International Gothic
International Gothic is a period of
Artists and portable works, such as illuminated manuscripts, travelled widely around the continent, leading to a common aesthetic among the royalty and higher nobility and considerably reducing the variation in national styles among works produced for the courtly elites. The main influences were northern France, the Netherlands, the Duchy of Burgundy, the Imperial court in Prague, and Italy. Royal marriages such as that between Richard II of England and Anne of Bohemia helped to spread the style.
It was initially a style of courtly sophistication, but somewhat more robust versions spread to art commissioned by the emerging mercantile classes and the smaller nobility. In Northern Europe "Late Gothic" continuations of the style, especially in its decorative elements, could still be found until the early 16th century, as no alternative decorative vocabulary emerged locally to replace it before the Renaissance revival of Classicism.
Usage of the terms by art historians varies somewhat, with some using the term more restrictively than others.[3] Some art historians feel the term is "in many ways ... not very helpful ... since it tends to skate over both differences and details of transmission."[4]
Development
The important
Much of the development of the style occurred in Italy, and it probably spread north of the Alps to influence France partly through the colony of Italian artists attached to the Papal Court at Avignon, and the works displayed from the residence there in the 1330s and 1340s of
The marriage in 1384 between the young King Richard II of England and Charles IV's daughter Anne of Bohemia helped to connect Prague and London, and bring the style to England, although Anne died in 1394.
Royal portraits
A number of central works of International Gothic work are
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TheWenceslausbefore the Virgin, Bohemia, 1371. (detail)
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Jean de Vaudetar, chamberlain of king Charles V of France, presents his gift of a manuscript to the King, 1372.
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The Wilton Diptych 1395–99. King Richard II of Englandkneels. (left side of the diptych)
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The Wilton Diptych, painted in England by a French or English artist. (right side)
Survey
Architecture
In
Painting and sculpture
In painting and sculpture, the style is sometimes known in German as the "Schöne Stil" or "Weicher Stil" ("Beautiful style" or "Soft style").
In sculpture the leading Italian artists remained closer to classicism, and were less affected by the movement; Lorenzo Ghiberti is in many respects close to the style, but already seems infused with Early Renaissance classicism. Claus Sluter was the leading sculptor in Burgundy, and was one artist able to use the style with a strongly monumental effect. Most sculptors are unknown, and the style tended to survive longer in Northern sculpture than painting, as the detailed realism of Early Netherlandish painting was harder to translate into sculpture. Smaller painted wood figures, most often of the Madonna, were significant, and being relatively portable, probably helped to disseminate the style across Europe.
Notable painters included
Tapestry
A further vehicle of the International Gothic style was provided by the
Tapestry too was an art that was portable. Suites accompanied their seigneurial owners from one unheated and empty château to another. Tapestry weavers themselves could be induced to move workshops, though they remained tied to the accessibility of English wool. Religious and secular subjects vied in this essentially secular art.[16]
A medium of Late Gothic style that is easily overlooked because it has virtually entirely disappeared is that of painted hangings, which served as a less expensive substitute for woven hangings but could be produced, with appropriate themes, on short notice.
Peak of the movement
In a period lasting approximately between 1390 and 1420 there was a particularly close correspondence between works produced far apart in Europe. In the north the miniatures of the Très Riches Heures Limbourg brothers, in Italy the Adoration of the Magi of Lorenzo Monaco, and sculpture and miniatures in many countries show very stylised tall figures, the older men with imposingly long beards and swaying figures. Exotic clothes, based loosely on those of the contemporary Middle East or Byzantine Empire, are worn by figures in biblical scenes; many figures seem to be included just to show off these costumes. The number of figures in many standard religious scenes is greatly increased; the Magi have large retinues, and the Crucifixion often becomes a crowded event. This innovation was to survive the style itself.
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Conrad von Soest, based in Dortmund Germany, Crucifixion, 1403
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The Meeting of the Magi from the Très Riches Heures by the Limbourg brothers, from the Northern Netherlands but working in France.
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Lorenzo Monaco, Adoration of the Magi, 1420–22
Ending of the International moment
The unveiling of Gentile da Fabriano's
But outside Florence and the leading courts the International Gothic still held sway, gradually developing in directions that once again diverged considerably between Italy and Europe north of the Alps. The arts and architecture transitioned into the
Gallery
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Roudnice Madonna, c. 1385–90, Master of the Třeboň Altarpiece, Bohemia
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The Virgin and the Child of Poligny by the Dutch sculptor Claus de Werve, 1396–c. 1439
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Madonna by André Beauneveu from one of the Duke of Berry's manuscripts, with a richly populated grisaille background, ca 1402
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Mary of Guelders (the wife ofReinoud IV) depicted as the Virgin Mary, Dutch, 1415
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Adoration of the Magi by Conrad von Soest, German, c. 1420
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Madonna bySassetta, a late representative of the distinctive Siennese style. 1432–36
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Beautiful Madonna fromNational Museum in Warsaw.
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Page from the Hours of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Milan
See also
Notes
- ISBN 3-8228-1825-9
- ^ Thomas, 8
- ^ WGA: Definition of the International Gothic style
- ^ Syson and Gordon, 58
- ^ Prague's prominence as a style-setting center was repeated with the Mannerism of the court of Emperor Rudolph II in the late 16th century.
- ^ Levey, 24-7, 37 & passim
- ^ Syson & Gordon, 59–60
- BnF MS. Lat. 919, f.96R. They also have Gian Galeazzo Viscontibeing received into Heaven on MSfonds. Lat. 5888
- ^ Walther & Wolf, pp. 242–47
- ^ The German equivalent "Weicher Stil" was introduced by H. Börger and found wide reception through the works of Wilhelm Pinder. Czech art historians coined the term "Beautiful Style" (Schöner Stil), particularly because of a number of "Schöne Madonnen" or "Beautiful Madonnas".
- ^ Thomas, 12
- ^ "Turn the pages of eight sacred texts on screen". British Library.
- ^ Marks and Morgan, 29
- ^ This paragraph follows Roger-Armand Weigert, French Tapestry (1956, translated by Donald and Monique King, 1962). Secondary centres mentioned by Weigert are Lille, Valenciennes, Cambrai, Enghien, Oudenaarde and Brussels
- ^ Arras was attached to the Burgundian inheritance in 1384 and captured by Louis XI in 1470, after which Arras rapidly declined as a tapestry-weaving centre.
- ^ Tapestries that have been preserved in the treasuries of cathedrals have originally been the gifts of their owners, as have those in today's museums.
- ^ Hyman, pp. 139–140. Quote p. 140
References
- Michael Levey, Painting at Court, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1971
- ISBN 0-500-20372-5
- Marks, Richard and Morgan, Nigel; The Golden Age of English Manuscript Painting, 1200–1400, 1981, Chatto & Windus, ISBN 0-7011-2540-3
- ISBN 1-85709-946-X
- Thomas, Marcel; The Golden Age: Manuscript Painting at the Time of Jean, Duc de Berry, 1979, Chatto & Windus, ISBN 0-7011-2472-5
Further reading
- Boehm, Barbara Drake; et al. (2005). Prague : the Crown of Bohemia, 1347–1437. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 1588391612.