Unit FIVE: Gothic Art

Transcription

STUDY GUIDE
I Reims Cathedral (France) begun 1211
tympanums of glass/ elongated features/ Annunciation and Visitation door jambs/ interest in the organic
relationship between drapery and the human body
1. “In the church hierarchy, the bishop of Amiens was subordinate to the archbishop of Reims. Politically the
archbishop also had great power, for the French kings were crowned in his cathedral, though they were buried
at Saint-Denis. Reims, like Saint-Denis, had been a cultural and educational center since Carolingian times.
As at Chartres and Amiens, the community at Reims, led by the clerics responsible for the building, began to
erect a new cathedral after a fire destroyed an earlier church. And as at Chartres, the expense of the project
sparked local opposition, with revolts in the 1230s twice driving the archbishop and canons into exile.
Construction of the cathedrals of Chartres, Amiens, and Reims overlapped, and the artisans at each site
borrowed ideas from and influenced each other” (Stokstad, Art History 563-564).
2. The cornerstone of Reims Cathedral “was laid in 1211 and work continued on it throughout the century. Its
master builders, their names recorded in the cathedral labyrinth, were Jean d’Orbais, Jean le Loup, Gaucher
de Reims, and Bernard de Soissons” (565). The cathedral’s “massive gabled portals project forward, rising
higher than those at Amiens. Their soaring peaks, the center one reaching to the center of the rose window,
help to unify the façade. Large windows fill the portal tympana, displacing sculpture usually found there. The
deep porches are encrusted with sculpture that reflects changes in plan, iconography, and sculpture
workshops. In a departure from tradition, Marian rather than Christ-centered imagery prevails in the central
portal, a reflection of the growing popularity of Mary’s cult. The enormous rose window, the focal point of the
façade, fills the entire clerestory level. The towers were later additions, as was the row of carved figures that
runs from the base of one tower to the other above the rose window. This ‘gallery of kings’ is the only strictly
horizontal element of the façade. Its subject matter is appropriate for a coronation church” (565).
3. Inside “the alternation of rounded and polygonal colonnettes and wall shafts that varied the nave
design of Chartres has been exchanged for uniformly cylindrical piers and colonnettes. And the
capitals are broad bands of foliage proportional to the overall bulk of the piers” (Shaver-Crandell 73).
“In contrast to the flat, serene façade of Notre-Dame in Paris, that of Reims looks three-dimensional
and almost lacy. Pointed shapes abound- there are even two extra gables bracketing the three
portals. The bases of the two powers are pierced by many traceried openings. And the tops of the
towers, though lacking proper spires, have so many little gables and pinnacles that they resemble
crowns” (74).
4. “Erecting such a magnificent image of the Heavenly Jerusalem placed great strains on the
inhabitants of the earthly city. The construction of Rheims cathedral was paid for by heavy taxes.
The cathedral clergy offered indulgences to those who contributed to the building fund, part of an
aggressive fund-raising campaign that alienated the burghers. In 1233 the building came to a halt
when the people of the town attacked the archbishop’s palace, forcing the bishop and chapter to flee.
The Pope placed an interdict on the town and the king passed harsh sentences on the rebels,
delaying the completion of the choir, which was not consecrated until 1241. Cathedrals were not
always the symbols of social harmony that we sometimes imagine. One person’s glorious vision could
be the instrument of another’s oppression. While the canons might have viewed the spires and
pinnacles of their new choir as affirmation of their spiritual aspirations, those burghers whose
houses were burned and whose nearby property was confiscated might have viewed this whole
eastern end as a triumph of tyranny. If the angels between the tracery windows seem effortlessly to
sustain the ethereal stones of the choir, the Atlases, straining to hold up the massive blocks of stone
above, seen, in the words of Pope Innocent IV, ‘crushed by the insupportable debts’ that burdened
the town” (Camille 33-34).
5. “The Gothic master-mason did not conceptualize his building as a modern architect does, in terms of plan and elevation. Very few
architectural drawings survive from the Gothic period. At Soissons and at Rheims inscribed geometrical designs have been discovered on
the stones themselves, suggesting that planners conceptualized the building process on site, rather than on paper or parchment. Once
the structure of one bay had been worked out, the rest followed suit, so that only those parts of the building like the west front, that were
erected over large periods, or whose design could not be extrapolated from earlier phases, called for detailed design deliberations” (36-37).
6. “The architectural plan of Reims, like that of Amiens, was adapted from Chartres. The nave is longer in proportion to the choir, so the
building lacks the perfect balance of Amiens. The three-part elevation and ribbed vault are familiar, too. The carvings on the capitals in
the nave are notable for their variety, naturalism, and quality. Unlike the idealized foliage of Amiens, the Reims carvings depict
recognizable plants and figures. The remarkable sculpture and stained glass of the west wall complement the clerestory and choir. A
great rose window in the clerestory, a row of lancets at the triforium level, and windows over the portals replace the stone of wall and
tympana. This great expanse of glass was made possible by bar tracery, a technique perfected at Reims, in which thin stone strips called
mullions, form a lacy matrix for the glass, replacing the older practice in which glass was inserted directly into window openings. Reims’s
wall of glass is anchored visually by a masonry screen around the doorway. Here ranks of carved Old Testament prophets and ancestors
serve as moral guides for the newly crowned monarchs who faced them after coronation ceremonies” (Stokstad, Art History 568).
51
STUDY GUIDE
Reims Cathedral (France) begun 1211 (CONTINUED)
THE SCULPTURE
6. “Different workshops and individuals worked at Reims over a period of several decades.
Further complicating matters, a number of sculptures have been moved from their original
locations, creating sometimes abrupt stylistic shifts. A group of four figures on the right
jamb of the central portal of the western front illustrates three of the Reims styles. The pair
on the right is the work of the ‘Classical Shop,’ which was active beginning about 12301235, during the early years of construction at Reims. The subject of the pair is the
Visitation, in which Mary (left), pregnant with Jesus, visits her older cousin Elizabeth (right),
who is pregnant with John the Baptist. The sculptors drew on classical sources, to which
they had perhaps been exposed indirectly throughout earlier Mosan metalwork or directly in
the form of local examples of ancient works (Reims had been an important Roman center).
The heavy figures have the same solidity seen in Roman portrayals of noblewomen, and
Mary’s full face, gently waving hair, and heavy mantle recall imperial portrait statuary. The
contrast between the features of the young Mary and the older Elizabeth is also reminiscent
of the contrast between two Flavian portrait heads, one of a young woman and the other of a
middle-aged woman. The Reims sculptors used deftly modeled drapery not only to provide
volumetric substance that stresses the theme of pregnancy but also to create a stance in
which a weight shift with one bent knee allows the figures to seem to turn toward each other. The new freedom, movement, and sense of
relationship implied in the sculpture inspired later Gothic artists toward ever greater realism” (Stokstad, Art History 565-567).
7. “The pair on the left…. Illustrates the Annunciation; the archangel Gabriel (left) announces to Mary (right) that she will bear Jesus. The
Mary in this pair, quiet and graceful, with a slender body, restrained gestures, and refined features, contrasts markedly with the bold
tangibility of the Visitation Mary to the right. The drapery style and certain other details resemble those of Amiens, suggesting that those
who made this pair- and much of the sculpture of the west entrance as well- may also have worked at Amiens” (567). “The figure of the
angel Gabriel illustrates yet a third style, the work of a sculptor know today as the Joseph Master or the Master of the Smiling Angels.
This artist created tall, gracefully swaying figures that suggest the fashionable refinement associated with the Parisian court in the 1250s.
The facial features of Gabriel- and of Saint Joseph, on the opposite side of the doorway- are typical; small, almost triangular head with a
broad brow and pointed chin has short, wavy hair; long, puffy, almond-shaped eyes under arching brows; a well-shaped nose; and thin
lips curving into a slight smile. Voluminous drapery arranged in elegant folds adds to the impression of aristocratic grace. These engaging
figures were imitated from Paris to Prague, and their elegance and refinement became a guiding force in later Gothic sculpture and
painting” (567).
8. “As with the delineation of nature, the most striking early examples of portraiture appear in Gothic art at its
edges. This can be seen in a series of what were originally 162 life-size masks carved at Rheims cathedral,
high up on the towers and hidden behind buttresses, so that they can hardly be made out from below.
Whereas other large exterior sculptures on the buttresses at Rheims have been broadly carved to take account
of the great distance from which they would be seen, these heads seem carved for God’s gaze alone. Only with
the aid of a zoom lens can we see them from the viewpoint of the carvers who made them. This series of
carefully studied physiognomies, scowls, grimaces, and grins contains some of the most individual faces to
have survived from the thirteenth century” (Camille 164). “The faces cannot be linked to any individuals in
history. Historians have argued that they represent the nameless face, the signatures in stone, of the masons
who labored on the thousands of sculptures for the cathedral. Others have suggested that they represent
different psychotic and pathological states as medievals understood them. The mask is itself a weapon or
disguise that can serve to ward off evil, a traditional role of such corbel faces in Romanesque art. But the
Gothic grimace is here not that of a monster, but of a man” (165).
9. “These heads are also part of a vision of social distinction that permeates the cathedrals and which, contrary to our expectations,
