Chapter 12: Romanesque Europe

Preview: The Romanesque era, ca. 1050 to 1200, takes its name from an artistic style. Historians described much of the architecture produced in this period as “Romanesque,” or Roman-like, for its use of rounded arches and vaults similar to those found in Roman structures. This chapter surveys the art and artwork of the period and considers the traditions that developed in four different regions of Europe in this period. France and Spain saw the construction of numerous pilgrimage churches with monumental stone relief sculpture. In the Holy Roman Empire, which spanned the territory of present-day Germany and northern Italy, architects built innovative churches and employed groin vaults in naves, while artists made exquisite metalwork such as reliquaries. Romanesque architecture in Italy is distinct in style and structure, characterized by colored marble paneling, timber roofs, and freestanding campaniles and baptisteries. In Normandy and England, architects employed rib groin vaults over a three-story nave; and artists embroidered the Bayeaux Tapestry, an example of historical narrative art that chronicles the conquest of England in 1066 by Duke William of Normandy.

Key Figures: Gislebertus, Bernardus Gelduinus, Bernard of Clairvaux, Hildegard of Bingen, Rufillus, Rainer of Huy, Wiligelmo, Benedetto Antelami, Master Hugo, Eadwine the Scribe

Key Cultural & Religious Terms: manor, liege lord, vassals, feudalism, relics, pilgrimage, pilgrimage road, martyr, furta sacra, Song of Roland, Cistercian Order, Cluniac Order, vita contemplative, Crusades, double monastery, canonize

Key Art Terms: reliquary, Scivias, repoussé, embroidery, tapestry, stem stitching, laid-and- couched work

Key Architectural Terms: tribune, radiating chapels, barrel vault, groin vault, engaged column, compound pier, springing, transverse arches, crypt, cloister, historiated, bestiary, voussoir, archivolt, tympanum, lintel, trumeau, jamb, hall church, cathedral, campanile, ribs, rib vaulting, incrustation, buttress, tower, sexpartite vault, quadrant arch

Exercises for Study

Please answer in a separate sheet of paper

1. Describe the key architectural features introduced in the basilican church design in Romanesque Europe.

2. Describe the features that distinguish Italian church architecture from that of France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire in the Romanesque era.

3. The term “Romanesque” means Romanlike. What are the similarities and differences between Romanesque and Roman architecture?

Chapter 11: Early Medieval Europe

Preview: This chapter surveys the art of Europe in the period between 410, the Fall of Rome, and 1024, the conclusion of the Ottonion period. The art of the medieval period is the result of a mix of three primary cultural influences: the classical traditions of Rome’s northern provinces, the practices of non-Roman people in central and northern Europe, and Christianity. From the 5th to the middle of the 8th century—the period of the “warrior lords”—surviving artworks are primarily portable objects such as weapons and items of personal adornment that reflect the decorative traditions of non-Roman groups such as the Huns, Merovingians, Franks, Goths, and Vikings. Between the 7th and 11th centuries most of Europe became Christianized, but the decorative abstract patterns and intertwining animal forms established in pre-Christian times continue to appear in art throughout the Early Middle Ages. This is particularly the case with Hiberno-Saxon artists in Ireland and Britain, who produced elaborately decorated Christian illuminated manuscripts in the 7th and 8th centuries. In the Carolingian period (768-877) in central Europe, artists developed unique styles of manuscript illumination and established the twin-tower westwork of church architecture. 10th century Ottonion artists revived the art of monumental sculpture and produced small-scale works exhibiting clear Byzantine influence, while architects introduced the alternate-support system and galleries to the naves of basilicas.

Key Sites: Sutton Hoo, Oseberg, Aachen, Saint Gall, Hildesheim

Key Figures: Charlemagne, Ottonion emperors, Bishop Bernward

Key Cultural & Religious Terms: Hiberno-Saxon, Vulgate, Evangelist

Key Art Terms: tumulus, figula, cloisonné, carpet pages, vellum, canon tables, Caroline miniscule, repoussé, reliquary

Types of Medieval Books: Pentateuch, Psalter, lectionary, breviary, sacramentary, benedictional, Book of Hours, passional, gospels

Key Architectural Terms: staves, monastery, scriptoria, cloister, module, crossing square, westwork, castellum, turris, alternate-support system

Exercises for Study:

Please use a separate sheet of paper for your answers.

1. Give examples from three different locations of Early Medieval artworks that employ abstract interlace patterns. Describe similarities and differences you notice in the patterns.

