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Chapter 12: Gothic Art
Key Notes
Time Period
1140–1400, up to 1550 in some sections of Europe
Culture, beliefs, and physical settings
Gothic art is a part of the medieval artistic tradition.
In the Gothic period, royal courts emphasized the study of theology, music, and writing.
Gothic art avoids naturalism and emphasizes stylistic variety. Text is often incorporated into artwork from this period.
Cultural interactions
There is an active exchange of artistic ideas throughout the Middle Ages.
There is a great influence of Roman, Early Medieval, and Islamic art on Gothic art.
Audience, functions, and patron
Works of art were often displayed in religious or court settings.
Surviving architecture is mostly religious.
Theories and Interpretations
The study of art history is shaped by changing analyses based on scholarship, theories, context, and written records.
Contextual information comes from written records that are religious or civic.
Historical Background
The beginning of the Gothic period cannot be dated precisely, although the place of its creation, Paris, can. The change in thinking that we call “Gothic” is the result of a number of factors:
An increasingly centralized monarchy, new definitions of "king" and "kingship," and peaceful succession of kings from 987 to 1328 brought peace and prosperity to the Paris region.
Cities and towns prospered due to royal charters that bound them to the king rather than local lords and the king's wealth.
A money economy in which cities transformed agricultural products into goods and services.
The rise of Parisian schools as the intellectual center of western Europe brought together teachers and scholars who changed western thinking by changing questions and using logic.
The Late Gothic period is marked by three crucial historical events:
The Hundred Years’ War between France and England (1337–1453).
This conflict devastated both countries socially and economically, and left vast regions of France ruined.
The Babylonian Captivity (1304–1377).
French popes moved the Christian church's headquarters to Avignon, France, causing a spiritual crisis that affected Europe, especially Rome.
Without popes, Saint Peter's and Rome decayed.
After the pope returned to Rome in 1377, rival popes fought for authority until 1409.
This did much to undermine the authority of the church in general.
The Black Death of 1348.
A misdiagnosed pulmonary plague killed 25–30% of the world in the greatest catastrophe in human history.
Many towns had too few people to bury the dead, halting architecture and art history.
The plague was seen as God's punishment, so painting became conservative and looked backward.
Europe spent generations recovering from the plague’s devastating effects.
Patronage and Artistic Life
A cathedral was built by hundreds of masons, stonecutters, sculptors, transporters, and carpenters under the direction of master builders.
Indeed, the cathedral was the public works project of its day, keeping local economies humming and importing artists as required.
Chefs d'atelier arranged manuscripts so the workshop could implement their designs.
The scribe allowed space for initials, borders, and narrative scenes while copying the text.
Artists, who could express themselves more freely than scribes, added embellishments.
An initial or border was frequently embellished by artists.
The text was then bound by a bookbinder.
Gothic Architecture
Gothic architecture developed advances made in the Romanesque:
Rib vault: Invented at the end of the Romanesque period, and became the standard vaulting practice of the Gothic period.
Bays: The Romanesque use of repeated vertical elements in these also became standard in the Gothic period.
A vertical section of a church that is embraced by a set of columns and is usually composed of arches and aligned windows
Rose window: a circular window, filled with stained glass, placed at the end of a transept or on the façade of a church
Pointed arch: First seen in Islamic Spain, this arch directs thrusts down to the floor more efficiently than rounded arches.
Ogee arch: an arch formed by two S-shaped curves that meet at the top
Flying buttress: a stone arch and its pier that support a roof from a pillar outside the building.
Stone arches transfer roof weight to piers outside the building.
This opened the building for more windows and stained glass.
These stabilize the building, protecting it from wind stress.
Ground plans of Gothic buildings denote innovations in the east end, or chevet.
Chevet: the east end of a Gothic church
Choir: a space in a church between the transept and the apse for a choir or clergymen
Close: an enclosed garden-like area around a cathedral
Compound pier: a pier that appears to be a group or gathering of smaller piers put together
Triforium: a narrow passageway with arches opening onto a nave, usually directly below a clerestory
Another innovation is the introduction of decorative pinnacles on the roof of Gothic churches.
Pinnacles, once considered mere ornaments on flying buttresses, now stabilize buildings in windstorms.
Pinnacle: a pointed sculpture on piers or flying buttresses
Gothic buildings are tall and narrow, causing the worshipper to look up upon entering.
The architecture reinforces the religious symbolism of the building.
French Gothic buildings are downtown, surrounded by other buildings, and rise above the cityscape as civic and religious pride.
Each town competed to build taller buildings.
➼ Chartres Cathedral
Details
Gothic Europe
c. 1145–1155, reconstructed 1194–1220
Made of limestone and stained glass
Found in Chartres, France
Form
The first church to have flying buttresses as part of the original design; earlier churches retrofitted flying buttresses after the building was constructed.
The tall vertical nature of the interior pulls the viewer’s eyes up to the ceiling and symbolically to heaven; rib vaulting increases the ceiling’s vertical thrust.
Lancets and spires add to the verticality of the building.