associates individuality not with those in power but with the powerless, the lower orders. The ‘little people,’ as they were called in tax
records, were represented as smaller, squatter, and uglier. Gothic art, like Gothic poetry, presented characters in terms of social
stereotypes, as tall elegant courtiers or as hideously ugly peasants. The masks at Rheims might be understood as part of this mapping of
social distinctions. The faces of the monstrous masses have their place on the cathedral, individualized alongside the more abstracted
effigies of saints and kings” (165). “Above the rose, monumental reliefs relate the combat between David and Goliath while the curves of
the relieving arch present scenes from the lives of David and Solomon, anointed kings of the Old Testament. This is an introduction to the
Kings’ Gallery, directly above, encircling the base of the towers. Narrow arcading contains sixty-three giant statues dating from the midXIVth century, often of mediocre standard, the distance formt he ground permitting a schematic treatment. In the center, six figures
surround Clovis immersed in a font, while the monarchs of various dynasties follow one another at the base of the towers. The collection
of statues is imposing and recalls that France became Christian in Rheims in the person of its King, the vicar of God on earth. The king is
anointed like David and receives form the anointing the grace which enables him to overcome the forces of evil: he is crowned in Rheims
as the successor of Clovis” (Demouy 42). “Clovis had married a Catholic Burgundian princess, and through her he gained the idea that the
Christian God might be a powerful help in war. He is supposed to have tested this idea in a battle with the Alamanni about 506, in which
he gained a hard-fought victory. It is still uncertain how much credit he gave to divine intervention, but soon after the battle, Clovis
sought baptism form the Catholic bishop of Reims. The conversion of Clovis, even more than that of Constantine, which it resembled so
closely, remained a bloody and treacherous barbarian; all he wanted was to exploit the power of the Christian God and gain the support of
Catholic bishops and the old roman population against Arian Germans” (Strayer and Gatzke 154).
52
STUDY GUIDE
J Ste. Chapelle (Paris) 1243-1248
Rayonnant style/ St. Louis (Louis IX)/ transmission of colored light in the upper chapel/ mullions/lower
chapel covered with fleur-de-lys
1. “In 1243 construction began on a new palace chapel to house Louis IX’s prized collection of relics from Christ’s Passion. The SainteChapelle was finished in 1248, and soon thereafter Louis departed for Egypt on the Seventh Crusade. This exquisite structure epitomizes
a new Gothic style known as Rayonnant (‘radiant’ or ‘radiating’ in French) because of its radiating bar tracery, like that at Reims, or
Court style because of its association with Paris and the royal court. The hallmarks of the style include daring engineering, the
proliferation of bar tracery, exquisite sculptural and painted detailing, and vast expanses of stained glass” (Stokstad, Art History 568-569).
2. “Originally part of the king’s palace and administrative complex, the Sainte-Chapelle is located in
the center of Paris. Intended to house precious relics, it resembles a giant reliquary itself, one made
of stone and glass instead of gold and gems. It was built in two stories, with a ground-level chapel
accessible from a courtyard and a private upper chapel entered from the royal residence. The
ground-level chapel has narrow side aisles, but the upper level is a single room with a western porch
and a rounded east wall. Climbing up the narrow spiral stairs from the lower to the upper level is
like emerging into a kaleidoscopic jewel box. The ratio of glass to stone is higher here than in any
other Gothic structure, for the walls have been reduced to clusters of splendid painted colonnettes
framing tall windows filled with brilliant color. Bart tracery in the windows is echoed in the blind
arcading and tracery of the dado, the decoration on the lower walls at floor level. The dado’s surfaces
are richly patterned in red, blue, and gilt so that stone and glass seem to merge in the multicolored
light. Painted statues of the Twelve Apostles stand between window sections, linking the dado and
the stained glass. Those in the curve of the sanctuary behind the altar and relics, for example,
illustrate the Nativity and the Passion of Christ, the Tree of Jesse, and the life of Saint John the
Baptist. The story of Louis’s acquisition of his relics is told in one of the bays, and the Last
Judgment appeared in the original rose window on the west” (569).
3. “The king, better known as St. Louis, had the chapel built to house the Crown of Thorns and a fragment of the True Cross that he had
bought from the Byzantine Emperor while on a crusade. Whatever we think now of the gullibility of the period (for surely no crown made
of thorns could have lasted for thirteen centuries), we are impressed by Louis’s political shrewdness and by his taste in architecture. The
idea behind the building, as stated by a contemporary pope, was that Christ had crowned Louis with his crown. And what Louis built was
a sort of brilliant, large-scale reliquary” (Shaver-Crandell 80). “The cost of the relics exceeded that of the chapel itself, which was built by
the architect Pierre de Montreuil in 1248” (Bolton 123).
4. “Within a Gothic interior like the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, one is constantly moving to obtain different refractions of light, as though
turning a gemstone, whereas there is an optimum position for viewing the sacred story in a systematic order. Also, the light which creates
the scheme is not reflected from gold, gems, or semi-transparent materials, but is evoked in paint” (Camille 48). “Louis, who died on a
crusade, wanted to make Paris the new holy land, or locus sanctus, and the sumptuousness of this interior was meant to add luster not
only to the sacred relics but also to the line of Capetian kings” (46). “The king’s viewpoint was from within the south recess to the right of
the raised canopy, which was where the precious relics (destroyed in the French Revolution) were displayed. He faced scenes from the
Book of Kings in the stained glass opposite. The queen, seated adjacent to him, observed Old Testament heroines like Esther” (46).
5. “In Sainte-Chapelle, the dissolution of the walls and the reduction of the bulk of the supports were carried to the point that some six
thousand four hundred fifty square feet of stained glass make up more than three-quarters of the structure. The supporting elements
were reduced so much that they are hardly more than large mullions, or vertical bars. The emphasis is on the extreme slenderness of the
architectural forms and on linearity in general. Although the chapel was heavily restored during the nineteenth century (after damage
from the French Revolution), it has retained most of its original thirteenth-century stained glass” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 508).
6. “There is no transept, which allows the tall, thin colonnettes to rise uninterruptedly from a short, dimly lit first story. This clear
distinction between the lower darkness and the upper light is an architectural mirror of traditional Christian juxtapositions associating
darkness with the lower regions of hell, the Earthly City, and the pre-Christian era of the Old Testament. Light, in this context, evokes
the Heavenly City, and the enlightened teachings of the New Testament. The same parallelism between Old and New Testaments
determined the iconography of the scenes represented in the stained-glass windows. These metaphors are reinforced by the ceiling vaults,
which are painted blue, and decorated with gold stars in the form of fleurs-de-lis- the emblem of the French kings” (Adams, Art Across
Time 418).
7. “The French regarded Louis as the ideal king, and in 1297, twenty-seven years after his death, Pope Boniface VIII declared him a saint.
In his own time, Louis was revered for his piety, justice, truthfulness, and charity. His alms giving and his donations to religious
foundations were extravagant. He especially favored the mendicant (begging) orders, the Dominicans and the Franciscans. He admired
their poverty, piety, and self-sacrificing disregard of material things. Louis launched two unsuccessful Crusades, the Seventh (12481254, when, in her son’s absence, Blanche was again French regent) and the Eighth (1270). He died in Tunisia during the later. As a
crusading knight who lost his life in the service of the Church, Louis personified the chivalric virtues of courage, loyalty, and self-sacrifice.
Saint Louis united in his person the best qualities of the Christian knight, the benevolent monarch, and the holy man. He became the
model of medieval Christian kingship… So successful was he as peacekeeper that despite civil wars through most of the thirteenth
century, international peace prevailed” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 509).
53
STUDY GUIDE
K Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism
1. The heading of “Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism” was the “title of a small book published in
1951 by the art historian Erwin Panofsky. He showed the way in which Scholasticism influenced
the Gothic style in terms of its clear, hierarchical systems. Among the examples he used to show this
connection was an illustration from a thirteenth-century manuscript. At the upper left, the king sits
on a throne and is enclosed by a tripartite arch. He is the largest figure on the page, and his frame is
the most elaborate architectural element. His greater verticality and his higher placement are
consistent with his position as ruler. Interior is separated from exterior, which appears in the
buildings to the right. Other figures, including members of the clergy, are arranged in three
horizontal rows” (Adams, Art Across Time 416-417).
2. “The same organizing principle can be seen in an illustration from the early fourteenth-century
manuscript of the Life of Saint Denis. Its elaborate frame is Late Gothic, and the vines make it a
metaphor of the Church itself by reference to Christ’s “I am the vine’. At the top, Saint Denis, the
largest figure, sits on a lion throne, which connects him typologically with King Solomon, and his
Church with Solomon’s Temple.
The abbreviated cathedral entrance over the saint’s head
emphasizes his position as Archbishop of France. His scroll winds around and forms a lintel-like
horizontal under the clerestory windows” (417). “The scene below depicts the everyday life of the
Earthly City, in this case fourteenth-century Paris. A coach enters the city gate on the upper left, a
doctor checks his patient’s urine sample on the right, and in one of the boats a wine taster and two
men complete a commercial transaction. Travel, medicine, and trade are among the transient
