Gothic Europe

Giorgio Vasari

• Considered the “father of art history”
• In 1550, first used the word Gothic as a term of ridicule to describe late medieval art and architecture
• Gothic comes from the word Goths and meant “monstrous and barbarous.”

Vasari would go on to publish a book

• Called the “Introduction to the Three Arts of Design”
• Said that the Middle Ages were a period of decline.
• Believed that the Goths were responsible for the downfall of Rome and the destruction of the classical style in art and architecture.

Regarded “Gothic” art with contempt and considered it ugly and crude. 

• During the 13th and 14th centuries the Gothic buildings were known as opus modernum (“modern work”).
• Clergy and the public thought that the cathedrals were made with an exciting new style.

Lots of wealth during this time, but also lots of fighting.

In 1337 the Hundred Years’ War began

• Ended the peace between France and England.

In the 14th century

• the Black Death, a plague, swept over western Europe
• killed at least a quarter of its people.
• Estimated to have killed over 100 million people.
• The estimated entire population of the US today is 312 million. Imagine if a third of the United States was sick and dying.  That was the impact of the Black Death.

From 1378 to 1417

• Opposing popes were living in Rome (Italy) and in Avignon (France)
• Created a political-religious crisis known as the Great Schism.

The Gothic age was a time of change in European society.

• Intellectual and religious life shifted from monasteries in the country to secular cities.
• Wealthy merchants built new homes.
• Guilds (professional associations) of scholars founded the first modern universities.
• The Church was at the height of its power
• Christian Knights still fought Crusades against Muslims

Independent secular nations of modern Europe were beginning to take shape.

• France was the first of these

French Gothic

• Gothic style first appeared in northern France around 1140
• Was called opus franci-genum (“French work”).

Gothic architecture takes the shape of chapels, academic buildings, and dormitories of college campuses throughout North America. 

The style was international, but also held regional differences

• East and south of Europe both had their own distinct styles
• Byzantine and Islamic styles were most popular

Gothic architecture is identified by several key features:

• Rib vaults rest on pointed arches.
• Lightweight vaults
• Slender columns
• Thin masonry walls.
• Eliminated the walls between the chapels
• Opened up the outer walls
• Filled windows with stained glass, allowing light to pour in through what they called the “most sacred windows”
• The colored light from the stained glass windows was called lux nova or “new light.” 

Abbot Suger

Birthplace of Gothic architecture was at Saint-Denis, a few miles north of Paris.

• Saint Dionysius (Denis in French)
• Apostle who brought Christianity to Gaul (Southern France)
• Died a martyr’s death in the third century.

In the ninth century

• Monks built a basilica at Saint-Denis
• Housed the saint’s tomb and almost all of the French kings going back almost 300 years.

Suger

• 1122, a monk named Suger became abbot of Saint-Denis
• The old church was falling apart and was too small to accommodate the large number of pilgrims.
• Suger believed the basilica wasn’t grand enough to be the official church of the French kings.

Suger began to rebuild the church in 1135

• Erected a new west facade with sculptured portals.
• In 1140 work began on the east end.
• Suger died before he could remodel the nave.

Saint-Denis

French Revolution during the late 18th century destroyed much of the sculpture Suger commissioned

• Most of the building itself is ok.
• It consists of a double-tower westwork
• Massive walls in the Romanesque style.

Large central rose window (a circular stained-glass window).

• Statues of Old Testament kings, queens, and prophets attached to columns

Abbot Suger became the right-hand man of Louis VI and Louis VII.

Within 15 years of becoming abbot of Saint-Denis, Suger began rebuilding the basilica. 

Suger wanted to increase the prestige by rebuilding France’s royal church.

• Called for masons and artists from all over to help design and construct his new church.

Abbot Suger’s remodeling of Saint-Denis marked the beginning of Gothic architecture.

• Rib vaults with pointed arches
• slender columns.
• The radiating chapels have stained-glass windows.

Wrote about his church’s gold and gem-covered art.

“Into this panel, which stands in front of [Saint Denis’s] most sacred body, we have put . . . about forty-two marks of gold [and] a multifarious wealth of precious gems, hyacinths, rubies, sapphires, emeralds and topazes, and also an array of different large pearls.”

The new church made him feel as if he were “dwelling . . . in some strange region of the universe which neither exists entirely in the slime of the earth nor entirely in the purity of Heaven.” 

Saint-Denis was considered a rest stop on the road to Paradise.  Art was being used to create a spiritual connection with the parishioners.

The Gothic Rib Vault

• Crossed arches under the groins.
• Gothic vaults have thinner webs (the stones between the ribs) than Romanesque vaults.

The major difference between the two styles of rib vaults is the pointed arch. 

