Art in Medieval Europe Famous Art in Medieval Europe

High Relief medieval carving
showing Judas Iscariot hanging
himself, helped by devils (1120-35)
Past French sculptor Gislebertus,
Cathedral of Saint Lazare, Autun.

GREAT EUROPEAN PAINTERS
For biographies and paintings
of the greatest artists in Europe
from the Renaissance to 1800,
see: Erstwhile Masters: Artists.

BEST SCULPTORS
For a listing of the world'south most
talented 3-D artists, see:
Greatest Sculptors.

Introduction

Although the history of Medieval art covers well-nigh ten centuries between the Sack of Rome (c.450 CE) and the Early Italian Renaissance (1400), Western Medieval fine art is limited to Byzantine culture (Eastern Roman Empire), Hiberno-Saxon Insular art, artworks from the purple courts of Charlemagne and his Ottonian successors, and finally - from roughly 1000 onwards - the European-wide movements of Christian art, known as Romanesque and Gothic. It was only during the concluding 400 years that the private names of painters, sculptors and other decorative artists began to be recorded with any regularity. Thus nigh of our artists date from this period.

Types of Medieval Art

Apart from architectural works, the largest category of medieval artworks to have survived is sculpture, notably the statues and reliefs created for the corking Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals such as Chartres Cathedral (1194-1250), Notre-Matriarch Cathedral (1163-1345), Cologne Cathedral (1248-1880), Reims (1211-75), and others. Medieval painting, too, was pop - notably miniature portrait painting on vellum - as was ornamental metalwork, stained glass art (Chartres Cathedral) mosaic art (the astonishing Chora Church building in Constantinople), tapestry (Textile of Saint Gereon, 1020), and embroidery (Bayeux Tapestry, 1080).

Materials Used in Medieval Art

Although artist-monks received petty money or even formal acknowledgement of their efforts, the Church building (also as secular patrons) had no compunction in lavishing money on the works of fine art themselves. Types of valuable materials in regular use included: gilded grit, foil or foliage; silver and other precious metals (meet besides, the art of goldsmithing); expensive natural colour pigments such equally ultramarine, made from the rare Afghanistan ore lapis lazuli; rare types of ivory; calf-skin for vellum - one bible manuscript required the skins of up to 500 animals; and many other expensive materials.

History of Medieval Fine art

European art during the Middle Ages developed out of the artistic heritage of classical antiquity, the Roman Empire, also as Christian iconography. To this mixture, must be added the influence of the Middle E in the forms and ideals of Byzantine culture. Interestingly, at the start of the Medieval flow, nearly all works of art were deputed past religious authorities (for churches/monasteries) or secular leaders (for public edification), and most were actually created by monks. By the end of the period, the arts manufacture had broadened considerably from its original monastic base: not simply were most artists laymen, just a number of artworks were deputed by wealthy bourgeois patrons for personal enjoyment.

However, for 600 years (c.400-1000 CE) Europe was a cultural backwater. Just one institution survived: the Christian Church - centred in Rome, and Constantinople. Not surprisingly, therefore, the church building became the main sponsor of compages, and other types of art, during the medieval era.

Early Christian Artists (650-900 CE)

Ane of the finest examples of early Christian painting were the Irish and Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscripts dating from the mid-6th century CE. These beautifully illustrated books (eg. Book of Kells, Book of Durrow), combining Celtic art with Anglo-Saxon and Celtic metalwork art, were produced by scribes and artist-monks in the scriptoriums of abbeys and monasteries beyond Ireland and Northern England. They were succeeded by Carolingan, Ottonian and Byzantine illuminated texts, equally well every bit a host of Western farsi Islamic illuminations.

Medieval Artists on the Continent

The first signs of a Continental cultural renaissance appeared well-nigh 775 at the royal court of the Christian Rex Charlemagne. This menstruation - known as Carolingian Fine art - was influenced by Late Antiquity and Byzantine traditions. Charlemagne's artists and calligraphers - including some of the Continent'south best miniaturists - produced a number of outstanding illuminated texts, similar the Godscalc Evangelistary, the Lorsch Gospels and the Gospels of St Medard of Soissons. For more, meet: German language Medieval Art (c.800-1250), Medieval Christian Art and Medieval Sculpture.