activities of daily life, while the saints above are engaged in the loftier pursuits of preserving the name
and memory of St. Denis through his image and biography” (417-418).
3. “Scholasticism was a philosophical method combined with theology. It was designed to explain
spiritual truth by a kind of inquiry based on analogy. Above all, it was an effort to reconcile faith and
reason. The foundations of Scholasticism were set down by Saint Augustine’s juxtaposition of the
Earthly and Heavenly Cities of Jerusalem. He argued that, although understanding can precede
faith, faith leads to understanding. His esthetic argument, that beauty is symmetry, and the
harmonious relation of parts to the whole, is consistent with the visual and structural order of
Gothic” (418). “At the end of the eleventh century, Anselm (c. 1033-1109), the Archbishop of
Canterbury, established a program based on Augustine’s precepts. In the 1130s, the theologian
Peter Abelard (1079-1142) published Yes and No, a treatise applying the dialectic method to
theology, arguing from reason (ratio) on the one hand, and for and against an issue (quaestio) on the
other. About this time, the writings of Aristotle were revived in western Europe. By the thirteenth
century, his logical system had been absorbed into Scholasticism. The work that summed up
Scholasticism at its peak was the Summae Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-74). Influenced by
Aristotelean logic, Aquinas discussed doctrine according to a system of argument, counter-argument,
and solution. The synthetic character of this system established the relationship between faith and
reason. It concluded that, far from being at odds, the one actually complements the other” (418).
4. “The architectural solutions which became typical of the Gothic cathedral are, in a sense, parallel
to Scholastic logic. The sculptures and stained glass constitute an illustrated Bible. According to
Panofsky, the Scholastic clarification of faith by intellectual demonstration parallels the articulation
of the cathedral. For him, Amiens best illustrates a ‘final’ solution in creating a uniformity of
divergent features. What began with Suger’s desire for transparency in architecture led to the
philosophical pursuit of a new totality. At Amiens, the three-part nave (counting its two side aisles) corresponds to the three-part transept
(the two entrances and the section crossing the nave). The expansion of the nave into the five-part choir creates a logical transition of the
nave into the five-part choir creates a logical transition to the semicircular ambulatory in the apse. And the curve of the ambulatory leads
one naturally into the radiating chapels. The symmetrical towers repeat the symmetry of the transepts further east, and stands as equals
on either side of the western entrance. Here, therefore, by the process of philosophical debate (disputatio), the Gothic architects finally
arrived at concordantia (the harmonious reconciliation of seemingly contradictory elements)” (418).
5. “Taking a specific architectural detail and applying its solution to Scholasticism, Panofsky cites the example of the rose window. At
Saint-Denis, he argues, the window is too small; at Amiens it is crowded by the surrounding elements. But at Reims a solution has been
found. There the architect has opened up the west façade wall and set the rose window inside the pointed arch of another huge window.
As a result, the rose window is more logically connected to the west wall. Instead of being a round window in a rectangular wall as at
Saint-Denis, Chartres, and Amiens, it is now a window in a window in a wall” (418).“The new window- with the pointed arch- serves a
transitional purpose, because it shares a structure with the wall, and colored glass with the rose window. Whether viewed from the
exterior or from the interior, the esthetic effect is striking in the grand vertical sweep of the wall. This is then unified by the repeated rose
window inscribed in the pointed arch window over the door. (Note that in the exterior view, the rose window is repeated in each of the
three tympanums.) The east-to-west view of the nave accentuates the larger size of the upper rose window compared with the lower.
Although such an arrangement would appear to defy structural logic, it works because the eye is immediately drawn upwards. This effect
has a theological, as well as an architectural purpose. It synthesizes the traditional association of height and greatness with the belief
that spiritual perfection is attained in the light of the Heavenly City” (418). “Like an Aquinan proposition, the final design represents the
reconciliation of all individual parts into a majestic and harmonious synthesis” (Fiero, Medieval Europe 129).
54
STUDY GUIDE
LThe Virgin of Paris (Notre Dame, Paris), early 14th century
cult of the Virgin/ the “court style” and medieval courtly love/
an artificial pose/ the Babylonian Captivity/ the Black Plague
1. In the early fourteenth century, “the human
figure now becomes strangely abstract. Thus
the famous Virgin of Paris in Notre-Dame
Cathedral consists largely of hollows, and the
projections have been reduced to the point
where they are seen as lines rather than
volumes.
The statue is quite literally
disembodied- its swaying stance no longer
bears
any
resemblance
to
classical
contrapposto. Compared to such unearthly
grace, the angel of the Reims Annunciation
seems solid and tangible indeed.
Yet it
contains the seed of the very qualities so
strikingly expressed in the Virgin of Paris”
(Janson 330).
2. “The new style was certainly encouraged by the royal court of France and thus
had special authority. However, smoothly flowing, calligraphic lines came to
dominate Gothic art, not just in France but throughout northern Europe from
about 1250 to 1400. It is clear, moreover, that the style of The Virgin of Paris
represents neither a return to the Romanesque nor a complete rejection of the
earlier realistic trend” (331). On the other hand, an intimate type of realism
“survives even within the formal framework of The Virgin of Paris. We see it in the
Infant Christ, who appears here not as the Savior-in-miniature facing the viewer,
but as a human child playing with his mother’s veil” (331).
3. “The sculptor portrayed Mary as a very worldly queen, decked out in royal
garments and wearing a gem-encrusted crown. The Christ Child is equally
richly attired and is very much the infant prince in the arms of his young
mother. The tender, anecdotal characterization of mother and son represents a
further humanization of the portrayal of religious figures in Gothic sculpture”
(Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 508). “The exaggerated swaying S curve of the
Virgin’s body superficially resembles the shallow S curve Praxiteles introduced in
the fourth century BC. But unlike its Late Classical predecessor, the Late
Gothic S curve was not organic (derived from within figures), nor was it a
rational, if pleasing, organization of human anatomical parts. Rather, the Gothic
curve was an artificial form imposed on figures, a decorative device that
produced the desired effect of elegance but that had nothing to do with figure
structure” (509). “Earlier medieval cults ascribed bodily movement, bodily
emissions (weeping, lactating), and other miraculous occurrences, to statues
which we would today regard as anything but lifelike representations; specific
statues were occasionally ascribed specific healing powers, thus engendering
local loyalties. It follows that the process of devotional empathy could be
enhanced by a certain particularity of representation, as in the use of real
materials (cloth for draperies, jewels, crowns of real thorns) in statues” (Flynn
51).
4. “As the Middle Ages progressed, an interest in the emotional attitude of the
believer viewing the images seemed to increase. The early basis for this
development may be found in the psychology of human sight promulgated by
Saint Augustine (354-430), the bishop of Hippo in North Africa, one of the Four
Fathers of the early Western church. Augustine described three stages of sight:
corporeal, spiritual, and intellectual. Corporeal sight is seeing with the eyes;
spiritual vision is recollecting things not present or imagining them from verbal
or written description; and intellectual vision is perceiving abstractions, such as
Virtue or the Trinity. This tripartition may be considered essential to the
medieval concept of prayer and devotion” (Wixom 4). “This use of art seemed to
confirm Saint Gregory’s recommendation that the ‘daily corporeal sight’ of an
image might infer the invisible and lead to the love of the person represented”
(4).
55
M Virgin of Jeanne d’Evereux (from
the abbey church of St. Denis), 1339,
silver gilt and enamel
intimacy between a mother and her
child/ a fleur de lys scepter
1. “Gothic sculptors
found a lucrative
new outlet for their
work in the growing
demand
among
wealthy patrons for
small
religious
statues intended for
homes and personal
chapels
or
as
donations to favorite
churches.
Busy
urban
workshops
produced
large
quantities
of
statuettes and reliefs
in wood, ivory, and
precious
metals,
often decorated with
enamel and gemstones. Much of this art was
related to the cult of the Virgin Mary. An
excellent example of such works, among the
treasures of the Abbey Church of SaintDenis, is a silver-gilt image, slightly over 2
feet tall, of a standing Virgin and Child. An
inscription on the base bears the date 1339
and the name of Queen Jeanne d’Evreux,
wife of Charles IV of France (ruled 13221328). The Virgin holds her son in her left
arm, her weight on her left leg, creating the
graceful S-curve pose that was a stylistic
signature of the period” (Stokstad, Art History
571).
2. “Fluid drapery with the consistency of
heavy silk covers her body. She holds a
scepter topped with a large enameled and
jeweled fleur-de-lis, the heraldic symbol of
French royalty, and she originally had a
crown on her head. The scepter served as a
reliquary for hairs said to be from Mary’s head.
Despite this figure’s clear association with royalty,
Mary’s simple clothing and sweet, youthful face
anticipate a type of imagery that emerged in the
later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in northern
France, Flanders, and Germany: the ideally
beautiful mother. The Christ Child, clutching an
apple in one hand and reaching with the other to
touch his mother’s lips, is more babylike in his
proportions and gestures than in earlier
depictions. Still, prophets and scenes of Christ’s
Passion in enamel cover the statue’s simple
rectangular base, a reminder of the suffering to
come” (571-572).
STUDY GUIDE
N Medieval Courtly Romance and the Decorative Arts
1. “Courtly love was, like its spiritual counterpart of devotional mysticism, a vision-centered
