Gothic Art (eBook)

Victoria Charles, Klaus Carl (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2016
99 Seiten
Parkstone International (Verlag)
978-1-78525-940-1 (ISBN)

Infos

Gothic art finds its roots in the powerful architecture of the cathedrals of northern France. It is a medieval art movement that evolved throughout Europe over more than 200 years. Leaving curved Roman forms behind, the architects started using flying buttresses and pointed arches to open up cathedrals to daylight. A period of great economic and social change, the Gothic era also saw the development of a new iconography celebrating the Holy Mary - in drastic contrast to the fearful themes of dark Roman times. Full of rich changes in all of the various art forms (architecture, sculpture, painting, etc.), Gothic art paved the way for the Italian Renaissance and International Gothic movement.

Textauszug

Giotto di Bondone, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels and Saints,
known as Ognissanti Madonna, c. 1310. Tempera on wood panel,
325 x 204 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

 

 

Gothic Painting

 

 

The Gothic started in France, but influenced all of Europe, particularly Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. The complex filigree architectural style was echoed in the reliquaries of the times, which were ornately decorated by sculptors.

Whenever the Gothic is mentioned, the first thought naturally goes to the architecture of the period. Just as music, literature and philosophy were almost exclusively determined by spiritualisation and the longing for God, painting, too, features almost exclusively religious motifs. In the Romanesque period large wall spaces were filled with monumental frescos. The relatively narrow walls of Gothic architecture no longer afforded room for such extensive wall paintings. This is why Gothic paintings are often small.

The most important event in painting during this period was the emergence of panel painting, which soon developed into an independent art form that was free of architecture and featured its own rules. Painting was of secondary importance in the creation of altar shrines, where it was initially employed. Wooden sculpture assumed the main role of depiction in these altars. The countless figures looked more like paintings than plastic artworks. Painting in turn originally took a secondary role, but began to compete with sculpture by depicting figures in as plastic a way as possible, but without making use of the power inherent in colour.

Since money only came from princely courts or the clergy, most reredos were painted on wooden panels – hence the name “panel painting”. This new style of painting asserted itself from the fourteenth century. The altarpieces were hinged in such a way that their wings could be opened and closed. Most often these “winged altarpieces” came in the form of diptychs with two panels, or triptychs with three. The polyptych, with several panels, was much rarer. The dimensions of these altarpieces varied from large and solid to small wooden, or ivory, house altars and travel altars.

This construction was derived from reliquaries. Relics played a significant role in the mystical views of the time. Originally their receptacles had been simple boxes; the use of precious metals only came later. Eventually these simple boxes transformed into mini-cathedrals studded with plastic ornamentation and precious stones. In the Gothic, these shrines were crafted from wood and covered with paintings. The most beautiful example is The Shrine of St. Ursula (1489) by Hans Memling. A winged altarpiece was only ever opened on feast days to show the faithful their precious contents. During weekdays it remained closed. The wings carry biblical imagery both outside and inside. The most famous retable is the Ghent Altarpiece (1432) by Jan and Hubert Van Eyck.

Earlier descriptions of these paintings as “primitive” usually referred to the form of expression and the powers of imagination, but not to the quality of the images themselves, as in the case of the Bartholomäusaltar (Altar of St. Bartholomew). Nevertheless, many other works are still somewhat clumsy and use loud colours mostly on a golden background, which gives them more art-historic than artistic value. The paintings often depict scenes from the Bible, such as Judgement Day, purgatory, or the realistically depicted martyrdom of saints. It seems as if such events had been common back then. In these times of feuds and quarrels, of robber barons and the inquisition with its persecution of heretics, the church tried to use terrifying visual depictions to instruct and deter; these negative depictions were juxtaposed with Heavenly glory.

The opposite of these terrifying depictions were graceful images of the Madonna by Hans Memling, Martin Schongauer or Rogier Van der Weyden. In later pictures of the Madonna, such as those from the Renaissance, less emphasis was placed on grace than on motherliness. This is why there is no difference in the quality of depiction, but a change in style. The paintings by Jan Van Eyck, Stephan Lochner, or Rogier Van der Weyden are of such high artistic significance, it is astounding that such perfection was possible at the beginning of oil painting.

Secular motifs are hard to find in the paintings of those years; common living quarters hardly featured any paintings at all. Images of flowers, still lifes or landscapes were virtually unknown and portraits were only known as inclusions in religious paintings of donators, who gave them to the church. Therefore, it was mostly councillors and mayors, sometimes even with their wives, who were integrated into a group, or devoutly kneeling in a corner of the painting.