• The first use of pointed arches was in Persian architecture
• Islamic builders later adopted them.
• French Romanesque architects borrowed the form from the Muslims in Spain
• Shows up in the new Gothic architecture

Pointed arches channel the weight of the vaults more efficiently than rounded ones.

• Less buttressing to hold them in place
• Larger windows beneath the arches.
• Vaults appear taller than they actually are

In the illustration above, the crown (F) of both the Romanesque and Gothic vaults is the same height from the ground

• The Gothic vault seems taller. 
• Made the churches appear much taller.

Chartres Cathedral

• New cathedral dedicated to Notre Dame (Our Lady, the Virgin Mary).
• Work on the west facade began around 1145.
• Destroyed by fire in 1194 before it had been finished
• The lower parts of the west towers and the portals between them are all that remain of the original.

Reconstruction of the church began immediately 

• Done in the High Gothic style (discussed later). 

The west entrance, the Royal Portal 

• most complete surviving group of Early Gothic sculpture. 
• Thierry of Chartres may have had the idea to cover the exterior with sculpture
• The molding of the right portal depict the seven female Liberal Arts and their male champions.

The figures represent the core of medieval learning and symbolize human knowledge, which Thierry and other “Schoolmen” believed led to true faith.

Here is a closeup of “Grammar” – with a switch to keep her students on task.

Images from Christ’s life on the capitals

• Appears similar to a frieze, linking one entrance to the next.

In the tympanum of the right portal

• Christ is in the lap of the Virgin Mary (Notre Dame).
• Scenes of his birth and early life are on the lintel below.
• Mary was given a central role, lasted throughout the Gothic period
• She stood between the Last Judge and Hell

Stood between Christians and Christ

• Sang hymns to her
• Put her image everywhere
• Dedicated cathedrals to her.
• Carried the Virgin’s image into battle on banners
• Her name became part of the king’s battle cry.

Christian knight dedicated his life to her.

Romanesque themes stressed the Last Judgment

• Gothic art stressed Mary who was the nice Queen of Heaven

Christ’s Ascension into Heaven appears in the tympanum of the left portal. 

• All around, in the archivolts, are the signs of the zodiac and scenes representing the labors of the months of the year.
• Symbols of the heavenly and earthly worlds.

The Second Coming is the subject of the central tympanum. 

• Signs of the four evangelists
• 24 elders of the Apocalypse
• 12 apostles appear around Christ or on the lintel.

The theme became a symbol of salvation rather than damnation.

Statues of Old Testament kings and queens decorate the jambs on each doorway of the Royal Portal. 

• Royal ancestors of Christ
• “support” the New Testament figures above the doorways.
• They wear 12th-century clothes
• Medieval observers saw them as images of the kings and queens of France.
• One of the reasons the figures of Saint-Denis were vandalized during the French Revolution.

Folds of their clothing look like they are columns.

• New naturalism.
• Treated the figures as three-dimensional volumes, not reliefs
• Stand out from the plane of the wall.

Were originally painted in vivid colors.  It is difficult to imagine them painted, but most stonework was painted bright colors.  Wanted to show personality and individuality.

Philip II Augustus

• became the king
• brought the feudal barons under his control
• Expanded the royal domains to include Normandy in the north
• Layed the foundations for modern France.
• Was called “The Maker of Paris”
• Gave the city its walls
• Paved its streets
• Built the palace of the Louvre for the the Royal family.
• Rome remained the religious center. Paris became the intellectual one

The University of Paris attracted the best minds from all over Europe. 

Virtually every thinker in the Gothic world at some point studied or taught at Paris.

• Even in the Romanesque period, Paris was a center of learning.

Cathedral School professors, known as Schoolmen, developed the philosophy called Scholasticism. 

• One of the greatest of the early Schoolmen was Peter Abelard
• Pursued logical reasoning. 
• Had been introduced to the writings of the Greek philosopher Aristotle.
• Used Aristotle’s idea of rational inquiry to interpret religion.

Until the 12th century

• Clergy and laymen thought truth could only be found through scripture
• The Schoolmen thought that reason alone could lead to truth
• Their goal was to prove the central tenents of Christian faith by argument (disputatio). 
• Illustrated faith through apologetics.  (If you go to any Christian bookstore you will find a section on apologetics which is the act of defending/proving the Christian faith)

Scholastic argument 

• States a possibility
• Cites a view in objection
• Reconciles the positions
• Offers a reply to each of the rejected original arguments.

Greatest critic

• Bernard of Clairvaux believed Scholasticism was equivalent to questioning the teaching of Christianity. 
• Bernard had the Catholic Church officially condemn Abelard’s doctrines in 1140
• Schoolmen’s philosophy would later become the dominant Western philosophy of the late Middle Ages.

