11/20: Gothic Europe (France and Germany)

  • 300 word Object Report due Monday (11/25) > Object Analysis Draft (background information)

  • Architectural sculptures made to decorate cathedrals, facades, cloisters, and portals.

  • Subject matter: saints, figures from the Bible, narrative sculpture of Bible stories, secular figures

  • A lot of Gothic sculpture in France has been destroyed during the French Revolution (1789-1799).

  • Gothic France

    • French Revolution: representational government, protesting against monarchs

    • Revolutionaries beheaded statues of biblical monarchs.

    • Chartres, window of St. Cheron (sculptor’s guild)

    • Reims Cathedral (Notre-Dame de Reims), West Facade

      • Tympanum with stained glass window

        • Bar tracery

    • Reims Cathedral, west portal, center doorway, right jamb Annuciation, c. 1245-1255, and Visitation, c. 1230

      • Left: Mary and Gabriel

        • Annuciation

        • Standing still and straight

        • Drapery

          • Thicker and fewer folds

        • Made by artists who came to Reims from Paris

          • Integrated a new style

      • Right: Mary and Elizabeth

        • Demonstrating contrapposto (weight shift)

        • More expressive

        • Drapery

          • Voluminous fabric

          • More folds

        • Elizabeth’s realistic, wrinkled face

        • Influenced by classical art

          • Roman

      • Sculptures made 10 to 15 years of each other

    • Virgin of Jeanne d’Evreux, from the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis, France 1339

      • Silver gift an enamel, 2’3.5” high

      • Reliquary

      • Gothic s-curve

        • Extra fluidity than classical s-curve

      • Less stoic and more lifelike than the Romanesque statue of Mary and Jesus

    • Jean Pucelle, Book of Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux, c. 1325-1328 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

      • Personal prayer book of Jeanne d’Evreux, wife of Charles IV (king of France)

      • 209 folios with 25 full-paintings of scenes from the infancy and passion of Christ, along with St. Louis. 700 additional illustrations

  • Gothic Germany

    • Most of the sculptures would’ve been painted even though the paint has now been scrubbed, washed, or worn away.

      • Ekkehard and Uta sculptures’ polychromy survived because they were displayed inside.

        • Uta was one of the influences for Disney’s representation of the Evil Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

    • St. Maurice: sculptured made out of sandstone, polychromy, black saint, chainmail

      • He’s in the Cathedral of Magdeburg.

        • The diocese was founded by Emperor Otto I to spread Christianity, particularly among barbarians.

          • Barbarians = non-Christians

      • Maurice was an early Christian saint.

        • Native of Thebes, Egypt

        • He became a high-ranking officer in the Roman army.

          • Commanded an all-Christian legion

        • Martyred for his faith after he and the legion refused to persecute Christians

      • Attribute: lance

        • Otto I believed he acquired the relic.

        • He felt a connection to Maurice because he fought the Gauls.

      • Depicted as a black African even though his race wasn’t mentioned

      • During the 12th and 13th century, the Holy Roman Empire encompassed vast land.

        • Italy, Sicily, and North Africa

          • Henry VI called himself “King of Africa.”

          • Africans worked in Frederick I’s court as advisors.

      • Representation limited to Germany because emperors believed they had kinship with Maurice, which wasn’t widespread

      • By the 17th century, almost all reps of Maurice stopped.

        • Even in Germany

        • The Transatlantic Slave Trade started.

          • Theory: White slave traders didn’t want to be reminded that they were enslaving Christians/people.