Romanesque Designers (c.950-1140)

Past the mid-10th century, the Rome-based Christian Church had begun to found a network of Bishops and bottom clergy in well-nigh areas of Western Europe. (Meet also: Ottonian Art.) Equally its wealth increased, the church building turned to awe-inspiring architecture, using a new design linguistic communication known every bit Romanesque art, to promote its divine bulletin. Romanesque designers and architects erected hundreds of new churches and monasteries across the Continent. Famous examples included: the Cathedral of Pisa with its famous leaning bell belfry, the Florence Baptistery, Laon Cathedral, Augsburg and Worms Cathedrals, the abbeys of Cluny, Aux Dames (Caen) and Les Hommes (Mont Saint-Michel). In England, 26 out of 27 aboriginal Cathedrals were started during the Romanesque menstruum. For more, see Architecture History. Run across also: Romanesque Sculpture. For more about landscape painting during the 11th and 12th centuries, see: Romanesque Painting. For regional differences of style, see: Romanesque Painting in Italy; also France; and Spain. For medieval book painting and gospel illuminations, see: Romanesque Illuminated Manuscripts.

Gothic Architects (c.1140-1300)

Romanesque architecture was impressive just boring. Also, the interiors of virtually churches were dimly lit because of their small windows. All this was changed by the new Gothic architecture, whose soaring arches, vaulted ceilings, and massive stained glass windows inspired and informed the Church's illiterate congregations. Gothic art get-go appeared (c.1140) in the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis, virtually Paris, before being applied about famously to the cathedrals of Northern France, which were richly decorated with Gothic sculpture. Amid the well-nigh famous examples of the French Gothic style are Notre Dame Cathedral Paris (1163-1345), Chartres Cathedral (1194-1250), as well as the cathedrals of Strasbourg (1015-1439), Laon (1160-1235), Tours (1170-1547), Bourges (1195-1230), Reims (1211-1275) and Amiens (1220-1270). Outside France, famous medieval examples include Cologne Cathedral (1248-1880); Florence Cathedral, begun in the Gothic style in 1296 under Arnolfo di Cambio, and completed in the Renaissance style in 1436, under Brunelleschi; the 14th century St Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna; the massive Milan Cathedral begun in 1386; and Seville Cathedral (1401-1528), the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. In England, examples of Gothic design include Westminster Abbey, York Minster and the cathedrals of Salisbury, Canterbury and Lincoln. See also: English Gothic Sculpture and High german Gothic Sculpture. For more than nigh architectural blueprint in Deutschland, during this period, delight see: German Gothic Fine art (c.1200-1450).

Byzantine Artists (c.500-1400)

By the time Rome was sacked in 450 CE, thousands of Roman and Greek painters, craftsmen and other artists had moved to Constantinople (Byzantium) where they proceeded to create a new set of Eastern Christian images and icons - based on a combination of Greek, Persian and Egyptian culture - known every bit Byzantine Art.

Almost exclusively devoted to religious expression, its architecture and painting (little sculpture was produced by Byzantine artists) developed within a rigid tradition. This led to a sophistication of style rarely equalled in Western fine art. Major types of medieval Byzantine art included public mosaics, private icons made with encaustic wax paint on portable wooden panels, illuminated manuscripts such as the famous Rabula Gospel (586), fresco painting, as well as decorative art including ivory diptychs and exquisite metalwork. Unlike medieval religious fine art in Western Europe, Byzantine artworks inappreciably ever had a didactic or narrative office: they remained essentially impersonal, ceremonial and symbolic.

Byzantine architects built numerous outstanding churches and religious buildings, including: the Hagia Irene (c.360) and the Hagia Sophia (532-37), both in Constantinople (at present Istanbul); and the Church of St. Sophia in Sofia in Bulgaria (527-65) - all richly decorated with gilding, mosaic art, murals and relief sculpture. In time, medieval Byzantine architects became more than influenced past eastern traditions of design and decoration, and exerted a deep influence on early on Islamic fine art and compages, every bit exemplified by the Umayyad Neat Mosque of Damascus.

Byzantine art spread to Ravenna also every bit Kiev, Novgorod, Tver, Pskov and Moscow, where information technology became a major blazon of Russian medieval painting, and stimulated the emergence of numerous centres of creative excellence such as the Novgorod school of icon painting, and afterwards the Moscow school of painting.

Medieval Artists Heralded Renaissance

During the 14th century, the Gothic style - which up until 1300 had been mainly exemplified by architecture and sculpture, besides as widespread production of Gothic illuminated manuscripts - began to be practical to painting and the decorative arts in a variant known as International Gothic. Characterized by the overriding primacy of blueprint and colour, to which limerick and naturalistic detail were subordinated, the style - as exemplified by International Gothic illuminations - was a blend of Italian and Northern European art, and was practised especially in centres similar Lombardy, Franco-Flemish Burgundy and Bohemia. This idiom was adult and improved by iii important pre-Renaissance painters, Cimabue (Cenni di Peppi) (1240-1302), Duccio di Buoninsegna (c.1255-1319) of the conservative Sienese School of painting and Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337), whose fresco work and console painting laid the groundwork for 15th century Florentine painters and sculptors, especially their mastery of linear perspective and realism.