The 13th century

• Schoolmen of Paris
• Organized as a professional guild of master scholars, separate from Church schools.
• Served as the model for many European universities.

Thomas Aquinas

• Italian monk
• became a Saint in 1323.
• Aquinas settled in Paris in 1244.
• Greatest supporter of Abelard’s Scholasticism
• Became an influential teacher at the University of Paris.
• His most famous work, Summa Theologica (left unfinished at his death), is a model of the Scholastic approach to knowledge.

Aquinas divided his treatise into books, the books into questions, the questions into articles, each article into objections with contradictions and responses, and, then, answers to the objections. 

• Gave five ways to prove the existence of God by rational argument. 
• Foundation of contemporary Catholic teaching.

Changes in art, architecture and thinking occurred at the same time

• Nothing exists that actually links the groups (art, architecture and Scholasticism)
• Both originated in Paris and its surroundings.

LAON CATHEDRAL 

• Both Chartres Cathedral and Saint-Denis took a long time to make
• Only small portions of the structures date to the Early Gothic period.

The Laon Cathedral was completed shortly after 1200

• Laon builders retained many Romanesque features in their design
• Combined them with rib vaults with pointed arches.
• Huge central rose window
• Deep porches in front of the doorways
• Open structure of the towers.

Romanesque features

• Nave bays with their large sexpartite (six part – six sections) rib vaults
• Flanked by two small groin-vaulted squares in each aisle.
• Compound and simple piers in the nave arcade.

Alternating bundles of three and five shafts frame the aisle bays.

Created a new feature called a triforium

• the band of arcades (windows) below the clerestory.
• Desire to break up all flat wall surfaces.
• Produced a new four-story interior
• nave arcade, vaulted gallery, triforium, and clerestory with single lancets (tall, narrow windows ending in pointed arches).

A comparison of the facades of Laon Cathedral and Saint-Étienne at Caen reveals a much deeper penetration of the wall mass in the later building.

Wanted to reduce mass and replace it with intricately framed voids or empty spaces.

NOTRE-DAME, PARIS 

1130

• Louis VI moved his official residence to Paris
• Lots of commercial activity and a tremendous building boom

Paris soon became the leading city of France

• Needed a new cathedral.

Notre-Dame sits on an island in the Seine River.

• Replaced an older basilica.
• The choir and transept were completed by 1182
• The nave by 1225
• The facade around 1250–1260.
• Sexpartite vaults.
• Original building had four stories.
• Stained-glass oculi (singular oculus, a small round window) are below the clerestory.
• Lots of windows.

Introduced flying buttresses

• Kept the nave from pushing outwards
• Were used in other smaller churches, but not on this scale.
• Flying buttresses and vaults allowed for very tall ceilings.
• Flying buttresses are part of the distinctive “look” of Gothic cathedrals
• The flying buttresses are the angled parts in the image above that look like they are propping up the building.

The Gothic Cathedral

• Rib vaults with pointed arches
• Flying buttresses
• Huge colored-glass windows.
• Pinnacle – Sharply pointed ornament capping the piers or flying buttresses; also used on cathedral facades.
• Flying buttresses – Masonry struts that transfer the thrust of the nave vaults across the roofs of the side aisles and ambulatory to a tall pier rising above the church’s exterior wall. 
• Vaulting web – The masonry blocks that fill the area between the ribs of a groin vault.
• Diagonal rib – In plan, one of the ribs that form the X of a groin vault. The diagonal ribs are the lines AC and DB.
• Transverse rib – A rib that crosses the nave or aisle at a 90-degree angle (lines AB and DC).
• Springing – The lowest stone of an arch; in Gothic vaulting, the lowest stone of a diagonal or transverse rib.
• Clerestory – The windows below the vaults that form the nave elevation’s uppermost level.
• Oculus – A small round window.
• Lancet – A tall, narrow window crowned by a pointed arch.
• Triforium – The story in the nave elevation consisting of arcades, usually blind arcades, but occasionally filled with stained glass.
• Nave arcade – The series of arches supported by piers separating the nave from the side aisles. Compound pier with shafts (responds).  Also called the cluster pier, a pier with a group, or cluster, of attached shafts, or responds, extending to the springing of the vaults.

By using flying buttresses and rib vaults on pointed arches, Gothic architects could build huge clerestory windows and fill them with stained glass held in place by ornamental stonework called tracery.

CHARTRES AFTER 

• Churches burned frequently in the Middle Ages
• Church officials often had to raise money quickly for new building campaigns.

Monastic churches were small and finished quickly but city churches took decades or centuries to build.  Financing depended mostly on collections and public contributions (not always voluntary)

• Lack of funds often stopped building programs.
• Wars, famines, or plagues
• Friction between the town and cathedral authorities would often stop construction.

