Gothic art

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Gothic art
Top: The Western (Royal) Portal of the Chartres Cathedral (circa 1145), these architectural statues being the earliest Gothic sculptures and a revolution in style and the model for a generation of sculptors; Centre: The Sainte-Chapelle from Paris (1194-1248); Bottom: The Wilton Diptych (1395–1459)
Years activeLate 12th century-16th century

Gothic art was a style of medieval art that developed in Northern France out of Romanesque art in the 12th century AD, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, and much of Northern, Southern and Central Europe, never quite effacing more classical styles in Italy. In the late 14th century, the sophisticated court style of International Gothic developed, which continued to evolve until the late 15th century. In many areas, especially Germany, Late Gothic art continued well into the 16th century, before being subsumed into Renaissance art. Primary media in the Gothic period included sculpture, panel painting, stained glass, fresco and illuminated manuscripts. The easily recognizable shifts in architecture from Romanesque to Gothic, and Gothic to Renaissance styles, are typically used to define the periods in art in all media, although in many ways figurative art developed at a different pace.

The earliest Gothic art was

Virgin Mary
changed from the Byzantine iconic form to a more human and affectionate mother, cuddling her infant, swaying from her hip, and showing the refined manners of a well-born aristocratic courtly lady.

painters' guild
. As a result, because of better record keeping, more artists are known to us by name in this period than any previous; some artists were even so bold as to sign their names.

Origins

14th Century International Gothic Mary Magdalene in St. John Cathedral in Toruń.

Gothic art emerged in

Regional variations of architecture remained important, even when, by the late 14th century, a coherent universal style known as International Gothic
had evolved, which continued until the late 15th century, and beyond in many areas.

Although there was far more secular Gothic art than is often thought today, as generally the survival rate of religious art has been better than for secular equivalents, a large proportion of the art produced in the period was religious, whether commissioned by the church or by the laity. Gothic art was often

Marian devotion, in which the visual arts played a major part. Images of the Virgin Mary developed from the Byzantine hieratic types, through the Coronation of the Virgin, to more human and intimate types, and cycles of the Life of the Virgin were very popular. Artists like Giotto, Fra Angelico and Pietro Lorenzetti in Italy, and Early Netherlandish painting, brought realism and more natural humanity to art. Western artists, and their patrons, became much more confident in innovative iconography
, and much more originality is seen, although copied formulae were still used by most artists.

Iconography was affected by changes in theology, with depictions of the

Virgin and Child, or occupying the central space themselves (this usually for works designed for side-chapels). Over the period many ancient iconographical features that originated in New Testament apocrypha were gradually eliminated under clerical pressure, like the midwives at the Nativity, though others were too well-established, and considered harmless.[3]

Etymology

The Lady and the Unicorn, the title given to a series of six tapestries woven in Flanders, this one being called À Mon Seul Désir; late 15th century; wool and silk; 377 x 473 cm; Musée de Cluny (Paris)
Further information: Name of the Goths

The word "

Rousseau, before becoming a recognized form of art, and the wording becoming fixed.[5] Molière
would famously comment on Gothic:

The besotted taste of Gothic monuments,
These odious monsters of ignorant centuries,
Which the torrents of barbary spewed forth.[5]

In its beginning, Gothic art was initially called "French work" (Opus Francigenum), thus attesting the priority of France in the creation of this style.[5]

Painting

Simone Martini (1285–1344).

Painting in the Gothic style did not exist until around 1200, over 50 years after the beginnings of Gothic architecture and sculpture. The transition from Romanesque to Gothic is very imprecise and not at all a clear break, and Gothic ornamental detailing is often introduced before much change is seen in the style of figures or compositions themselves. Then figures become more animated in pose and facial expression, tend to be smaller in relation to the background of scenes, and are arranged more freely in the pictorial space, where there is room. This transition occurs first in England and France around 1200, in Germany around 1220 and Italy around 1300. Painting during the Gothic period was practiced in four primary media:

manuscript illumination and stained glass
.

Frescos

Frescos continued to be used as the main pictorial narrative craft on church walls in southern Europe as a continuation of early Christian and Romanesque traditions. An accident of survival

Reformation which has preserved them, but some have also remained untouched since their creation. Among the finest examples from Denmark are those of the Elmelunde Master from the Danish island of Møn who decorated the churches of Fanefjord, Keldby and Elmelunde.[9] Albertus Pictor is arguably the most well-known fresco artist from the period working in Sweden. Examples of Swedish churches with well-preserved frescos include Tensta, Gökhem and Anga
churches.