discourse, though the object of its desire was not the Lord, dominus, but the lady, domina. In
Gothic art the lover’s gaze structures images, and things specifically created for a luxurious courtly
environment where lovers’ glances were exchanged” (Camille 167). On the mirror back shown here,
“the real aim of the chess game here is conquest of the lady’s body- indicated in the design of one
wonderful ivory by a young man whose legs, crossed in triumph, clasp the erect pole that divides
the tent (itself sexually suggestive). Visual emphasis is also given to the lady’s crotch by deep,
jagged Gothic folds. A servant even points at it. Behind the male player an attendant holds a
falcon, while the lady’s servant holds a chaplet or ring, a sign of her favors and her ultimate
penetrability” (169-170).
2. “The celebration of the role played by sight in love, in which the mirror loses its negative
association with vanity, occurs in a tapestry representing ‘Sight’ from the Five Senses Tapestries
that were made for a member of the le Viste family of Lyons… at the end of the fifteenth century.
Though few have survived into the present, tapestries like these were the most sought-after,
expensive, and important of the Gothic luxury arts in the later Middle Ages in northern Europe.
From inventories we know that King Charles V had 200 tapestries, far outnumbering the number
of paintings in his possession. They were carried from castle to castle, providing warm hangings
against draughts and a sumptuous setting for court spectacles. Their densely patterned floral
grounds of ‘millefleurs’ provided the backdrop for stories from the Bible, classical epics, and
chivalric romances. Rulers even took them into battle. Most came in sequences that could create a
theme for a room, transforming bare walls into an exotic setting or, as with le Viste’s series
(sometimes called ‘La Dame a la Licorne’), a space for erotic experience” (172).
3. “The pictorial language of love, its complex heraldic symbolism, and its playful allusion is played
out to perfection in this series of tapestries, made as an engagement present in which the patron
could present his future betrothed with an art of love based on his future expectations of sensuous
pleasure. The lover, Viste himself, is not present as a person in the tapestries, but in each of them
he is represented by his heraldic emblems, the lion and the unicorn, (the latter renowned for its
vistesse, or swiftness, in old French, and thus a family emblem for the Vistes). Only a beautiful
lady, according to the traditional bestiary story, could tame this enigmatic animal. Thus, in the
Sight tapestry, the lady herself does not look in the mirror, but makes the unicorn, playing like a pet in her lap, admire his own
reflection. The way in which the lady’s clothing illusionistically re-creates within the medium of tapestry itself other expensive types of
woven and embroidered threads and the sophisticated way in which natural forms, leaves, and sexual symbols like rabbits are
sprinkled into an otherwise flat field, exhibit the most refined expression of Gothic art as a reflection of the self, albeit in the smiling
unicorn’s own self-satisfied gaze” (172-173). “From Sight to Touch, where the lady fondles the unicorn’s horn in obvious allusion to
their eventual union, these tapestries indicate the importance of the interweaving of family power, in the heraldry and crests, with
individual pleasure. In the sixth tapestry the lady stands beneath a pavilion of blue damask powdered with tears. The motto ‘Mon seul
desir,’ is written around its top. While we think of the self as present only in a portrait, for Viste and his contemporaries the individual
was just as visible in an armorial shield, or a bearded unicorn” (173).
4. “The ideal of courtly love arose in southern France in the early twelfth century during the cultural renaissance that followed the First
Crusdae. It involved the passionate devotion of lover and loved one. The relationship was almost always illicit- the woman the wife of
another, often a lord or patron- and its consummation was usually impossible. This movement transformed the social habits of western
Europe’s courts and has had an enduring influence on modern ideas of love. Images of gallant knights serving refined ladies, who
bestowed tokens of affection on their chosen suitors or cruelly withheld their love on a whim, captured the popular imagination”
(Stokstad, Art History 549).
5. “The literature of courtly love was initially spread by the musician-poets known as troubadours, some of them professionals, some of
them amateur nobles, and at least twenty of them women. They sang of love’s joys and heartbreaks in daringly personalized terms,
extolling the ennobling effects of the lovers’ selfless devotion. From this tradition came the famous romance of Tristam and Ysolt
(Tristan and Isolde)” (549). “Chretien de Troyes, a French poet writing in the late twelfth century, tells of the love of the knight Lancelot
for Guinevere, the wife of King Arthur. The literature of courtly love marked a major shift from the usually negative way in which
women had previously been portrayed as sinful daughters of Eve” (549).
6. During the Middle Ages, “girlhood was brief. Women were marriageable at twelve and usually married by fourteen. Heiresses might
be married in form as young as five and betrothed even younger, though such unions could be annulled before consummation. By
twenty a woman had a number of children, and by thirty, if she survived the hazards of childbirth, she might be widowed and
remarried, or a grandmother” (Gies and Gies 42). “For all her legal disabilities, the lady played a serious, sometimes leading role in the
life of the castle. When the lord was away at court, war, Crusade, or pilgrimage, she ran the estate, directing the staff and making the
financial and legal decisions. The ease with which castle ladies took over such functions indicates a familiarity implying at least a
degree of partnership when the lord was at home. Besides helping to supervise the household staff and the ladies who acted as nurses
for her children, the lord’s wife took charge of the reception and entertainment of officials, knights, prelates, and other castle visitors”
(44). “Many medieval ladies showed political capacity of a high order… Women not only defended their castles in sieges but actually led
armies in battles. Long before Joan of Arc, women put on armor and rode to war” (45).
56
STUDY GUIDE
O The Babylonian Captivity
1. Sensing that a new type of secular authority was developing in the west, Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) “tried to reassert the
superiority of ecclesiastical interests and the independence of the Church… With the shift in basic loyalties from the Church to the state,
many people now believed that their chief duty was to support their king rather than to obey the pope. As a result, Boniface was defeated
in a head-on clash with the kings of England and France- a blow from which the medieval church never recovered” (Strayer and Gatzke
269). “When Edward I and Philip the Fair drifted into a war over Aquitaine in 1294, they both asked their clergy for a grant of taxes. They
were outraged when Boniface prohibited these grants in 1296” (270).
2. A great assembly at Paris in 1302 “gave its full support to the king and emphatically rejected any papal authority in France” when
Philip the Fair imprisoned a French bishop (270). In 1303 Philip sent a small force to stage a surprise attack on Boniface’s summer home
at Anagni. They “succeeded in capturing the pope… A counterattack by the people of Anagni… freed Boniface from his captors. He took
refuge in Rome and began to prepare bulls of excommunication against the French. But Boniface was an elderly man, and the shock of
capture had proved too much for him. He died before he could act” (270). “After the assault at Anagni,… the Church did not dare to react
strongly. No one, either inside or outside France, seemed disturbed by what had happened… Boniface’s successor was not a strong man,
and when he died within a year the cardinals surrendered completely. They elected a French archbishop as pope, a man who was not
even a member of their group and a man who was clearly agreeable to Philip, if not suggested by him. This new pope, Clement V, yielded
at every turn to the king of France” (270-271).
3. “The pliability of Clement V soon led him to an even more momentous decision. After he was elected pope, he set off for Rome, but,
dismayed by the disorder in Italy, he paused in the Rhone Valley. The papacy was now paying for its stubborn opposition to the
establishment of a strong Italian kingdom; the warring city-states had made even the Papal States unsafe. Somehow Clement never got
started again. France was pleasant, and Italy was dangerous; moreover, the French king and the French cardinals were urging him to
stay on. And so Clement settled down at Avignon on the Rhone, where he and his successors were to reside for over seventy years. This
long period of exile in France (1305-78) is known in church history as the Babylonian Captivity. The papacy did not lose its
independence, for Avignon was papal territory and the surrounding country was technically part of the Empire and not of France. No
subsequent Avignonese pope was as subservient to the French king as Clement V had been; most of them were able, even forceful,
administrators of the affairs of the Church. Many people, especially the English, were convinced that the pope was a servant of the
French king, in spite of evidence to the contrary. Many more believed that no true successor of Peter would abandon Rome for the ‘sinful
city of Avignon.’ A spiritual leader was not supposed to be swayed by motives of expediency or fear of discomfort. Charges of worldliness
and corruption leveled against the Church seemed more justified than ever” (271-272).
P The Black Plague
Q The Great Schism
1. “The effects of economic depression, political confusion,
and religious uncertainty were intensified by terrible
outbursts of plague in the middle years of the fourteenth
century. The Black Death (probably bubonic plague) first
appeared in Italy in the 1340s and swept through Europe
during the next two decades. The worst was over by 1360,
but repeated, though less severe, outbreaks throughout the
next half-century kept the population from reaching its
preplague numbers. Although no accurate estimate can be
made of the mortality, it was especially severe in thickly
populated areas. Some towns lost more than two-fifths of
their inhabitants, and some monasteries almost ceased to
function. Since doctors were helpless, the only way to avoid
the plague was to take refuge in isolated country districts”
(Strayer and Gatzke 280).
1. “The leadership of the Church was further impaired by the Great
Schism that followed the Babylonian Captivity. The popes at Avignon,
