11/18: Gothic Art and Architecture

  • Colorful geometric decoration on columns + rounded arches + barrel vault = Romanesque

  • Pointed arches + rib vault + flying buttresses = Gothic

  • Flying buttress: supports the dome, nave elevation, and thin walls, allow in light, lateral supports

  • Spires: high pointed tips of piers

  • Gothic period: period of prosperity, able to build massive projects, growing cities

  • Gothic architecture began at the Church of St. Denis (France).

  • Chartres Cathedral of Notre Dame, Chartres, 1194-1220

    • Most recent fire in 1194

    • More unified floor plan because it was built quickly

    • Bay: space of a church between piers

    • Romanesque features

      • Ambulatory

      • West portal entrance

      • Transept

  • Amiens Cathedral, begun 1220

    • Taller than St. Denis

  • Chartres nave: 36 meters high (118 ft)

  • Amiens nave: 42.3 meters (139 ft)

  • Height and light guides Gothic architecture.

  • Stained glass

    • “On Various Arts”: book describing various processes of medieval art-making

    • Tracery: stonework

      • Plate tracery: less open space for the glass, flat expanses with a few openings

      • Bar tracery: thinner lines of stone, delicate spaces left for glass

    • Rose windows: round, resemble rose/flower petals, relates to the Virgin Mary (rose with no thorns 😬)

    • Notre Dame de la Belle Verriere survived the 1194 fire.

      • Angels swinging censers.

      • Dove represents Holy Spirit

  • Chartres blue

  • The count (city ruler) donated money to fund Chartres.

  • Guild: medieval union

    • Ex: Furriers’ Guild (labor group for people who catch animals and sacrifice their fur)

    • Patron saint

  • Crusades: Christian armies trying to retake the Holy Land from Muslims

  • Matthew Paris: English monk and chronicler, made maps, never actually traveled to the Holy Land

  • King Louis IX of France

    • Became king as a child

      • Blanche of Castile (mother) ruled before he came of age.

    • Moralized bible: abbreviated text, possibly intended as instruction for young kings

    • Louis IX is the only French king to be canonized.

      • Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, c. 1238-1248

        • Small building > less support

        • Walls dissolve into windows > little stonework (supported by minimal tracery)

        • On an island in Paris

        • Louis IX built the chapel to store relics from the Passion of Christ.

          • Acquired from Emperor Baldwin II of Latin Empire of Constantinople in 1239

            • May not be the actual Crown of Thorns

              • People made fake relics.

            • Image of Edessa: image of Christ miraculously appeared on a cloth

          • Spent ½ of the annual budget of the French monarchy on relics

        • Eventually led two Crusades

  • Came: H-shaped lead connector