List of Medieval Artists

Among the identified masters of painting, sculpture, compages and other visual arts of the Belatedly Eye Ages, were the following:

Romanesque Artists
Medieval visual art came about as function of the massive edifice program staged by the Christian Church government. Thus almost Romanesque visual artists were sculptors and other craftsmen employed in building the early cathedrals of Europe.

Gislebertus (active early 12th century)
French sculptor, renowned for his works at the Cathedral of Saint Lazare.
Godefroid de Claire (c.1100-73)
Member of the school of Mosan fine art, may have done the Stavelot Triptych.
Nicholas of Verdun (c.1156–1232)
Mosan goldsmith responsible for the Shrine of the 3 Kings at Cologne.
Master of Cabestany (active late 12th century)
Bearding creative person who fabricated the Romanesque-style tympanum, at Cabestany.
Master Mateo (active 2d half 12th century)
Spanish sculptor renowned for his Portico de la Gloria.
Benedetto Antelami (active 1178-1196)
One of the finest Italian sculptors before the Gothic creative person Nicola Pisano

Gothic and Pre-Renaissance Artists
Like the earlier Romanesque era, almost Gothic visual fine art was related to cathedral building. So most Gothic visual artists were sculptors, stained glass artists, mosaicists and other craftsmen employed in the cathedral construction program. Just in Italia were fresco and console painters able to demonstrate their true ability.

Nicola Pisano (c.1206-1278)
Seen as a key founder of Italian sculpture.
Cimabue (Cenni di Peppi) (1240-1302)
Painted the famous fresco cycle in the Church of Southward. Francesco in Assisi.
Arnolfo di Cambio (c.1240–1310)
Noted for his Gothic-style tomb sculpture.
Giovanni Pisano (c.1250-1314)
Italian sculptor/builder; created the marble altar at Arezzo.
Duccio di Buoninsegna (c.1255-1319)
Leading painter from Siena; painted the Maesta altarpiece for Siena Cathedral.
Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337)
Considered to be the greatest pre-Renaissance fresco painter.
Simone Martini (1285-1344)
Italian Gothic painter from the Siena School.
Jean Pucelle (c.1290-1334)
French book painter and miniaturist, noted for Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux.
Giovanni di Balduccio (c.1290–1339)
Sculpted the Shrine of St Peter Martyr at S. Eustorgio, Milan.
Andrea Pisano (1295-1348)
Made the first set of bronze doors for the Florentine baptistery.
Filippo Calendario (earlier 1315-1355)
Sculptor and artist in charge of the 14th century Doge's Palace in Venice.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Active 1319-48)
Italian Gothic painter, member of Siena School.
Pietro Lorenzetti (active 1320-45)
Italian painter of Sienese School, influenced by Giotto.
Andre Beauneveu (c.1335-1400)
Official sculptor to King Charles V of France, and Knuckles Jean de Berry.
Claus Sluter (c.1340-1406)
Flemish sculptor, caput of the Dijon school.
Melchior Broederlam (c.1350-1411)
Flemish creative person working for Philip the Bold, noted for The Dijon Altarpiece.
Lorenzo Monaco (1370-1425)
Painter and monk, active in Florence; International Gothic style.
Masolino (1383-1440)
Goldsmith/painter, collaborated with Masaccio on Brancacci chapel frescoes.
Limbourg Brothers (fl.1390-1416)
Flemish book painters, manuscript illuminations, see Les Tres Riches Heures.
Pisanello (Antonio Pisano) (c.1394-1455)
Verona painter, medallist, portraitist, in International Gothic style.
Sassetta (Stefano di Giovanni) (c.1395-1450)
International Gothic painter, Siena School, noted for St Francis altarpiece.
Jean Fouquet (1420-81)
Leading French painter of 15th century; court painter to Charles Vii, Louis Xi.

Russian Medieval Icon Painters
Eastern Orthodox Christian art depended heavily on Byzantine forms, such every bit religious icons, typically executed in tempera on forest panels. Other media included fresco murals and mosaics.

Theophanes the Greek (c.1340-1410)
Byzantine artist, founder of Novgorod and Muscovite schools of icon painting.
Andrei Rublev (c.1360-1430)
Russia's well-nigh famous iconographer, famous for Holy Trinity icon painting.
Dionysius (Dionisius the Wise, Dionisii or Dionisy) (c.1440-1502)
Icon painter noted for his icons for the Iosifo-Volokolamsky monastery.

TO FIND A BIOGRAPHY OF A PARTICULAR
ARTIST, Scan OUR A-Z of ARTISTS

mcanallyhimeaugh.blogspot.com

Source: http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/medieval-artists.htm

Share this post