At Reims Cathedral

• Clergy offered indulgences (pardons for sins committed) to those who helped pay the cost of building the cathedral.  You could literally buy your way out of hell.

Chartres

• Devastating fire of 1194
• Started rebuilding immediately and took 27 years
• People revolted against the possibility of more taxes.
• Stormed the bishop’s home and drove him into exile for four years.
• The crypt held the most precious relic of Chartres—the robe of the Virgin, which survived the fire. 
• The builders used the crypt for the foundation of the new structure.

Architectural historians usually consider the post-1194 Chartres Cathedral the first High Gothic building.

Rectangular nave bays replaced the square bays

• Used sexpartite vaults
• Single square in each aisle (rather than two, as before)
• Flanks a single rectangular unit in the nave
• Became the High Gothic norm.

The High Gothic nave vault

• Covered just one bay
• Could be braced more easily
• Had only four parts.

Wanted to unify the interior.

• Aligned identical units so that viewers saw them in a rapid sequence
• Pointed arches enhanced this effect.
• Vast, continuous hall.

The 1194 Chartres Cathedral

• First church to have been planned from the beginning with flying buttresses
• The Chartres windows are almost as tall as the main arcade
• Flying buttresses meant they could make thinner walls with more windows.

Frence Stained-Glass Windows

Stain glass has been used before when the Egyptian artists made colorful glass objects for their home and tombs.  Clergy used color and religious imagery in church interiors in mural paintings and mosaics

• Stained-glass windows don’t hide the walls.
• Transmit rather than reflect light
• Filters and transforms the natural light.

Abbot Suger called this colored light lux nova (new light).

Hugh of Saint-Victor (1096–1142)

“Stained-glass windows are the Holy Scriptures . . . and since their brilliance lets the splendor of the True Light pass into the church, they enlighten those inside.”

William Durandus

“The glass windows in a church are Holy Scriptures, which expel the wind and the rain, that is, all things hurtful, but transmit the light of the True Sun, that is, God, into the hearts of the faithful.”

As early as the fourth century, architects used colored glass for church windows even though they were expensive and difficult to make.

A Benedictine monk named Theophilus recorded the full process around 1100.

• Master designer drew the exact plan on a wooden panel.
• Glassblowers made flat sheets of glass of different colors
• Glaziers (glassworkers) cut the windowpanes to size and shape with iron scissors.
• Could mix colors by flashing (fusing one layer of colored glass to another). 

Painters added details such as faces, hands, hair, and clothing in enamel

• Traced the master design on the wood panel through the colored glass.
• Heated the painted glass to fuse the enamel to the surface.
• Glaziers “leaded” the various fragments of glass
• Joined them with strips of lead.
• Strengthened the window with a grid of iron bands

CHARTRES STAINED GLASS 

Chartres nave is somewhat dark because the stained glass windows block some of the light coming in.  Stained glass was meant to transform the light into color but because of years of candle smoke, the windows have become quite dark.  There is a major restoration under way to clean the windows and bring them back to their glory.

The center section

• A young Mary sits against a red background 
• Christ Child in her lap
• dates to about 1170. 
• Angels seen against the blue ground installed in the 13th-century.

In Gothic architecture

• light entered from outside the building through a screen of stone-set colored glass. 

In Byzantine architecture

• light reflected off glass tesserae set into the thick masonry wall.

The rose window

• 43 feet in diameter
• Yellow castles on a red ground and yellow fleurs-de-lis—three-petaled iris flowers—on a blue ground
• fill the eight narrow windows in the rose’s lower spandrels.

The Virgin and Child appear in the roundel at the center of the rose,

• Looks like a gem-studded book cover or cloisonné brooch.
• Around her are four doves of the Holy Spirit and eight angels. 

Twelve square panels contain images of Old Testament kings

• David and Solomon (at the 12 and 1 o’clock positions).
• These are the royal ancestors of Christ. Isaiah (11:1–3) had prophesied that the Messiah would come from the family of Jesse, father of David. The genealogical “tree of Jesse” is a familiar motif in medieval art.
• Below, in the lancets, are Saint Anne and the baby Virgin.
• Flanking them are four of Christ’s Old Testament ancestors – Melchizedek, David, Solomon, and Aaron.

Has existed for 800 years because of its brilliant engineering.

CHARTRES SOUTH TRANSEPT 

These portals extend further into space than any of the portals before them

• The statues of Saints on the jambs are more independent of the architectural framework.  They appear to float.
• Three figures from the Porch of the Confessors
• Could be compared to the change from Archaic to the Classical style.
• Date from 1220 to 1230 and represent Saints Martin, Jerome, and Gregory.

