Eras of Art History - Part II Gothic Art

Gothic Art (12th century to the 14th century):



The Later Middle Ages saw the first monarchies, large cities, the clergy, and there was a new affluent class of merchants and bankers. The Gothic style of art emerged from France, and grew out to rest of Europe. This is the Cologne Cathedral in Germany, one that I have had the pleasure of a complete tour from top to bottom, unfortunately in German, but I got the basic idea of it's history. It was amazing stading on top and looking out at the cross, hundreds of flying buttresses surrounding the building, and the Rhine River in the background. I took dozens of pictures of the stained glass windows alone, mostly in the upper part of it where the glass isn't even seen. This cathredral was one of the only buildings spared by the allies in the WWII bombings of Germany because of it's value to humanity.

Gothic Architecture

They developed Romanesque arches into the an arch with a point at the top and added something known as a tympanum, a pointed arch over the door with sculpture. The point on the arch was very important because they were able to support the building with less stone in the walls, leaving room for another important element of the Gothic style, stained glass windows.



Gothic Tympanum.



They also added something called flying buttresses to the outside of cathedrals, note the geometric shapes in this photo, another element of gothic style.



Churches lost the frescoes and had undecorated vaults that often had a vault keystone,the small circles on the vaults. Gothic building acheived incredible inside heights with these new design elements.



Gothic Applied Arts

Artists started signing works of art, and some rose to superstar status because of this. Stained glass window depicted stories from the Bible, made out of colored glass with delicate features painted on them.





Jewelry became important, and gold symbolized the spiritual value of an object more than just showing off a material possession. Gold was everywhere in the church, and mainly had religious uses as ceremonial vessels, reliquaries, and monstrances. Items were encrusted with pearls, precious stones, and rock crystals. They were decorated with filigree work, and enamel.



Manuscript illuminations were painted on parchment of manuscripts because only the Chinese had printing at this time. Many were ornate with lavish capital letters that could take up a whole page, decorated with plants and animals and some were illustrations of text.





Tapestries became important to cover all those cold stone walls of the rich and nobel, but not the churches. They had subjects of amorous adventures, hunting, allegories, legends, and religious subjects for private alters. The Lady and the Unicorn was a popular subject.



Painting wasn’t fundamental because churches had no where to hang them, so they mainly served to decorate castles, aristocratic homes and civic buildings.
Frescoes were cheaper than tapestries and were still used.



The polyptych became popular, they were large works made up of several panels, brought together and framed with a pointed arch. They were usually odd numbered with an important person such as the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus in the middle and larger. There was great detail, but no perspective yet. Gold was often in the background with foreground figures, and female faces always were gentle.



Tip of the Day: The library is full of classical music, check a few interesting CDs out and add them to your ipod.