Gothic

Unit 3: Early Europe and Colonial Americas

Historical Background

1140-1400 CE (up to 1550 in some sections of Europe)
Created in Paris, France.
Known as an era of peace and prosperity in the region around Paris, owing to an increasingly centralized monarchy, with new definitions of "king" and "kingship" along with the peaceful succession of kings from 987 to 1328.
Increasing growth and wealth of cities and towns, encouraged by the sale of royal charters that bound the cities to the king rather than to local lords and the increased wealth of the king.
Gradual development of a money economy in which cities played a role in converting agricultural products to goods and services.
Emergence of schools in Paris as the intellectual center of western Europe that brought together the teachers and scholars who transformed western thinking by changing the way questions were asked and by arguing using logic.
Late Gothic Period marked by 3 crucial historical events:
- The Hundred Years' War between France and England (1337-1453). Conflict devastated both countries socially and economically, leaving vast regions of France ruined.
- The Babylonian Captivity (1304-1377). French popes moved the headquarters of the Christian church to Avignon, France, creating a spiritual crisis that had far-reaching effects on European society, and on Rome in particular. With the popes out of Italy, there was little reason to maintain Saint Peter's and Rome began to decay. The Pope returned to Rome in 1377 and a schism developed as rival popes set up competing claims of authority, none of which were resolved until 1409.
- The Black Death of 1348. A quarter to a third of the world perished in a misdiagnosed pulmonary plague. Many towns did not have enough living to bury the dead and consequently art and architecture came to a halt. Artists interpreted the plague as a punishment from God, thus painting became conservative and began to look backwards to earlier styles. Europe spent generations recovering from the plague's devastating effects.

Gothic Architecture

Developed architectural advances from Romanesque:

The rib vault
Bays
The rose window (began as an oculus on the facade of a Romanesque building)
The pointed arch (first seen in Islamic Spain)

New technology = flying buttresses. These stone arches support a roof by having the weight bypass the walls and travel down to piers outside the building. This enabled buildings to be opened up for more window space and to display more stained glass. They also help stabilize the building and prevent wind stresses from damaging them.
Gothic buildings are tall and narrow, causing the worshipper to look up upon entering. Architecture reinforces the religious symbolism of the building.

Gothic Sculpture

Jamb figures have rounded volumes that set them apart from the architectural background, such as the Great West Portals at Chartres. Gothic jambs contain more 3-dimensionality than the Romanesque period.
Gothic sculpture concentrates on the possibility of salvation; the believer is empowered with the choice of salvation.
The statue columns progress away from the wall, building a space seemingly independent of the surface.
As Gothic art advances, sculptures become increasingly three-dimensional and freestanding. In the 13th century, the figures are defining their own space and turn to each other with humanizing expressions and engaging in a narrative. In the 14th century, Gothic sculpture and painting develop a S-curve to the bodies.

Gothic Painting

Earliest examples of stained glass are from the 7th century CE in England. Stained glass became an industry with craftsmen making the glass itself and glaziers cutting the big panels into desired shapes while the leading around them. Details on the glass itself (i.e., facial expressions or folds of drapery) were then painted on the glass before it was refired and set into the frame.
Illuminated manuscripts continue to be important with some attempting to emulate the luminous colors of stained-glass windows.

Jewish Art

Today, Jews almost universally ban images in temples, but ancient and medieval ancestors did not always follow this prohibition.
Jews living in the Greo-Roman world were influenced by pagan artists who creating sweeping narratives of the heroic deeds of their gods. A few ancient synagogues have illustrations of episodes from the Old Testament.
In the Middle Ages, wealthy Jewish patrons commissioned luxury items like illuminated manuscripts the same way that Christian or Muslim neighbors would.
Jewish patrons often used Christian painters to decorate sacred books, mostly for personal use (ex: Golden Haggadah.)

Patronage and Artistic Life

Master builders coordinated hundreds of laborers and artisans in the building of a cathedral. Cathedrals kept local economies humming and importing artists as needed from everywhere.

Manuscripts were organized by a chef d'atelier who was reponsible for establishing an overall plan or vision of a book so that the workshop could execute his or her designs. A scribe then copied the text and left room for decorative touches like initials, borders, and narrative scenes. Embellishments were added by artists who could express themselves more fully than scribes. Artists often rendered fanciful designs to an initial or a border. Lastly, a bookbinder had the manuscript bound.

Unit Vocabulary

Andachtsbild - an image used for private contemplation and devotion.

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.

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.

Flying buttress - a stone arch and its pier that support a tool from a pillar outside the building. Flying buttresses also stabilize a building and protect it from wind shear.

Hammerbeam - a type of roof in English Gothic architecture in which timber braces curve out from the walls and meet high over the middle of the floor.

Lancet - a tall narrow window with a pointed arch usually filled with stained glass.

Moralized Bible - a Bible in which the Old and New Testament stories are paralleled with one another in illustrations, text, and commentary.

Pieta - a painting or sculpture of a crucified Christ lying on the lap of his grieving mother, Mary.

Pinnacle - a pointed sculpture on piers or flying buttresses.

Rib vault - a vault in which diagonal arches form rib-like patterns; these arches partially support a facade of a church.

Rose window - a circular window, filled with stained glass, placed at the end of a transept or on the facade of a church.

Spire/Steeple - a tall pointed tower on a church.

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