Stained glass

Part of German stained glass panel of 1444 with the Visitation; pot metal of various colours, including white glass, black vitreous paint, yellow silver stain, and the "olive-green" parts are enamel. The plant patterns in the red sky are formed by scratching away black paint from the red glass before firing. A restored panel with new lead cames.

In northern Europe, stained glass was an important and prestigious form of painting until the 15th century, when it became supplanted by panel painting. Gothic architecture greatly increased the amount of glass in large buildings, partly to allow for wide expanses of glass, as in rose windows. In the early part of the period mainly black paint and clear or brightly coloured glass was used, but in the early 14th century the use of compounds of silver, painted on glass which was then fired, allowed a number of variations of colour, centred on yellows, to be used with clear glass in a single piece. By the end of the period designs increasingly used large pieces of glass which were painted, with yellows as the dominant colours, and relatively few smaller pieces of glass in other colours.[10]

Manuscripts and printmaking

Main article: Gothic book illustration
Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux, by Jean Pucelle, Paris, 1320s.

Illuminated manuscripts represent the most complete record of Gothic painting, providing a record of styles in places where no monumental works have otherwise survived. The earliest full manuscripts with French Gothic illustrations date to the middle of the 13th century.[11] Many such illuminated manuscripts were royal bibles, although psalters also included illustrations; the Parisian Psalter of Saint Louis, dating from 1253 to 1270, features 78 full-page illuminations in tempera paint and gold leaf.[12]

During the late 13th century, scribes began to create prayer books for the laity, often known as

Jeanne d'Évreux.[13] Elements of the French Gothic present in such works include the use of decorative page framing reminiscent of the architecture of the time with elongated and detailed figures.[12] The use of spatial indicators such as building elements and natural features such as trees and clouds also denote the French Gothic style of illumination.[12]

From the middle of the 14th century,

printmakers like Israhel van Meckenem and Master E. S. In the 15th century, the introduction of cheap prints, mostly in woodcut
, made it possible even for peasants to have devotional images at home. These images, tiny at the bottom of the market, often crudely coloured, were sold in thousands but are now extremely rare, most having been pasted to walls.

Altarpiece and panel painting

Painting with oil on canvas did not become popular until the 15th and 16th centuries and was a hallmark of Renaissance art. In Northern Europe the important and innovative school of Early Netherlandish painting is in an essentially Gothic style, but can also be regarded as part of the Northern Renaissance, as there was a long delay before the Italian revival of interest in classicism had a great impact in the north. Painters like Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck made use of the technique of oil painting to create minutely detailed works, correct in perspective, where apparent realism was combined with richly complex symbolism arising precisely from the realistic detail they could now include, even in small works. In Early Netherlandish painting, from the richest cities of Northern Europe, a new minute realism in oil painting was combined with subtle and complex theological allusions, expressed precisely through the highly detailed settings of religious scenes. The Mérode Altarpiece (1420s) of Robert Campin and the Washington Van Eyck Annunciation or Madonna of Chancellor Rolin (both 1430s, by Jan van Eyck) are examples.[14] For the wealthy, small panel paintings, even polyptychs in oil painting were becoming increasingly popular, often showing donor portraits alongside, though often much smaller than the Virgin or saints depicted. These were usually displayed in the home.

Sculpture

Main article: Gothic sculpture

Monumental sculpture

French ivory Virgin and Child, end of the 13th century, 25 cm high, curving to fit the shape of the ivory tusk.

The Gothic period is essentially defined by Gothic architecture, and does not entirely fit with the development of style in sculpture in either its start or finish. The facades of large churches, especially around doors, continued to have large tympanums, but also rows of sculpted figures spreading around them.

The statues on the Western (Royal) Portal at

Bamberg Rider, the first life-size equestrian statue
in Western art since the 6th century.

"In Italy the Gospel of Gothic was preached from pulpits not from tympana, and the unit of the sculptor's thinking was an autonomous, self-consistent work of art" (John Pope-Hennessy).[16]

pulpit in Pistoia of 1301.[17]

Another revival of classical style is seen in the

Burgundy and Flanders around 1400.[18] Late Gothic sculpture continued in the North, with a fashion for very large, wooden, sculpted altarpieces with increasingly virtuoso carving and large numbers agitated expressive figures; most surviving examples are in Germany, after much iconoclasm elsewhere. Tilman Riemenschneider, Veit Stoss and others continued the style well into the 16th century, gradually absorbing Italian Renaissance influences.[19]

Life-size tomb effigies in stone or alabaster became popular for the wealthy, and grand multi-level tombs evolved, with the Scaliger Tombs of Verona so large they had to be moved outside the church. By the 15th century there was an industry exporting Nottingham alabaster altar reliefs in groups of panels over much of Europe for economical parishes who could not afford stone retables.[20]

Portable sculpture

Lid of the Walters Casket, with the Siege of the Castle of Love at left, and jousting. Paris, 1330–1350.