The drapery folds are not stiff and shallow, as on the west facade. 

• The fabric falls and laps over the bodies in soft folds.
• Individualized features and personalities.
• Saint Martin is tall, with intense features.
• Saint Jerome appears as a nice scholar, holding his copy of the Scriptures.
• Saint Gregory seems lost in thought (on the far right)
• listens to the dove of the Holy Ghost on his shoulder.

Porch of the Martyrs

• The south-transept figure of Saint Theodore
• martyred warrior
• The ideal Christian knight
• Clothed him in the cloak and chain-mail armor of Gothic Crusaders.
• Holds his spear in his right hand
• Rests his left hand on his shield.
• Resembles Polykleitos’s Spear Bearer.

AMIENS CATHEDRAL

Chartres Cathedral was one of the most influential buildings in the history of architecture. 

• Set a pattern that many other Gothic architects followed.
• Construction of Amiens Cathedral began in 1220
• Work was still in progress at Chartres.

The architects were Robert de Luzarches, Thomas de Cormont and Renaud de Cormont.  The nave was finished 1236.

• Radiating chapels by 1247
• Work on the choir continued until almost 1270.
• The proportions of Amiens Cathedral are elegant
• More complex lancet windows than Chartres.

Amiens Cathedral is an even taller church than Chartres.  French builders made taller building with slender supports.

• The nave vaults at Laon 80 feet tall
• Paris 107 feet 
• Chartres 118 feet
• Amiens are 144 feet above the floor

Strength combined with lightness

• Seems like the inside of a tent instead of stone.
• Light floods the space

Work began on the Amiens west facade at the same time as the nave (1220).

Its lower parts were influenced by the Laon Cathedral.  Amiens builders made the recesses even deeper.

• Few surfaces for decoration
• Sculptors covered the surface with colonnettes, arches, pinnacles, rosettes, and other decorative stonework.
• Sculpture also extends to the areas above the portals, especially the band of statues (the so-called kings’ gallery).

The uneven towers were later additions.  The shorter one dates from the 14th century. Taller one from the 15th century.

BEAU DIEU 

Most prominent statue on the Amiens facade

• Beau Dieu (Beautiful God).
• Fully modeled Christ figure with folds of drapery.
• Free standing sculpture.
• Canopy above his head

Above the canopy is the central tympanum with the representation of Christ as Last Judge.

Not supposed to scare church goers

• Instead He blesses those who enter the church
• Standing on a lion and a dragon
• symbolize the evil forces in the world.
• Hope in salvation and peace

REIMS CATHEDRAL

Amiens and Reims, although similar, display some major differences.

The kings’ gallery of statues at Reims is above the rose window.

• Figures stand in taller and more ornate frames.
• Details appear to be stretched
• Taller, narrower, and more intricately decorated.
• A pointed arch frames the rose window itself.
• Tympana over the doorways

Prime example of the High Gothic style in sculpture.

The jamb statues illustrate the story of the

• Annunciation (When the angel Gabriel tells Mary she will be pregnant)
• Visitation (the visit of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth who is 6 months pregnant with John the Baptist) .
• Appear completely detached from their background. 
• Supporting columns are small

Sculptures on the cathedral took decades to complete and were usually completed by different sculptors.

Art historians believe that three different sculptors carved the four statues at different times from 1230 to 1255. 

Reims was an ancient Roman city

• Heads of both Mary and Saint Elizabeth resemble Roman portraits.

Contrapposto postures. 

• Swaying of the hips.
• The right legs bend, and the knees press through the folds of the clothes.
• Figures’ arms are in motion.
• Mary and Elizabeth turn their faces toward each other
• Talk through gestures.

Gabriel, the youngest or newest of the four statues, has a much longer body and is more animated.

SAINTE-CHAPELLE, PARIS

The stained-glass windows make the walls almost dissolve and is absolutely beautiful.

• The chapel is a masterpiece of the Rayonnant (radiant) style
• It was the preferred style of the royal Paris court of Saint Louis.
• 6,450 square feet of stained glass
• make up more than three-quarters of the structure.
• Very slender columns
• Required restoration in the 19th century
• suffered damage during the French Revolution
• retains most of its original 13th-century stained glass.

49 feet high and 15 feet wide stained glass

• were the largest stained glass windows designed at the time.

Louis IX built Sainte-Chapelle as a place to hold the crown of thorns and other relics of Christ’s Passion

• Purchased them in 1239 from his cousin Baldwin II, the last Latin emperor of Constantinople.

VIRGIN OF PARIS 

“Court style”

• Exaggerated S-curve posture
• Typical of Late Gothic sculpture.
• Carved with jewels and ornate clothing

SAINT-MACLOU, ROUEN 

Late French Gothic different from High Gothic.