2. Describe the key architectural features introduced in the basilican church design in the Early Medieval period.

3. Compare and contrast the following pair of artwork, using the points of comparison as a guide.

Cross-inscribed carpet page, folio 26 verso of the Lindisfarne Gospels (Fig. 11-7 in your text book); Maqsud of Kashan, carpet from the funerary mosque of Shaykh Safi al-Din, Ardabil, Iran (Fig. 10- 31 in your text book)

• Periods:

• Location of origin:

• Medium/materials:

• Stylistic features: Chapter 13: Gothic Europe

Preview: “Gothic” was originally a disparaging term applied to medieval art and architecture by Italians in the 16th century, who considered it crude. In actuality, the art produced in the high middle ages, between 1140 and 1500, is highly original, expressive and technically innovative. The finest achievement of the era is the Gothic cathedral, epitomized by the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Chartres, France. Here we find the characteristic features that set Gothic cathedrals apart from earlier buildings: pointed arches, masonry rib vaults, flying buttresses, and brilliant colored-glass windows. The Gothic cathedrals in England are less vertical than their French counterparts, but English builders pursued unique decorative features such as fan vaults and pendants. In the Holy Roman Empire, German sculptors continued to employ the heightened emotionalism that had been established in Ottonian art. Throughout Europe, artists in the Gothic era also produced remarkable examples of metalwork, relief sculptures, and manuscript illumination that illustrate Christian themes and increasingly include representations of secular figures.

Key Figures: Abbot Suger, Peter Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, King Louis IX, Blanche of Castile, Nicholas of Verdun

Key Cultural & Religious Terms: Scholasticism, disputatio, indulgences, lux nova, Annunciation, Visitation, opere francigeno, opus modernum

Key Art Terms: stained glass, glazier, flashing, cames, leading, plate tracery, bar tracery, fleur-de- lis, Rayonnant, Flamboyant, mullions, moralized Bible, breviary, Perpendicular style, ambo, altarpiece, triptych, pieta

Key Architectural Terms: altar frontal, rib vault, armature, webs, pointed arch, jamb figures, trumeau, triforium, oculus, flying buttress, pinnacle, vaulting web, diagonal rib, transverse rib, springing, clerestory, lancet, nave arcade, compound pier (cluster pier), shafts (responds), ramparts, battlements, crenellations, merlons, crenels, fan vaults, pendants, Gothic Revival, Hallenkirche (hall church)

Exercises for Study:

Answer in a separate sheet of paper

1. Describe the key architectural features introduced in the French cathedral design in the Gothic era.

2. Describe features that make English Gothic cathedrals distinct from their French or German counterparts.

3. Compare and contrast the following pair of artwork, using the points of comparison as a guide.

A. Old Testament kings and queen, jamb statues, Chartres Cathedral (Fig. 13-6 from your text book); Virgin and Child (Virgin of Paris), Notre-Dame, Paris (Fig. 13-26 from your text book)

• Dates:

• Composition/posture of figures:

• Relation to architecture: Chapter 14: Late Medieval Italy

Preview: This chapter surveys art and architecture in Italy in the 13th and 14th centuries, a period that witnessed great changes in modes of representation in sculpture and painting. Artists in the 13th century such as Cimabue work in the Italo-Byzantine style, characterized by a flattening of representational space and less naturalistic, more schematic renderings of figures. In the 14th century, Giotto is recognized for painting scenes and figures based on observations of the natural world. His naturalism is seen as a return to the classical manner, which had been nearly abandoned in the Middle Ages. Giotto is recognized as the first Renaissance artist, his work signaling the rebirth of Greco-Roman naturalism, the emphasis on empirical knowledge, and the development of humanism that are the hallmarks of the Italian art and culture in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Key Figures: Giotto de Bondone, Leon Battista Alberti, St. Francis

Key Cultural & Religious Terms: Great Schism, monastic orders, mendicants, confraternities, city-states, humanism, stigmata, Annunciation, Nativity, Adoration of the Shepherds, Lamentation, Renaissance, humanism, guild, commission, florin, Black Death

Key Art Terms: pulpit, trefoil arches, ogival, sarcophagus, Italo-Byzantine style, maniera greca, tempera, altarpiece, gold leaf, mural, fresco painting: buon fresco & fresco secco, arriccio, sinopia, cartoon, grisaille, perspective, foreshortening, mystery plays, sacre rappresentazioni, pinnacle, predella, punchwork, International style, terracotta, tracery, triptych

Key Architectural Terms: cathedral, façade, rose window, pinnacle, bay, basilica, nave, elevation, arcade, clerestory, chancel arch, apse, campanile, battlement, parapet, machicolated gallery, corbel, Duomo, revetment, pointed arches, ogee arches

Exercises for Study:

Please answer in a separate sheet of paper

1. Describe features of the Italo-Byzantine style, and give one example of a work in that style.

2. Describe features of the International style, and give one example of a work in that style.

3. Describe characteristic features of Giotto’s style evident in the Lamentation in the Arena Chapel (Fig. 14-9).