Survey of Western Art I - Final Exam Review
GOTHIC ART
*Virgin Mary is CENTRAL to Gothic Iconography
Terms to Note:
Art & Architecture to note:
Notre Dame Cathedral (Our Lady - the Virgin Mary)
Chartres Cathedral & its sculpture - Royal Portal, Porch of Confessors, Saints in door Jambs (St. Theodore)
Amiens Cathedral
Reims Cathedral (epitome of High Gothic Style!) - portal figures
Ø Begins and ends in France (Abbot Suger - St. Denis)
o 1st in France around 1140 (Romanesque still flourished elsewhere)
o By 13th c it spread throughout Europe
o Remained in France well into 15th c (when classicism reigned in Italy)
Ø Time of turmoil and change
o 100 years war between England and France (began 1337)
o 14th c – the Black Death (plague) killed ¼ of Western Europe
o 1378-1417 – Great Schism (period when two conflicting Popes ruled – one in Rome and other in Avignon)
o Intellectual and religious life shifted from monasteries to cities
§ Urban areas prospered
o Universities formed
o Time of chivalry (stories and song of knights and maidens at royal “courts of love”)
Ø Independent nations beginning to take shape – France foremost
Ø GREAT CATHEDRALS built by bishops
o To reach the sky – new heights!
§ Reach God and the heavens
o Obsession with constructing taller and taller cathedrals
o New aesthetic in architecture
§ Lighter structure – lacelike, skeletal structures
§ Lack weightiness of earlier architecture
§ Pointed
· Tops of arches
· Tops of vaulted spaces
§ More windows – allow in light (heavens)
o Stained glass windows
§ Light à especially in the north where light was scarcer - lux nova: a rich & transfused, filtered light to create an atmospheric mystical/spiritual effect in the church interior (ie. not the glittering reflective light of Byzantine mosaics).
§ Rose Window
o Monumental statuary - movement towards naturalism
*Virgin Central to Gothic Iconography!