Medieval, Romanesque, and Gothic Art

Medieval Art

art of the Middle Ages

Sutton Hoo

Medieval

Anglo-Saxon burial site → England

ship burial: 625

• 7 miles from North Sea River Deben

• wood ship (didn’t survive) and bronze rivets

• body of King Raewald in boat

• helmet: recreated → 625 → has interlace patterning and cloissone

  • Beowulf: epic poem → Warrior Code

• purse lid: 625

  • migratory groups → needed things that were easy to carry

  • gold

  • cloisonne: gold enamel as outline filled with ground glass paste

  • interlace patterning: similar to how textiles are woven

  • eagle/duck in center with a person on either side → heraldic composition

Oseberg Ship Burial

Medieval

825 → Vikings

made of oak wood and has carved interlace patterning (dragons)

viking animal head masts/posts: 4 of them

• believed to be dogs

• interlace patterning

Manuscript Illumination

many tribes converted to Christianity → carried parts of the Bible

frontispiece: cloisonne, cruciform shape, interlace patterning

carpet page: image of carpet

scriptoria: monks copying Bible using prototype (“making clear” → copies the exact same)

manuscript illumination: copying prototypes by tracing with sharp tools

Lindisfarne Gospel

Medieval

Hiberno-Saxon → late 7th c.

frontispiece schema followed

carpet page: cruciform

• interlace patterning: stretched out bird shape (dove → Holy Spirit symbol)

Romanesque Architecture

11th c.

Crusades: military campaigns from Catholic Church to bring back artifacts from the Holy Land

• brought back wood from the cross and thorn from crown → relics encased in reliquaries

• churches with reliquaries organized for “pilgrims” to visit

• workshops to build churches and add statues → designed to resemble reliquaries

  • protection of relics → new purpose for churches

  • along a pilgrimage road

Romanesque Churches

large churches to house pilgrims

made from stone → stonemasonry symbolizing “stone box”

• no concrete → Imperial Roman schema lost

cruciform Basilica Plan:

• portal: entrance → go to narthex

• narthex: start of pilgrimage

• still have apse and transept

• ambulatory: pilgrimage route to radiating chapels with relics

triadic: nave with 2 aisles with triforium (3 part stacking)

Rounded arch: Roman arch

• barrel vault: horizontal stretches of arches

• groin vault: intersection of 2 barrel vaults

  • transfers weight to 4-8 sections

    • ribbed groin vault: splits the weight more → more divisions

Saint Sernin

Romanesque

Toulouse, France → 1070-1120

cruciform, stone masonry, ribbed barrel vaulting, round “Roman arch”

ambulatory for pilgrims

triforium: weight of vaulted ceiling transferred down triforium wall into the ground

Romanesque Manuscript Illumination

each 1st page starts with a huge first letter with interlace patterning

big letter rounded like Roman arches

Eadwine the Scribe, Eadwine Psalter

Romanesque

1160-1170

image of him scribing in the book

• bald head like rounded Roman arch

• sitting on triforium walls

• interlace patterning borders

Gothic

the other Crusades (Romanesque was the 1st crusade)

relic “Mantle of the Virgin Mary”: her veil since she was assumed into heaven

• believed to be worn at the birth of Christ

“migrating goths”: from eastern Germany and Gotland

Gothic pointed arches → contrast from Romanesque rounded arch

Abbey Church of St. Dennis

Gothic additions made 1140-1144 by Abbott Suger

earlier Church was Romanesque

added a ton of stained glass → Suger holding stained glass as a stained glass

open, not compartmentalized

pointed Gothic arch lifting ceiling up

• canopy-like vaulting → open, floating, weightless

groin vault with pointed arch

Chartes Cathedral

Gothic

France, started in 1134

similarities with Romanesque: large buildings, stone masonry, triadic

differences with Romanesque: transparency, taller structures, more complex ribbed groin vault, triforium walls have pointed arch

• cruciform shape less emphasized and much larger apse (also more open)

• use of stained glass → much less stone/solidity

integrated nave and apse

vaulting is loftier and canopy-like

buttressing: adding a structure, which transfer weight to a “propping” function

• contrast to Romanesque, which transferred weight with triforium wall

• buttress pier: open, attached to a wall

• flying buttress: open, coming off of pointed vaults

• don’t visually block the stained glass

Gothic triforium wall not supportive

• much more open

• has stained glass

stained glass rose window: 1222

• has a stone tracery and stained glass

• Christian stories → enlightening

• celestial shape/organic material

relic: “Mantle of the Virgin Mary”

• blue color also in stained glass

stained glass similar to cloissone

St. Chapelle

Gothic

Paris, 1243-1248

commissioned by Louis XI to house crown of thorns, fragment of the cross, spear from Longinus, sponge from crucifixion, and stone from sepulchre

has buttresses and large rose window

tons of stained glass → a lot of blue

decorated pointed arch with ribbed groin arch

manuscript illumination: read the church → stained glass tells stories

Psalter of St. Louis, “Abraham and the Angles”

Gothic

1270 → manuscript illumination

tree is a pointed arch

there is a rose window in the back

interlace patterning on the borders