Spire or Steeple: a tall pointed tower on a church
The dark, mysterious interior increases a spiritual feeling.
Stained glass enlivens the interior surfaces of the church.
The façade contains a gallery of Old Testament figures above a rose window.
Enlarged chevet accommodates elaborate church ceremonies.
Function: Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary; a Marian shrine.
Context
Started in 1145; fire in 1194 forced reconstruction of everything except the façade.
Mary’s tunic, worn at Jesus’s birth, is its most sacred relic; its escape from a fire in 1194 was seen as a signal to rebuild the cathedral.
Right spire is from 1160; left spire is Late Gothic (1507–1513), a style more elaborate and decorative called Flamboyant Gothic.
Importance of the church reflected in the speed of construction: 27 years.
Each wing of the cathedral faces a cardinal direction of the compass:
The west wing is the entrance, facing sunset and symbolizing the end of the world.
The north wing has stained-glass windows that symbolize the past.
The south wing has stained-glass windows that symbolize the presentworld depicted in the New Testament.
The east wing has the apse and altar, located where the sun rises.
Part of a complex that included a school, a bishop’s palace, and a hospital.
Image
➼ Westminster Hall
Details
Gothic Europe
1097–1099; ceiling 1390s
Made of stone and wood
Found in London, England
Form
Bare walls were probably decorated with tapestries.
Windows placed high up, surrounded by Romanesque arches.
Hammerbeam style roof; made of oak; beams curve to meet in the center of the ceiling like a corbelled arch.
Hammerbeam: a type of roof in English Gothic architecture, in which timber braces curve out from walls and meet high over the middle of the floor
Function
Meant for grand ceremonial occasions: coronations, feasts.
Later used as a law court to dispense justice.
Context
Started under William II (r. 1087–1100) as the largest hall in England at the time.
Roof remodeled under Richard II (r. 1377–1399).
Original roof has been replaced; there is debate over how the roof was vaulted, perhaps with beams that came down to the floor, denoting a main aisle and two side aisles.
Richard II also placed six statues of kings at one entrance, along with his emblems.
When the old Houses of Parliament were burned to the ground, this remaining building was the last vestige of the medieval parliament and served as inspiration for the new Houses of Parliament.
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Gothic Sculpture
Romanesque structures featured sculpture on their gateways and façades, but it served architecture.
Church façade sculpture becomes increasingly prominent in Gothic times.
The earliest structure with statue columns on the jambs was Saint-Denis (c. 1140–1144), now largely demolished.
Jamb figures' rounded volumes distinguish them from their architectural setting.
The statue columns at Chartres' Great West Portals (1145–1155) resemble the church's verticality but are three-dimensional.
From Romanesque to Gothic entrances, the subject matter changes.
Romanesque sculpture emphasizes the Last Judgment and damnation.
Gothic sculpture emphasizes the believer's ability to choose salvation.
Romanesque figures are squashed into tympana or jambs, content to be defined by them. Gothic sculpture's statue columns move away from the wall, creating a gap.
The Great West Portals of Chartres begin this trend by moving figures forward, still columnar.
Gothic sculptures become three-dimensional and freestanding as they progress.
In the thirteenth century, characters define their own space, turn to one other with humanizing sentiments, and interact narratively.
By the fourteenth century, Gothic art and painting had a courtly S-curve.
➼ Great Portals of the West Façade
Details
1145–1155
Made of limestone
Found in Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France
Portal: a doorway. In medieval art they can be significantly decorated
Form
Jamb statues stand in front of the wall, almost fully rounded; cf. Romanesque figures, which are flat against the surface.
Upright, rigid, elongated figures reflect the vertical columns behind and the vertical nature of the cathedral itself.
Figures wear rich courtly dress with vertical folds.
The robes are almost hypnotic in their concentric composition; cf. Romanesque nervous excitement to drapery.
Heads are serene; slightly heavy eyes; benevolent; humanized faces.
Heads are lined up in a row, but the feet are of different lengths.
Function: These portals were used by church hierarchy, not commoners, as the entry to the church.
Context
Called Royal Portals because the jamb sculptures depict kings and queens from the Old Testament; connection is being made between the French and biblical royalty.
Three portals linked by lintels and 24 capitals that contain the life of Christ:
Left tympanum: Christ before he takes on mortal form.
Central tympanum: Christ as Judge of the World, no menacing Last Judgment as at Conques; Christ surrounded by symbols of the evangelists.
Right tympanum: Mary as Queen of Heaven; scenes from her life; Mary with the Christ Child in her lap symbolizing her as the throne of wisdom.
Scholasticism stressed in the image of Mary as the throne of wisdom (sedes sapientiae) holding Jesus, in the right tympanum; the seven liberal arts taught at medieval universities are personified in the archivolts of the right tympanum.
Originally 24 statues (19 survive).
Image
➼ Röttgen Pietà
Details
Late medieval Europe
1300–1325
Made of painted wood
Found in Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn, Germany
Pietà: a painting or sculpture of a crucified Christ lying on the lap of his grieving mother, Mary
Form
Christ emaciated, drained of all blood, all tissue, all muscle.