Hans Memling, The Shrine of St. Ursula, 1489.
Oil on panel with gilding, 87 x 33 x 91 cm. Hospitaalmuseum, Bruges.

Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, Triptych of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb,
known as The Ghent Altarpiece, 1432. Oil on wood panel,
350 x 461 cm. St. Bavo Cathedral, Ghent.

Conrad von Soest, Dortmund Altarpiece: Death of the Virgin
(central panel), c. 1420. Oil on wood, 141 x 110 cm. Marienkirche, Dortmund.

Master Bertram, Grabow Altarpiece, 1383.
Oil on wood, 277 x 726 cm. Kunsthalle, Hamburg.

 

 

Gothic Painting in Germany

 

Master Bertram, sometimes also referred to as Bertram of Minden after his birth place, was one of the earliest Gothic painters in the fourteenth century. He created the Grabow Altarpiece (1383), named after the place where it stands, St. Petri church in Hamburg. Little is known about his biography. He probably learned his art in Prague, lived in Hamburg after 1367, and also produced a Passionsaltar (Passion Altar) between 1390 and 1394.

Another of the early Gothic painters was a master from Hohenfurth in the fourteenth century. Nothing at all is known about his life. His famous picture, Geburt Christi (Birth of Christ, before 1350), is in the Národní Gallery in Prague. It is one in a series of nine panel paintings about the life of Christ, which were originally intended for the Cistercian monastery Vyssi Brod in the Czech Lands.

Conrad von Soest, or, in the spelling of his day, Conrad van Sost, was probably born in Dortmund. Around 1420 he created the Marienaltar (St. Mary’s Altar) in Dortmund, which fell into the hands of unwitting eighteenth-century craftsmen. In an effort to fit it into a 16 m tall reredo, they simply cut it to size with saws and hammers. During World War II it was destroyed in a bomb attack. Another of Conrad von Soest’s major works was the 1403 altar in the Stadtkirche (City Church) in Bad Wildungen.

The Master of the Wittingau Altar received his name from the altar he created around 1380-90 for the Augustine monastery church, St. Egidius, in today’s Treboò, formerly Wittingau. The three panels depicting Christ’s passion – Christ on the Mount of Olives, resurrection and burial – have survived.

Of Master Theodoricus, or Theoderic of Prague, only an approximate date of death is known: March, 1381. He was court painter under Emperor Charles IV who commissioned him with a cycle of panel paintings. Theodoricus also painted the portraits Der schreibende Heilige Gregor (St. Gregory Writing, c. 1370) and Der ein Buch öffnende Heilige Hieronymus (St. Jerome Opening a Book, also c. 1370).

Another major figure among the important painters of the Late Gothic is undoubtedly Martin Schongauer, who is also called Martin Schön, Bel Martino, or Beau Martin. He received his schooling in the workshop of his father, Caspar Schongauer, a goldsmith from Augsburg. His exact date of birth is unknown; the first documented evidence for his biography is his student registration at Leipzig University, which he attended from 1466 to 1467. It is plausible to assume that for some time after his studies he travelled, probably as far as Beaune in Burgundy to look at the Polyptych of the Last Judgement by Rogier Van der Weyden. In any case, the latter’s motif of the Judge appears on several of Schongauer’s sketches. After 1471 he lived in Colmar again, where he opened a workshop. His paintings have a soft, almost lyrical tone, as can be seen in his Maria im Rosenhag (Mary in the Rose Bower, 1473), Anbetung der Hirten (Adoration of the Shepherds) and Porträt einer jungen Frau (Portrait of a Young Woman), both of which were painted between 1475 and 1480.

Equally important are his copper etchings such as his twelve leaves series on the Passion Christi (Passion of Christ, 1470-1480) or the copper...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 9.3.2016
• Verlagsort: New York
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Kunstgeschichte / Kunststile
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Malerei / Plastik
• Themenwelt: Technik ► Architektur
• Schlagworte: Architecture • Architektur • Arquitectura • ART • arte • art roman • Bildhauerei • Church • Église • Escultura • Gothic • gothique • Gótico • Gotik • iglesia • Kirche • Kunst • Medieval • mittelalterlich • religieux • Religiös • religioso • Religious • Romanesque • Románico • Romanisch • sculpture
• ISBN-10: 1-78525-940-7 / 1785259407
• ISBN-13: 978-1-78525-940-1 / 9781785259401