Small carvings, for a mainly lay and often female market, became a considerable industry in Paris and some other centres. Types of ivories included small, devotional

Duc de Berry's Holy Thorn Reliquary, until they ran short of money, when they were melted down again for cash.[22]

Ivory diptych, with some of the coloured paint remaining. Adoration of the Magi and Crucifixion. Meuse valley, France, c. 1350.

Gothic sculptures independent of architectural ornament were primarily created as devotional objects for the home or intended as donations for local churches,[23] although small reliefs in ivory, bone and wood cover both religious and secular subjects, and were for church and domestic use. These sculptures were created by urban artisans, and the most common theme for three-dimensional small statues is the Virgin Mary alone or with a child.[24] Paris was the main centre of ivory workshops, and exported to most of northern Europe, though Italy also had a considerable production. An exemplar of these independent sculptures is among the collections of the Abbey Church of St Denis; the silver-gilt Virgin and Child dates to 1339 and features Mary enveloped in a flowing cloak holding an infantile Christ figure.[24] Both the simplicity of the cloak and the youth of the child presage other sculptures found in northern Europe dating to the 14th century and early 15th century.[24] Such sculpture shows an evolution from an earlier stiff and elongated style, still partly Romanesque, into a spatial and naturalistic feel in the late 12th and early 13th century.[24] Other French Gothic sculptural subjects included figures and scenes from popular literature of the time.[24] Imagery from the poetry of the troubadours was particularly popular among artisans of mirror-cases and small boxes presumably for use by women.[24] The Casket with Scenes of Romances (Walters 71264) of 1330–50 is an unusually large example with space for a number of scenes from different literary sources.

Souvenirs of pilgrimages to shrines, such as clay or lead

livery badge, showed signs of feudal and political loyalty or alliance that came to be regarded as a social menace in England under bastard feudalism. The cheaper forms were sometimes given away free, as with the 13,000 badges ordered in 1483 by King Richard III of England in fustian cloth with his emblem of a white boar for the investiture of his son Edward as Prince of Wales,[25] a huge number given the population at the time. The Dunstable Swan Jewel
, modelled fully in the round in enamelled gold, is a far more exclusive version, that would have been given to someone very close or important to the donor.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gothic art.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gothic painters.

Notes

  1. ^ Stokstad (2005), 516.
  2. ^ Stokstad (2005), 544.
  3. ^ Émile Mâle, The Gothic Image, Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century, pp. 165–8, English trans of 3rd edn, 1913, Collins, London (and many other editions) is a classic work on French Gothic church art
  4. ^ "Gothic art". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 22 June 2017.
  5. ^
    ISBN 978-0-7386-6996-0
    .
  6. ^ E. S. de Beer, Gothic: Origin and Diffusion of the Term; The Idea of Style in Architecture in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol.11, 1948, pp. 143–62
  7. ISBN 978-0-486-20717-9
    .
  8. ^ The art of the sublime: principles of Christian art and architecture by Roger Homan p. 70 [1]
  9. ^ Kirsten Trampedach: Introduction to Danish Wall Paintings – Conservation Ethics and Methods of Treatment. National Museum of Denmark Archived 24 November 2009 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 6 September 2009.
  10. ^ Coe, 8–11
  11. ^ Stokstad (2005), 540.
  12. ^ a b c d Stokstad (2005), 541.
  13. ^ Stokstad (2005), 542.
  14. ISBN 0-06-430133-8
    analyses all these works in detail. See also the references in the articles on the works.
  15. ^ Honour and Fleming, 297–300; Henderson, 55, 82–84
  16. ^ Pope-Hennessy, 11
  17. ^ Olson, 11–24; Honour and Fleming, 304; Henderson, 41
  18. ^ Snyder, 65–69
  19. ^ Snyder, 305–311
  20. V&A Museum
    feature on the Nottingham alabaster Swansea Altarpiece
  21. ^ Calkins, 193–198
  22. ^ Cherry, 25–48; Henderson, 134–141
  23. ^ Stokstad (2005), 537.
  24. ^ a b c d e f Stokstad (2005), 539.
  25. ^ Cherry (2003), 204

References

External links
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