realizing that their exile was impairing their authority, had made
several halfhearted efforts to return to Rome. Finally, in 1377, Gregory
XI actually moved back to Italy, but he was appalled by the disorder in
Rome and the Papal States. He was about to return to Avignon when
he died, in 1378. The Romans, with the papacy once more within their
grasp, had no intention of again losing the income from pilgrims and
visitors to the papal court. When the cardinals met to elect Gregory’s
successor, they were besieged by a howling mob demanding that they
choose a Roman, or at least an Italian, pope. It is hard to estimate how
effective this pressure was; certainly it had some influence. In the end
the cardinals elected an Italian archbishop who took the title of Urban
VI” (Strayer and Gatzke 277-278).
2. “The panic caused by the Black Death drove the sorely
tried peoples of western Europe into emotional instability.
It is no accident that the bloodiest peasant rebellions and
the most senseless civil wars took place after the plague,
and that the witchcraft delusion, unknown in the early
Middle Ages, then reached its height. This was a double
delusion. Innocent men and women were falsely accused of
practicing black magic, but there were people, including
men of high position, who genuinely believed that they
could gain their desires by making a compact with the
Devil. More than anything else, the witchcraft delusion
demonstrated the state of shock in which western Europe
found itself at the end of the fourteenth century. The
rationalism and confidence in the future that had been so
apparent at the height of medieval civilization had vanished”
(280).
2. “The cardinals may have hoped that Urban would be a pliant and
cooperative pope; instead he bullied them, rejected their advice, and
denounced their behavior. The majority of the cardinals were French,
but even the non-French were outraged by Urban’s behavior. The
whole group soon fled from Rome and declared that Urban’s election
was void because it had taken place under duress. They proceeded to
choose a new pope, a French-speaking cardinal of the family of the
counts of Geneva. He took the title of Clement VII, set up his court at
Avignon and denounced Urban as a usurper” (278). “When Urban and
Clement died, in 1389 and 1394, respectively, the rival groups of
cardinals each elected a new pope, thus prolonging the Great Schism
into the next century. Though the people of western Europe were
deeply distressed by the schism, they could see no way out of their
troubles… The popes of the Captivity had at least been good
administrators, but the schism made effective administration
impossible” (278).
57
STUDY GUIDE
R God as architect of the world, folio of a moralized Bible (Paris) c. 1220-1230, ink, tempera, and gold
leaf on vellum
God as an industrious architect/ ars de geometria/ image of an unformed earth/ moralized Bibles
1. “Abbot Suger had described his monumental typologies as being ‘understandable only to the literate.’ It is
not, therefore, surprising that the most ambitious typological schemes of the thirteenth century occurred in
the medium of manuscript illumination. The Bible Moralisee was a vast-picture Bible, produced under royal
patronage in Paris, in which each biblical event was paired with one explaining its moral significance. A copy
in Vienna, which is unusual in having French, not Latin, captions, opens with a superb full-page image of God
the geometer, architect of all things, constructing the cosmos with his compass. The amorphous mass in his
left hand, flanked by the sun and moon, represents the unformed matter, or chaos, from which, as craftsman,
he shaped the universe. Just as time was expected to end, its beginning was clearly marked by this cosmic
moment. The fact that God’s creative act was associated with the technology of artistic production is of
enormous significance for artistic practice in this period. In earlier medieval scenes of the creation, the
universe was depicted as coming into being through the pointing finger of God’s speech-gesture, as realized
through God’s word (‘Let there be light’). Here God has to bend his back in the hard work of world-making”
(Camille 78-79). Note that “his right foot even steps out of the bottom border and onto the plain page” and that
‘his robes dissolve into a tissue of thin pleats” (Suckale and Weniger 41).
2. “On the facing recto page, time is set in motion in the first scene, in which God creates day and night. Each narrative roundel is paired
with a pictorial interpretation below it, and both are explained by adjacent captions. These texts were written after the pictures, reversing
our normal expectations of Gothic art as one based upon preexistent words. The pair scenes are not strictly typological…For example, in
the fourth scene God creates the sun, moon, and stars. In the interpretation below, the sun signifies God’s divinity, which is represented
by the open book of the Holy Scriptures, and the stars signify the clergy. God’s creation of the world in these scenes is consistently
interpreted as his establishment of the church. The messages are often highly contemporary, being historical, political, and institutional
rather than spiritual. The Bible Moralisee has been described as a massive pictorial campaign against heretics, especially the Jews, who
are hideously caricatured on other pages. Typology, in reinventing the history of the Jews for Christian purposes, also served as a
stimulus to their persecution” (Camille 79, 82).
S Abraham and the three angels, from the Psalter of Saint Louis (Paris) 1253-1270, ink, tempera, and
gold leaf on vellum
Rayonnant “court style” on display in an illuminated manuscript/ Gothic architectural backdrop/ use of
typology/ buoyant, swaying forms
1. “The Psalter of Saint Louis (the king was canonized in 1297) defines the Court style in manuscript illumination.
The book, containing seventy-eight full-page illuminations, was created for Louis IX’s private devotions sometimes
between 1253 and 1270. The illustrations fall at the back of the book, preceded by Psalms and other readings
unrelated to them. Intricate scrolled borders and a background of Rayonnant architectural features modeled on the
Sainte-Chapelle frame the narratives. Figures are rendered in an elongated, linear style. One page illustrates two
scenes from the Old Testament story of Abraham, Sarah, and the Three Strangers (Genesis 18). On the left, Abraham
greets God, who has appeared to him as three strangers, and invites him to rest. On the right, he offers the men a meal
that his wife, Sarah, standing in the doorway of their tent on the far right, has prepared. God says that Sarah will soon
bear a child, and she laughs because she and Abraham are old. But God replies, ‘Is anything too marvelous for the
Lord to do?’ She later gives birth to Isaac, whose name comes from the Hebrew word for ‘laughter.’ Christians in the
Middle Ages viewed the three strangers in this story as symbols of the Trinity and believed that God’s promise to Sarah
was a precursor of the Annunciation to Mary” (Stokstad, Art History 573-574). “The architectural background in this
painting established a narrow stage space in which the story unfolds. Wavy clouds float within the arches under the
gables. The imaginatively rendered oak tree establishes the location of the story and separates the two scenes. The
gesture of the central haloed figure in the scene on the right and Sarah’s presence in the doorway of the tent indicate
that we are viewing the moment of divine promise. This new spatial sense, as well as the depicting of oak leaves and
acorns, reflects a tentative move toward the representation of the natural world that will gain momentum in the
following centuries” (574). Here, the “painted figures also express the same aristocratic elegance as the Rayonnant
‘court style’ of architecture royal Paris favored” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 516).
2. “Reciting the psalms was a way of training the king’s mind upon God, and the [Psalter of St. Louis] helped to fix his
gaze in the right direction. This is evident from the B initial that begins the first psalm. In the top half of the letter King
David stares down from a window in a tower and spies upon the naked Bathsheba, who is bathing below. Looking provided possibilities
for sin, just as much as for salvation. In the lower half of the letter Louis is shown an example of a higher, spiritual mode of vision. Here
his Old Testament counterpart, set against a diamond-pattern of royal fleurs de lys, kneels in repentance before God, who is enthroned
before God, who is enthroned, surrounded by a fiery mandorla or almond-shaped halo. This indicates that God is not physically present
to the royal beholder, but an object of higher vision. Abstract shapes and wavy lines were the means by which medieval artists
distinguished different levels of reality within a picture. One of the problems for the modern beholder of Gothic art is understanding and
differentiating these complex visual cues” (Camille 16).
58
T Master Honoré. David anointed by Samuel
and battle of David and Goliath from the
Breviary of Philippe le Bel (Paris) 1296, ink
and tempera on vellum
Master Honoré/ breviary/ King David of Israel/
figures against a decorative background
1. “Until the thirteenth century,
illuminated manuscripts had
been produced in the scriptoria
of monasteries. Now, along with
many other activities that were
once the special preserve of the
clergy, it shifted to urban
workshops organized by laymen,
the ancestors of the publishing
houses of today. Here again the
workshops of sculptors and
stained-glass painters may have
set the pattern” (Janson 341).
2. “Some of these new, secular
illuminators are known to us by
name. Among them is Master
Honoré of Paris, who in 1295
did the miniatures in the Prayer
Book of Philip the Fair. Our sample shows him working in a
style derived from the Psalter of St. Louis. Here, however,
the framework no longer dominates the composition. The
figures have become larger, and their relieflike modeling is
more emphatic. They are even allowed to overlap the frame,
a device that helps to detach them from the flat pattern of
the background and thus introduces a certain, though very
limited, spatial range into the picture” (343).
3. “The illustration depicting the two David scenes combines
typically French decorative motifs with aspects of Byzantine
narrative, notably the appearance of the same person
several times: as David gets ready to use his sling, Goliath
is already clutching his forehead, while in the background
David lifts his sword to cut off Goliath’s head.
A
noteworthy feature of the work is the languid elegance of
the figures, which seem almost to take on the curves and
long, willowy bodies of 16th-century Mannerism” (Toman,
Gothic 460).
4. “In the top half, the youthful David kneels before Samuel,