Originally vividly painted, some paint survives.
Function
An Andachtsbild, used in church for services or in a procession.
Andachtsbild: an image used for private contemplation and devotion
Context
Horror of the crucifixion is made manifest.
This work shows the humanizing of religious themes; Mary as a grieving, very human mother displaying compassion and emotion.
Christ’s blood is depicted in grape-like drops, a reference to Christ as a “mystical vineyard.”
The imagery asks the viewer to concentrate on the Eucharist: the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
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Gothic Painting
England's seventh-century stained glass is the oldest.
It became Gothic era industry.
Glaziers cut the large panels into shapes and wrapped the leading around them after craftsmen manufactured the glass.
After painting face expressions or drapery folds on the glass, it was refired and put into the window frame.
Stained-glass windows portrayed a complex religious agenda.
The clerestory usually had bigger saint pictures that could be read from the floor. Side aisle windows displayed narratives for closer reading.
Some illuminated manuscripts mimic stained-glass windows.
Forms feature bright-colored edges resembling window frames.
➼ Notre Dame de la Belle Verriere
Details
“Our Lady of the Beautiful Window”
c. 1170
A stained glass
Found in Chartres Cathedral
Function:
Part of a lancet stained-glass window in Chartres Cathedral.
Lancet: a tall narrow window with a pointed arch usually filled with stained glass
Context
Mary, the throne of wisdom, is crowned Queen of Heaven with the Christ Child on her lap.
Color patterns on the cathedral's gray stone represent the divine.
Bands across the surface are typical of Early Gothic stained glass.
Undamaged by the fire of 1194, it was reset with blue framing and framing angels on either side of the main scene, contrasting the two stained glass styles in the same window.
Image
➼ Scenes from the Apocalypse
Details
From a Bible moralisée (Moralized Bible), Gothic Europe
c. 1225–1245
Made of illuminated manuscript, ink, tempera, and gold leaf on vellum
Found in Cathedral, Toledo
Apocalypse: the last book of the Christian Bible, sometimes called Revelations, which details God’s destruction of evil and consequent raising to heaven of the righteous
Moralized Bible: a Bible in which the Old and New Testament stories are paralleled with one another in illustrations, text, and commentary
Form
Eight medallions; format derives from the stained-glass windows.
Luminosity of text a reflection of stained-glass windows; strong black outlining of forms.
Two vertical columns of four painted scenes.
Modeling is minimal.
Function: Moralized Bible.
Content
Each scene has a text with a summary of the event depicted in the roundel.
Old and New Testament scenes are paired as complementing one another.
Context: Done for the royal court at Paris.
Image
➼ Dedication Page with Blanche of Castile and Louis IX of France
Details
1225–1245
Made of illuminated manuscript, ink, tempera, and gold leaf on vellum
Found in Morgan Library, New York
Content
Top left — Blanche of Castile, mother and regent to the king; her gestures indicate her dominant role at this time.
Since she is a widow, she is wearing a white widow’s wimple.
Top right — teenage king Louis IX; beardless, enthroned, holding a bird surmounting fleur-de-lis scepter in his right hand and a round object, possibly a seal matrix, in his left hand.
Bottom — older monk dictates to younger scribe; younger scribe is drawing circles as seen in Scenes from the Apocalypse
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Jewish Art
Jews living in the Greco-Roman world were also influenced by pagan artists who created sweeping narratives of the heroic deeds of their gods.
In the Middle Ages, wealthy Jewish patrons often commissioned luxury objects like illuminated manuscripts the same way their Christian or Muslim neighbors would.
Jewish patrons often used Christian painters to decorate important sacred books, mostly for personal use.
➼ Golden Haggadah
Details
(The Plagues of Egypt, Scenes of Liberation, and Preparation for Passover),
From late medieval Spain
c. 1320
Made of illuminated manuscript, pigments and gold leaf on vellum
Found in British Library, London
Passover: an eight day Jewish festival that commemorates the exodus of Jews from Egypt under the leadership of Moses.
Form
Style similarities to French Gothic manuscripts in the handling of space, architecture, figure style, facial/gestural expression, and the manuscript medium itself.
56 miniatures; gold leaf background.
Function and Content
A Haggadah is a book that illustrates the story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt under Moses and its subsequent celebration.
It contains a narrative cycle of events from the books of Genesis and Exodus.
It is to be read at a Passover Seder.
This Haggadah was used primarily at home, therefore avoiding the more stringent restriction against holy images in a synagogue.
Context
Haggadah means “narration”; fulfills the Jewish requirement to tell the story of the Jewish escape from Egypt as a reminder of God’s mercy.
Haggadot (plural) are generally the most lavishly painted of Jewish manuscripts.
The book is read right to left according to the manner of Hebrew texts.
Two unknown artists, probably Christian, illustrated the Golden Haggadah; a Jewish scribe wrote the Hebrew script.
Painted around the Barcelona area of Spain.
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