The change from Rayonnant (radiating lights) architecture to the Flamboyant style 

• Named for the flamelike appearance of its pointed bar tracery (near the window
• 14th century. 

The church is small (only about 75 feet high and 180 feet long).

• The five portals (two of them false doors) bend outward in an arc. 
• Pinnacles over the doors are carved all the way through so you can see the rose window.
• Overlapping architecture creates a nestlike structure

This is a view looking up on the inside of the chapel.

CARCASSONNE 

Gothic period has been called “the age of great cathedrals”

People also needed secular structures such as town halls, palaces, and private homes.

• Lots of warfare
• Feudal lords often built fortified castles in places enemies could not easily reach.
• Thick defensive circular wall (ramparts) enclosed entire towns.
• Although highly protected, these structures gradually fell into ruin.

One of the most famous fortified towns is Carcassonne in Languedoc in southern France. 

• Fought against the northern forces of France.
• Built on a hill surrounded by the Aude River
• Had been fortified since Roman times.
• Walls dating from the 6th century
• 12th century masons reinforced them.
• Could not easily be taken.

In the town’s double walls was a fortified castle with a massive attached keep, a secure tower that could serve as a place of last refuge. 

Cathedral of Saint-Nazaire at the center in the secular town.

• Small church
• Built between 1269 and 1329.

Rare look of what was once a familiar sight in Gothic France: a castle, cathedral, and town within fortified walls.

GUILD HALL, BRUGES

Sign of growing secularization

• Built large meeting halls and warehouses for craft guilds.
• Started in 1230
• Market and guild hall of the cloth-makers of Bruges,.
• The guild is located in the center of the city, alluding to its importance

Combines features of military (corner “watchtowers”) and church (lancet windows with oculi) architecture.

• Top of the tower is an octogan
• Flying buttresses at the top and pinnacles dates to the 15th century

This style is pretty common for late medieval guild and town halls and was designed to compete for attention.

Guilds were similar to workers unions and would help protect artists and their work.  Instead of someone commissioning an artist directly (and then usually fail to pay them), the commissioner would go through the guild.  The guild would make sure that all of its artists were well trained and would help to negotiate contracts with its clients.

HOUSE OF JACQUES COEUR

New class of wealthy merchants

• rose to prominence throughout Europe in the late Middle Ages.

French financier Jacques Coeur

• private citizens can win—and quickly lose— wealth and power.
• Coeur had banking houses in every city of France and many other cities.
• Employed more than 300 agents.
• His ships filled the Mediterranean
• He imported spices and textiles from Muslims in the Near East.
• Treasurer of King Charles VII of France
• Friend of Pope Nicholas V.

In 1451 his enemies framed him on a charge of having poisoned the king’s mistress. 

Judges who sentenced Coeur to prison and confiscated his wealth and property were those who owed him money. 

Coeur escaped in 1454 and made his way to Rome

• The pope welcomed him.
• Would later die of a fever

House still stands in the city of Bourges.

• Plan is irregular
• Units arranged around an open courtyard.
• Service areas (maintenance shops, storage rooms, servants’ quarters, and baths—a rare luxury in Gothic Europe) are on the ground level.
• The upper stories used for offices and family living rooms.
• Over the main entrance is a private chapel.
• One of the towers served as a treasury.
• A statue of Coeur on horseback stood in the courtyard.

Book Illumination and Luxury Arts

• Paris was known for its books as well as its educational centers

Dante Alighieri referred to Paris in his Divine Comedy as the city famous for the art of illumination.

Book making shifted from monastic scriptoria workshops to professional artists

• Paris had the most and the best workshops for illumination.
• The owners of these new, for-profit secular businesses sold their products to the royal family, scholars, and wealthy merchants.
• Similar to modern publishing houses.

VILLARD DE HONNECOURT 

Personal sketchbook.

• Written by Villard de Honnecourt
• 13th-century mason
• Pages contain details of buildings, plans of choirs with radiating chapels, church towers, lifting devices, a sawmill, stained-glass windows.
• Drawings depicting religious and secular figures, animals, some realistic and some imaginary images.
• Demonstrated the value of geometry to artists.
• All forms are based on geometry

GOD AS ARCHITECT 

Geometry also played a symbolic role in Gothic art and architecture.

Artists, architects, and theologians thought the triangle embodied the idea of the Trinity of God the Father, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. 

The circle symbolized the eternity of God. 

• has neither a beginning nor an end
• Believed they were working according to the established laws of nature.
• Each page has paintings of Old and New Testament episodes
• Explanations of their moral significance.

Above the illustration, the scribe wrote (in French rather than Latin): “Here God creates heaven and earth, the sun and moon, and all the elements.” 

