Medieval Art
The medieval art of the Western world covers more than a millennium and much of Europe, with excursions at certain periods into Western Asia and Northern Africa. Art historians usually divide it into the later phases of Early Christian art, Migration Period art, Byzantine art, Insular art, Pre-Romanesque, Romanesque and Gothic - a sequence that is itself hard to draw cleanly. Most of it was made for the Church: illuminated manuscripts, mosaics, frescoes, carved portals, enamels, ivories and stained glass, much of it by anonymous workshop craftsmen. Style serves theology - gold grounds, hieratic figures and symbolic space rather than observed illusion. Across the centuries observation steadily returns: Gothic figures stand free of their columns, drapery gains weight, and by the fifteenth century Netherlandish panel painting achieves deep, jeweled naturalism.
Defining characteristics
- Gold grounds and luminous, flat color that deny naturalistic depth
- Hieratic scale: figures sized by spiritual importance rather than optical truth
- Elongated, stylized bodies with emphatic, rhythmic drapery lines
- Dense ornament - interlace, scrollwork and jewel-like pattern filling the field
- Narrative told in registers, cycles and typological programs
- Late Gothic returns of observation: standing figures, modeled volume, portraiture
Key figures
- Cimabue (c. 1240-1302) — Florentine painter of monumental crucifixes and gold-ground Madonnas at the threshold of naturalism
- Giotto (c. 1267-1337) — His Scrovegni Chapel frescoes bring weight, space and human drama into late medieval painting
Example works
- Book of Kells — Unknown (Insular monastic workshop) (c. 800)
- Bayeux Tapestry — Unknown (Norman workshop) (c. 1070)
- Scrovegni Chapel frescoes — Giotto (c. 1305)
Sources
- Medieval Art - WikiArt institution
- Medieval art - Wikipedia encyclopedia