who anoints him with oil poured from a horn. On the right,
against the backdrop of Bethlehem, Jesse, David’s father,
and his seven other sons are gesticulating in astonishment.
In the lower field, Israel led by Saul watches anxiously as
the young, unarmed David slays Goliath with a single stone
from his sling. Although the miniaturist sticks closely to
the Biblical text, he succeeds in configuring his groups with
a rhythmical mastery. The subtlety of his composition is
underlined, for example, by the swathe of cloak which Jesse
holds up behind David like a screen, and which separates
David from his family at a formal level, too. Byzantine
formulae are finally overcome.
The generous folds of
drapery are lent a greater sculptural quality by the bold use
of light and shade.
The long faces with their broad
foreheads are extraordinarily animated. Their locks of hair
writhe like little snakes. Elements of landscape insert
themselves between the figures and decorative foil of the
background” (Suckale and Weniger 51).
STUDY GUIDE
U Jean Pucelle. David before Saul, page from the
Belleville Breviary, c. 1325, manuscript illumination
love of ornament in manuscript illuminations
1. “David and Saul also are the subjects of a miniature painting at the
top left of an elaborately decorated text page in the Belleville Breviary.
Jean Pucelle of Paris illuminated it around 1325. He went far beyond
Honoré and other French artists by placing his fully modeled figures in
three-dimensional architectural settings rendered in convincing
perspective. For example, Pucelle painted Saul as a weighty figure
seated on a throne seen in a three-quarter view, and he meticulously
depicted the receding coffers of the barrel vault over the young David’s
head. Such ‘stage sets’ already had become commonplace in Italian
painting, and Pucelle seems to have visited Italy and studied Duccio’s
work in Siena. Pucelle’s (or one of his assistant’s) renditions of plants,
a bird, butterflies, a dragonfly, a fish, a snail, and a monkey also reveal
a keen interest in and close observation of the natural world.
Nonetheless, in the Belleville Breviary the text still dominates the
figures, and the artist (and his patron) delighted in ornamental
flourishes, fancy initial letters, and abstract pattern. In that respect,
comparisons to monumental panel paintings are inappropriate.
Pucelle’s breviary remains firmly in the tradition of book illumination”
(Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 516-517).
2. “The Belleville Breviary is of special interest because Pucelle’s and
some of his assistants’ names appear at the end of the book, in a
memorandum recording the payment they received for the work.
Inscriptions in other Gothic illuminated books regularly state the
production costs- the prices paid for materials, especially gold, and for
the execution of initials, figures, flowery script, and other
embellishments. By this time, illuminators were professional guild
members, and their personal reputation, like modern ‘brand names’,
guaranteed the quality of their work. Though the cost of materials was
still the major factor determining a book’s price, individual skill and
reputation increasingly decided the value of the illuminator’s service.
The centuries-old monopoly of the Christian Church in bookmaking
had ended” (517).
3. “Jean Pucelle, who also worked
in the rue Erembourg, is generally
thought to have had still greater
influence than Master Honoré.
While Master Honoré had a
tendency to concentrate on the
pictorial
motif
rather
than
decorative elements, Jean Pucelle
sought out and transformed
decorative features. He joined
ornaments to framework borders
and small capital letters, and
combined these with architectural
motifs and figures to form almost
abstract patterns” (Toman, Gothic
460).
4. A breviary is “used by every
priest every day. It contains the
Divine Office which must be
recited every day by priests,
deacons, and all religious, either in choir or privately. It is obligatory in
Western and Eastern Churches, though Byzantine religious [clergy] are
not bound to the whole of their office because of its great length. If
recited privately it takes about one and a half hours, longer is said in
choir. In general, the books used in the Byzantine rite are very similar
to those above, but are more complex” (Murray and Murray 278).
59
STUDY GUIDE
V St. Maclou (Rouen, France) c. 1500-1514
Flamboyant style
1. “Beginning in the late thirteenth century France began to suffer from overpopulation and economic decline,
followed in the fourteenth century by the devastation of the Hundred Years’ War and the plague. Large-scale
construction gradually ceased, ending the great age of cathedral building. The Gothic style continued to
develop, however, in smaller churches, municipal and commercial buildings, and private residences. Many of
these later buildings were covered with elaborate decoration in the new Flamboyant (‘flaming’ in French) style,
named for the repeated flamelike patterns of its tracery. Flamboyant may have reflected an English
architectural style known as Decorated. New window tracery was added to many earlier churches in this
period, as at Amiens, and a Flamboyant north spire, built between 1507 and 1513, was even added to the west
façade of Chartres” (Stokstad, Art History 569-570).
2. “In the new style, decoration sometimes seems divorced from structure. Load-bearing walls and buttresses
often have stone overlays, and traceried pinnacles, gables, and S-curve moldings combined with a profusion of
geometric and natural ornament to dizzying effect. According to one architectural historian, the style reflects
‘an almost pathological dread of clarity. Ambiguity is endlessly pursued, and whereas all the elements were
once integrated logically and lucidly, they are now dissolved in the shimmering air” (570). “The façade of the
Church of Saint-Maclou in Rouen, begun in 1436, is an outstanding example of the new style. The projecting
porch bends at the sides to enfold the façade of the church, disguising it behind a screen of openwork tracery.
Sunlight on the flame-shaped openings and crockets- the small knoblike ornaments in the form of plants that
line the steep gables and slender buttresses- casts flickering, changing shadows across the busy, intentionally complex surface” (570).
3. “What distinguishes St. Maclou from such churches as St. Urbain in Troyes is its profuse ornament. The church was built largely
between 1434 and 1470 by Pierre Robin; the façade was added by Ambroise Havel from 1500 to 1514. The architect has covered the
structural skeleton with a web of decoration so dense and fanciful as to obscure it almost completely. It becomes a fascinating game of
hide-and-seek to locate the ‘bones’ of the building within this picturesque tangle of lines” (Janson 317). “Normandy is particularly rich in
Flamboyant architecture…The five portals (two of them blind) bend outward in an arc. Ornate gables crown the doorways, pierced
through and filled with wiry, ‘flickering’ Flamboyant tracery made up of curves and countercurves that form brittle decorative webs and
mask the building’s structure” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 509).
W The Gothic Castle
1. “Although Gothic architectural style is most
studied in cathedrals and other church
buildings, it is also seen in such secular
structures as castles, which during the
turbulent Middle Ages were necessary
fortress-residences. Castles evolved during
the Romanesque and Gothic periods from
enclosed and fortified strongholds to elaborate
defended residential complexes from which
aristocrats ruled their domains” (Stokstad
578). “A typical Gothic castle was a defensible,
enclosed combination of fortifications and
living quarters for the lord and his family and
those defending them. It was built on raised
ground and sometimes included a moat
(ditch), filled with water and crossed by a
bridge; ramparts (heavy walls), which were
freestanding
or
built
against
earth
embankments; parapets, into which towers
were set; a keep, or donjon, a tower that was
the most secure place within the compound;
and a great hall that was where the rulers and
their closest associates lived. The bailey, a
large open courtyard in the center, contained
wooden structures such as living quarters and stables, as well as a stone chapel. The castle complex was defended by a wooden
stockade, or fence, outside the moat; inside the stockade lay lists, areas where knightly combats were staged” (579).
2. “The main entrance was approached by a wide bridge, which passed through moat gateways called barbicans, ending in a drawbridge
and then an iron portcullis, a grating set into the doorway. Elsewhere, small doors called posterns provided secret access for the castle’s
inhabitants. Ramparts and walls were topped by stone battlements designed to screen defenders standing on parapet walks while
allowing them to repel attacks through notched crenellations. There were covered parapet walks, as well as miniature towers called
turrets, along the more secure perimeter walls of the castle” (579).
60
STUDY GUIDE
X Salisbury Cathedral (England) begun c. 1220
horizontal emphasis in a long rectilinear plan/ more emphasis on the cross tower than the façade/ park-like
setting (a close)/ screen- like façade/ a square apse and two transepts/ horizontal emphasis on the interior/
gisant (tomb effigy)
1. “Gothic architecture in England was strongly influenced by Cistercian and Norman Romanesque
architecture as well as by French master builders like William of Sens, who directed the rebuilding of
Canterbury Cathedral between 1174 and 1178. English cathedral builders were less concerned with
height than their French counterparts, and they constructed long, broad naves, Romanesque-type
galleries, and clerestory-level passageways. Walls retained a Romanesque solidity. Salisbury
Cathedral, because it was built in a relatively short period of time, has a consistency of style that
makes it an ideal representative of English Gothic architecture. The cathedral was begun in 1220
and nearly finished in 1258, an unusually short period for such an undertaking. The west façade
was completed by 1265. The huge crossing tower and its 400-foot spire are fourteenth-century
additions, as are the flying buttresses that were added to stabilize the tower. Typically English is the
parklike setting (the cathedral close) and attached cloister and chapter house for the cathedral
clergy. The thirteenth-century structure hugged the earth, more akin to Fontenay, built more than a
century earlier, than to the contemporary Amiens Cathedral in France” (Stokstad, Art History 576).
2. “In contrast to French cathedral facades, which suggest the entrance to paradise with
their mighty towers flanking deep portals, English facades like the one at Salisbury suggest
the jeweled wall of paradise itself. The small flanking towers of the west front project