God appears as the architect of the world

• Uses a compass to shape the world
• Within the perfect circle already created are the sun and moon
• The unformed matter (blobby yellow orange shape) will become the earth once God applies the same geometric principles to it.

Louis IX, the Saintly King 

King Louis IX.

• Royal patron behind the Rayonnant “court style” of Gothic art and architecture
• inherited the throne when he was only 12 years old
• His mother, Blanche of Castile served as France’s regent until he (King Louis IX) turned 18.

The French regarded Louis as the ideal king

• In 1297, 27 years after his death, he was declared a saint.

Was revered for his spirituality, justice, truthfulness, and charity.

• His tithes and donations to religious groups were large.
• Favored the mendicant (begging) orders, the Dominicans and Franciscans. These groups relied on the generosity of others.
• He admired their poverty, spiritualy, and self-sacrifice.
• Launched two unsuccessful Crusades, the Seventh (1248–1254) and the Eighth (1270).
• He died in Tunisia during the Eighth.

Lost his life in the service of the Church.

• Became the model of good Christian kings.
• Between 1243 and 1314 no one seriously challenged the crown.
• Negotiated a treaty with Henry III, king of England.
• Served as a mediator and peacekeeper

Under Saint Louis

• France was at its most prosperous
• Its art and architecture were admired and imitated throughout Europe. 

BLANCHE OF CASTILE 

• Saint Louis collected secular and religious books.
• His collection later became France’s national library, the Bibliothèque Nationale.

Louis’s mother, Blanche of Castile, ordered this Bible during her regency for her teenage son.

• The dedication page has an expensive gold background 
• Depicts Blanche and Louis beneath triple-lobed arches and miniature cityscapes. 
• Monk and a scribe below.
• The older clergyman dictates a text to his young apprentice.

The scribe divided his page into two columns of four circles each.

• Inspirations were the circles of Gothic stained-glass windows.
• Shows Gothic book production

Numerous specialized artists, scribes, and assistants of different skill levels.

• Some artists specialized in painting borders or initials.
• Only the workshop head or one of the most advanced assistants would paint the main figures and scenes. 

PSALTER OF SAINT LOUIS 

In some cases, masters in the same workshop produced both glass and books.

One of several books produced in Paris for Louis IX

• Made by artists who knew those who made the stained glass for Sainte-Chapelle.
• Background looks like stained glass.

Abraham and the three angels.

• Two episodes on the same page
• Separated by the tree of Mamre.

At the left, Abraham greets the three angels.

• In the other scene, he entertains them while his wife Sarah looks at them from a tent.

BREVIARY OF PHILIPPE LE BEL 

Some Gothic manuscript illuminators signed their work.

• Master Honoré illuminated a breviary for Philippe le Bel in 1296.

Two Old Testament scenes involving David.

• In the top panel, Samuel anoints the young David.
• Below, David prepares to aim his slingshot at the giant Goliath (who already touches his forehead).
• To the right, David slays Goliath with his sword.

BELLEVILLE BREVIARY 

• elaborately decorated text page
• miniature painting at the top left
• David and Saul
• Jean Pucelle of Paris painted around 1325.

Fully modeled figures in three-dimensional architectural settings.

• Barrel vaults over David’s head.
• Paintings of plants, a bird, butterflies, a dragonfly, a fish, a snail, and a monkey.

Text dominates the figures.

• Pucelle’s name and those of some of his assistants appear at the end of the book
• Records the payment they received for their work.

These books usually stated their production costs—the prices paid for materials, especially gold, and for the execution of initials, figures, flowery script, and other embellishments. 

• Illuminators were professional guild members
• Reputation, like modern “brand names,” guaranteed the quality of their work.

VIRGIN OF JEANNE D’EVREUX 

• The royal family also commissioned goldsmiths, silversmiths, and other artists.
• The wealthy purchased statues for private devotion or as gifts to churches.

The Virgin Mary was a favorite.

The queen, wife of Charles IV, donated the sculpture to the royal abbey church of Saint-Denis in 1339. 

Mary stands on a rectangular base decorated with enamel scenes of Christ’s Passion.

• No sadness in Mary or Christ
• The statuette also served as a reliquary. 
• The Virgin’s scepter contained hairs believed to come from Mary’s head.

The Castle of Love

Gothic artists made both secular and religious objects.  Sometimes they decorated these expensive works with stories of love.  They were often inspired by the romantic literature of the day such as the famous story of Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, wife of King Arthur of Camelot.

This piece is a woman’s jewelry box with ivory relief panels.

At the left

• Sculptor carved the allegory of the siege of the Castle of Love.
• Gothic knights attempt to capture love’s fortress by shooting flowers from their bows and baskets of roses over the walls with catapults.

