
sense of dept in both
architectural and
landscape settings.
Giotto also draws the
viewer in with his
direct emotional
appeal and simplicity
of the forms
Florentine painting, in the style originated by Giotto and kept alive
by his pupils and their followers, was fundamental to the
development of Italian Renaissance art over the next two centuries.
With Italian Gothic art, artists moved toward the depiction of a
humanized world anchored in three-dimensional forms.