beyond the side walls and buttresses, giving the façade an increased width that was
underscored by tier upon tier of blind tracery and arcaded niches. Lancet windows grouped
in twos, threes, and fives introduce an element of vertical counterpoint. Typical of English
cathedrals, Salisbury has double projecting transepts, a square apse, and a spacious
sanctuary. The interior reflects enduring Norman traditions, with its heavy walls and tall
nave arcade surmounted by a short gallery and a clerestory with simple lancet windows.
The emphasis on horizontal movement of the arcades, unbroken by colonnettes in the
unusually restrained nave, directs worshipers’ attention forward to the altar, rather than
upward into the vaults. Reminiscent of Romanesque interiors is the use of color in the
stonework: the shafts supporting the four-part rib vaults are made of darker stone that
contrasts with the lighter stone of the rest of the interior. The stonework was originally
painted and gilded as well as carved” (576).
3. “The original cathedral had been built within the hilltop castle complex of a Norman lord. In 1217 Bishop Richard Poore petitioned the
pope to relocated the church, claiming the wind howled so loudly there that the clergy could not hear themselves say Mass. A more
pressing concern was probably his desire to escape the lord’s control; Pope Innocent III (papacy 1198-1216) had only recently lifted a sixyear ban on church services throughout England and Wales after King John (ruled 1199-1216) agreed to acknowledge the Church’s
sovereignty. The Town of Salisbury (from the Saxon Searisbyrig, meaning ‘Caesar’s burg’, or town) was laid out, by the bishop himself,
after the cathedral was under way. Material carted down from the old church was used in the cathedral, along with dark, fossil-silted
Purbeck stone from quarries in southern England and stone from Caen. The building was abandoned and vandalized during the
Protestant Reformation in England initiated by King Henry VIII (ruled 1509-1547)” (577).
4. “Among cathedrals, only Salisbury meets this requirement. We see immediately how different the exterior is from its counterparts in
France- and how futile it would be to judge it by French Gothic standards. Compactness and verticality have given way to a long, low
sprawling look. (The crossing tower, which provides a dramatic unifying accent, was built a century later than the rest and its much taller
than originally planned.) Since height is not the main goal, flying buttresses are used only as an afterthought. The west façade has
become a screen wall, wider than the church itself and divided into horizontal bands of ornament and statuary. The towers have shrunk
to stubby turrets. The plan, with its projecting double transept, retains the segmented quality of Romanesque structures, but the square
east end derives from Cistercian architecture” (Janson 318). Inside, “we see the nave wall not as a succession of bays but as a series of
arches and supports. These supports, carved of dark marble, stand out against the rest of the interior. This method of stressing their
special function is one of the hallmarks of the Early English style. Another is the steep curve of the nave vault. The ribs ascend all the
way from the triforium level. As a result, the clerestory gives the impression of being tucked away among the vaults. At Durham, more
than a century earlier, the same treatment had been a technical necessity. Now it has become a matter of style, in keeping with the
character of English Early Gothic as a whole. This character might be described as conservative in the positive sense. It accepts the
French system but tones down its revolutionary aspects to maintain a strong sense of continuity with the Anglo-Norman past” (318-319).
5. “According the legend, the site was decided upon either by the fall of an arrow shot from the ramparts of a nearby castle, or by a dream
in which the Virgin ordered Bishop Richard Poore to build at the spot where the cathedral now stands” (Shaver-Crandell 81). “Unlike
French cathedrals, the portals are not decorated with sculptured figures. The plan of Salisbury is also quite different from French
cathedral plans… The Salisbury plan has two transepts and a square east end… At the eastern end of the building is a small chapel called
a Lady Chapel, dedicated to the Virgin, patroness of the cathedral. Such Lady Chapels are common in English Gothic buildings” (82-83).
Inside, “there is much more emphasis on horizontal elements. The spandrels between the arches of the main arcade are unmarked by
wall shafts. The triforium openings are broad, each composed of two pairs of two arches encompassed by an arch that is almost round”
(83).
61
STUDY GUIDE
Y Lincoln Cathedral (England), c. 1220-1240
crazy vaults/ Decorated Style
1. “Lincoln cathedral, rebuilt from 1192 by the mastermason Geoffrey de Noiers, is another
masterpiece which is innovative in a way unparalleled in France. St. Hugh’s Choir, known after
Geoffrey de Noiers’s patron, the French-born Carthusian monk St. Hugh of Lincoln, is roofed with
what is known as the ‘crazy vault’ of Lincoln. It is perhaps the earliest instance in Gothic Europe of
deliberate emphasis on the decorative as opposed to the functional role of ribs. The vault thus
becomes a continuous linear net largely unrelated to the bay divisions and featuring for the first time
tiercerons, that is to say decorative ribs which do not lead to the central point of the vault but to a
place along a ridge rib which runs along the crown of the vault. The same spirit of almost willful
gaiety dictated the design of the blank arcading which adorns the walls in St. Hugh’s Choir. Here the
Norman tradition of intersecting round-headed arcading has been developed in a three-dimensional
way by superimposing one tier of pointed arches on top of another so as to produce a syncopated
rhythm in two planes, which is emphasized by the contrasting method of the colonnettes: limestone
for the lower layer and polished black Purbeck marble, inspired Canterbury, for the upper” (Watkin
146).
2. “Lincoln is also notable for the continuing use of the Anglo-Norman thick or double-shell wall
which first appeared in the mid-eleventh century in the transept at Jumieges and was adopted at
Caen, St. Albans, Durham, and Winchester. In Gothic architecture this technique enabled the vaults to be supported less by flying
buttresses than by the walls of the gallery over the aisles. The span of the arcades in the nave at Lincoln is so great that the eye can take
in th aisles at the same time. Horizontal ornament is even more marked in the west front, which was reached by about 1230. Previously
dominated by its three great Norman arches, this façade was now extended to both sides with repetitive tiers of blank arcading unrelated
to the structure of the wall behind” (146-147).
Z The Decorated Style
1. “The mature Decorated style starts
around 1290. It is particularly associated
with the use of ogee, i.e. double, curves,
which first appeared in the Eleanor
Crosses, erected by Edward I in 1291-4 to
mark the funeral procession of his queen
from Lincolnshire to Westminster Abbey.
The style is seen at its best in Exeter and
York cathedrals; the choirs of Wells and
Bristol; the tower, choir and Lady Chapel at
Ely; and the porch of St. Mary Redcliffe at
Bristol. The nave of Exeter, begun about
1310, is memorable for the weighty richness
created by its massive vault, which appears
to be a decorative end in itself rather than
the logical roofing of the bay divisions. It
spreads profusely like palm leaves because
it is covered with extremely prominent ribs
of which as many as eleven, more than in
any previous building, spring from a single
source” (Watkin 149).
AA Chapel of Henry VII, Westminster Abbey (London) 1503-1519
fan vaults/ Perpendicular (or “Tudor”) style
1. The English king Henry VII “had the Lady Chapel
in the east of the Westminster Abbey torn down for
his own burial place, and the choir built by Henry III
made twice as long. Both outside and inside, Henry
VII’s Chapel is composed entirely of intricate panels
with hardly any plain wall area left” (Toman, Gothic
150). “The Westminster vault is a fan vault, but
combined with large hanging bosses called
pendants. The number of cones in the structure has
increased and the points of the whole cones in the
middle hang spectacularly in midair. The technique
which makes this masterpiece possible is well disguised: the
transverse arches disappear into the ceiling of the vault,
their thrust being transmitted to the external buttressing.
This intensifies the weightless impression of the vault, the
lines of tracery being carved out of stone slabs, with the
actual surface of the vault behind appearing only as a
shadowy background” (150).
2. The Perpendicular Style is “so called because it is a rectilinear system of design and
ornament based on the repetition of vertical panels with cusped heads” (Watkin 152).
“The decorative and structure-disguising qualities of the Perpendicular Style became
even more pronounced in its late phases… In this chapel, the earlier linear play of ribs
became a kind of architectural embroidery, pulled into uniquely English ‘fan vault’
shapes with large hanging pendants. The vault looks like something organic that
hardened in the process of melting” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 521).
3. “Henry VII, the first Tudor king, intended [this chapel] as a chantry chapel for
himself in which Mass would be said for the repose of his soul long after his death, and
as a shrine for Henry VI who he hoped would be canonized. It was a religious and
political monument in which Henry VII attempted to demonstrate with the utmost
magnificence the power and legitimacy of the Tudor dynasty. Though its design is often
attributed to the Vertue brothers, who were subsequently architects to Henry VIII, it is
more probably by Robert Janyns the younger, one of the royal master-masons” (Watkin
154).
62
BB St. Elizabeth (Marburg,
Germany), 1235-83
a hall church (hallenkirche)/
absence of tracery arcades, portal
sculptures, and flying buttresses
1. “A new type of church,
the hall church, developed
in thirteenth-century Germany in response to the
increasing importance of
sermons
within
church
services. The hall church
featured a nave and side
aisles with vaults of the
same height, creating a
spacious and open interior
that could accommodate
the large crowds drawn by
charismatic preachers. The
flexible design of these
‘great halls’ was also widely
adopted
for
civic
and
residential
buildings”
(Stokstad, Art History 585).
2. “The Church of Saint Elizabeth at Marburg,
near Cologne in Germany, built between 1233
and 1283, was popular as a pilgrimage site
and as a funerary chapel for the local nobility.
The earliest example of a hall church, Saint
Elizabeth has a beautiful simplicity and purity
of line. Light from two stories of tall windows
fills the interior, unimpeded by nave arcades,
galleries, or triforia. The exterior has a similar
verticality and geometric clarity” (585).
3. “A nave of six bays precede a trefoiled east
end. Each transept arm is the same length as
the choir, and all three of these structures are
apsidal- that is, curved, rather than squareended- in plan. Apsidal transept endings are
characteristic of so many earlier Romanesque
churches in Germany.
St. Elizabeth also
revives a type called the ‘hall church’ that was
popular in earlier German architecture. This
is a church whose aisles are the same height
as the nave, as opposed to a basilica, whose
aisles are lower than the nave. Thus, there
are no windows in the central nave of St.
Elizabeth. The elevation has a single tall
arcade carried on piers with delicate foliate
capitals. The aisles are two storeys high,
lighted by two levels of tall windows whose
simple bar tracery reminds us of the design of
Reims Cathedral. A feature that differentiates
St. Elizabeth from French Gothic buildings of
the same time is the absence of flying
buttresses, unnecessary here because the
aisles are the same height as the nave. The
resulting exterior design is compact but
delicate because of the repeated verticals of
the standing buttresses and the regularity of
the two storeys of traceried windows” (ShaverCrandell 85-86).
STUDY GUIDE
CC Gerhard of Cologne. Cologne Cathedral (Germany), begun
1248; nave, façade, and towers completed 1880
ambitious attempt to “rush into the skies”
1. “The Gothic architecture of northern France was not taken up quickly in Central
Europe. Once it had become established, however, it became almost indigenous. It
is no surprise that Gothic architecture was for a long time thought to be a German
creation. Nineteenth-century art history put paid to that idea, but in this cultural
area Gothic art continued for some time to be seen as the natural expression of the
German spirit” (Toman, Gothic 190).
2. “In the Gothic architecture of northern French
cathedrals- which cannot of course be seen as
the only form of Gothic architecture- the
technical and expressive aspects of architecture
were developed by each new building. Thus
building tasks that had not been very
successfully carried out previously, such as the
construction of a tower, were solved efficiently
and eloquently in Gothic construction.
The
direct influence of such solutions on German
architecture can be seen in the Cathedral in
Breisgau.
Cologne Cathedral, on the other
hand, reveals a more original and independent
response to Gothic. Here the choir, though
modeled on the choir at Amiens, represents
anything but a passive reception of French
Gothic, for it refines its model in many points of
internal and external construction. This lead to
the creation of a cathedral choir that is seen as
the quintessence of the Gothic choir. At Amiens
Cathedral, by contrast, the choir was far less successful, thought the nave wall came
close to perfection” (190).
3. “Among the other important achievements of Cologne Cathedral are the dual
towers of the west front. Designed shortly after the choir, they already represent a
marked divergence from French Gothic. Similarly, the huge elevation of the west
front is without doubt the most original design of the Middle Ages (it was for financial
rather than technical reasons that it was never completed). Likewise, the completed
southwest tower, on which building work was resumed in the 19th century, was to be
the largest and most daring of all medieval towers” (190). “In Cologne there was a
shift of focus from the lower façade to the towers, so powerful they dominate
everything else… The Cologne architect, probably Master Johannes, placed less
emphasis on the independence of the portals, which also meant less emphasis on
sculpture. A rose window and a royal gallery with the large statues are both omitted.
Cologne, in a word, exhibits the complete dissolution of everything which might still
have been considered classical Gothic” (202). “The towers are unique in being set
over four bays. By comparison, the towers of Amiens Cathedral cover only half a
bay” (202).
4. The inspiration for a larger building on the site came about “when holy relics were
taken to Cologne from Milan. These sacred objects, originally brought back from the
Holy Land to Constantinople in the fourth century, were reputedly of the Magi, the
three wise men or kings who, according to Saint Matthew’s Gospel, came from the
east to attend the birth of Jesus. Installed in a sumptuous golden shrine, the
remains of the Magi put Cologne on the pilgrim’s map at a time when Europe’s
highways were alive with pious travelers making their way to similar shrines all over
the continent” (Harpur 183). “Begun in 1248, the cathedral was built in the Gothic
style under the guidance of its architect, Master Gerhard, who was influenced by the
great French cathedrals of the time, especially Amiens, which he had seen and
worked on” (183).
5. The shrine in Cologne Cathedral, created by Nicholas of Verdun, is a reliquary
resembling “a basilican church” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 529). “Possession of
the magi’s relics gave the Cologne archbishops the right to crown German kings”
(529).
63
STUDY GUIDE
DD Death of the Virgin, tympanum of left doorway of the south transept from Strasbourg Cathedral
(France), c. 1230
Dormition of the Virgin/ humanizing trends expressed in an overt display of grief
1. “The sculpture in the façade of Strasbourg Cathedral has a homogeneous classicizing style that
reflects the influence of Nicholas of Verdun and shares features with the work by the ‘Classical Shop’
at Reims. The works on the Strasbourg façade have an emotional expressiveness, however, that is
characteristic of much German medieval sculpture. A relief depicting the death and assumption of
Mary, a subject known as the Dormition (Sleep) of the Virgin, fills the tympanum of the south
transept portal. Mary lies on her deathbed, but Christ has received her soul, the doll-like figure in
his arms, and will carry it directly to heaven, where she will be enthroned next to him. The scene is
filled with dynamically expressive figures with large heads and short bodies clothed in fluid drapery
that envelops their rounded limbs. Deeply undercut, the large figures stand out dramatically in the
crowded scene, their grief vividly rendered” (Stokstad, Art History 587).
2. “This sculpture is among the works traditionally attributed to a woman named Sabina, long
believed to have been the daughter of the façade’s designer. She is now known to have been a
patron, not a sculptor. There is no evidence of women masons in medieval Europe, although a
number of prominent patrons were women” (587).
EE Ekkehard and Uta, statues from Naumburg Cathedral (Germany), c. 1249-1255, painted limestone
secular personages in Church statuary/ lifelike gestures and increased naturalism
1. “These lifesize painted ‘portrait’ statues were done after 1249 by a sculptor known to us only as the Master
of Naumberg. Ekkehard and Uta had been dead for two hundred years, but this master made such realistic
images that they are probably likenesses of another man and woman. Ekkehard is represented as a portly,
middle-aged man with a great mass of curly hair, wrinkles, and several chins. He wears a voluminous cape
over a long belted robe. Through its folds, we can see that most of his weight rests on his left leg. With his left
hand, Ekkehard grasps a sword, which rests in front of a shield on which his name is painted. He reaches
across his body with his right hand to life the hem of his cape. This gesture is quite casual, compared with
the formality of earlier Gothic sculpture, and gives Ekkehard great physical immediacy. Uta, took, seems
caught in a momentary pose. She turns her face to our left, away from the main axis of her body. Gathering
up the folds of her cape under her left arm, she uses her right arm to muffle her cheek in a gesture that
conveys regal but modest reserve. The sculptor’s suggestion of the shape of Uta’s forearm and hand beneath
the woolly cape is an astonishing invention, more evocative of a real person’s movements than almost any
other gesture we have seen so far” (Shaver-Crandell 92-93).
2. This exceptional sculptor worked for “the bishop of Wettin, Dietrich II… Dietrich, a member of the ruling
family of Naumberg, had lifesize statues of twelve ancestors who were patrons of the church placed on
pedestals around the chapel in perpetual attendance at Mass. Among them are representations of Ekkehard of
Meissen and his Polish-born wife, Uta… Traces of pigment indicate that the figures were originally painted”
(Stokstad, Art History 588-589).
FF Rottgen Pieta, from the Rhineland (Germany), c. 1300-1325, painted wood
increased tragic (lugubrious) tone brought to religious art/ “humanizing” sacred personages/ expressive
reaching out from a freestanding statue
1. “The ordeals of the fourteenth century- famines, wars, and plagues- helped inspire a mystical religiosity that
emphasized both ecstatic joy and extreme suffering… Devotional images, known as Andachtsbilder in
Germany, inspired the worshiper to contemplate Jesus’ first and last hours, especially during evening prayers,
vespers. Through such religious exercises, worshipers hoped to achieve understanding of the divine and
union with God. In the famous example shown here, blood gushes from the wounds of an emaciated Christ in
hideous rosettes. The Virgin’s face conveys the intensity of her ordeal, mingling horror, shock, pity, and grief”
(Stokstad, Art History 589-590).
2. “At a glance, our Pieta would seem to have little in common with The Virgin of Paris, which dates from the
same period. Yet they share a lean, ‘deflated’ quality of form and a strong emotional appeal to the viewer.
Both features characterize the art of Northern Europe from the late thirteenth century to the mid-fourteenth.
Only after 1350 do we again find an interest in weight and volume, couples with a renewed desire to explore
tangible reality as part of a change in religious sensibility” (Janson 333). “The humanizing of religious themes
and religious images accelerated steadily from the twelfth century. By the fourteenth century, art addressed
the private person (often in a private place) in a direct appeal to the emotions” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey
527).
64
65

Unit FIVE: Gothic Art

Transcription

Similar documents

metal leaf - Campbell`s Art Class

welcome praise message giving communion

Untitled - Cathedral of the Holy Cross

PDF - AlbertGood.Com

Least damage plan backed for Cathedral

Cathedral of the Holy Cross

Louis Palmer

Port Guide - Barcelona

File

enafrancia Fluvial Festival

I am not a goth! - Agnes Jasper, Cultural Anthropologist, Amsterdam

GOTHS OF THE 4th CENTURY AND GETAE OF THE - Q