One of the defenders is Cupid

• Aims his arrow at one of the knights
• Another claims the walls on a ladder.

In the lid’s two central sections, two knights joust on horseback.

• Several maidens survey the contest from a balcony and cheer the knights on
• A youth in the crowd holds a hunting falcon.

At the right

• the winning knight receives his prize (a bouquet of roses) from a maiden on horse-back.

The scenes on the sides of the box include the famous allegory of female virtue, the legend of the unicorn, a white horse with a single ivory horn.

• Only a virgin could attract the rare animal.

GOTHIC OUTSIDE OF FRANCE

In 1269 the prior (deputy abbot) of the church of Saint Peter at Wimpfen im Tal (a town) in Germany hired “a very experienced architect who had recently come from the city of Paris” to rebuild his monastery church.  The architect reconstructed the church opere francigeno (“in the French manner”).  In other words, in the Gothic style.

• In the 1250’s
• New style became dominant throughout western Europe.
• European architecture did not turn Gothic all at once.
• Developed their own brand of Gothic architecture.

England

Beginning with the Norman conquest in 1066, French architectural styles quickly made an impact in England.  In the Gothic period no one could have mistaken an English church for a French one.

SALISBURY CATHEDRAL 

Embodies the characteristics of the English Gothic style.

Started in 1220

• The same year work started on Amiens Cathedral (On the right in the image above)
• Construction of Salisbury Cathedral took about 40 years.
• The two cathedrals were built at the same time
• The differences are important.

Salisbury’s facade has lancet windows and blind arcades with pointed arches, as well as sculpture.

• The English facade (the front) is more squat – shorter and wider
• The facade or front is wider than the building behind it.
• French facades on the other hand are usually very tall.

Salisbury’s height is modest compared to Amiens and Reims.

• Architect used the flying buttress sparingly and as a rigid prop.

Long rectilinear plan

• Double transept
• no chapels
• Characteristic of Cistercian and English churches.

The interior was three-stories

• had pointed arches
• four-part rib vaults
• compound piers
• triforium
• Also a departure from the French Gothic style.

The pier colonnettes stop at the springing (where the arches start) of the nave arches

• Do not connect with the vault ribs.
• Strong horizontal emphasis.
• White and black marble

GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL 

• Late English Gothic style
• Remodeled about 100 years after Salisbury.

The Perpendicular style

• Vertical decorative details.
• Large window divided into groups of smaller windows.

At the top

• two slender lancets flank a wider central section
• ends in a pointed arch.
• Vertical, as opposed to horizontal
• lines dominate.

The vault ribs are a dense thicket of entirely ornamental strands

• Serve no structural purpose.

The choir, in fact, does not have any rib vaults at all but a continuous Romanesque barrel vault with Gothic features added on.

In the Gloucester choir, the taste for decorative surfaces triumphed over structural clarity.

CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 

• 16th-century ceiling
• Chapel of Henry VII1.
• Looks like lace.

Created ribs that transform into English fan vaults (vaults with radiating ribs forming a fanlike pattern)

• Large hanging pendants resembling stalactites.
• Gothic architecture was no longer just structural, but also decorative

ROYAL TOMBS 

• Henry VII’s chapel also houses the king’s tomb
• large stone coffin with sculpted portraits of Henry and his queen.
• Familiar feature of the churches of Late Gothic England.

Services for the dead were a part of the Christian service.

• Those who were dying requested that hymns be sung for the entertainment of their souls.
• The wealthy endowed entire chapels for the chanting of masses (chantries)
• Gave gifts of treasure and property to the Church.
• Many required that their tombs be as near as possible to the choir.
• Sometimes, patrons built a chapel especially designed and endowed to house their tombs.

Freestanding tombs, accessible to church visitors, had a moral purpose.

• The silent image of the deceased, cold and still, was a reminder of human mortality

Tomb of Edward II

• Installed in Gloucester Cathedral several years after the king’s murder.

Edward III paid for the memorial to his father

• Has on robes and a crown on his head.
• The sculptor portrayed the dead king as an idealized Christlike figure.
• On each side of Edward’s head is an angel touching his hair.
• At his feet is a lion, symbol of the king’s strength.

An intricate Gothic canopy encases the coffin

• Looks like a miniature chapel protecting the dead.
• Distinctive feature is the use of ogee arches (arches made up of two double-curved lines meeting at a point).
• These tombs have been compared to reliquaries.

Architecture in the Roman Empire stayed Romanesque into the 13th century.

In many German churches, the only Gothic feature was the rib vault which was held up by thick stone walls.  By 1250, the French Gothic style began to make a profound impact.

COLOGNE CATHEDRAL 

• Started in 1248 by Gerhard of Cologne
• Not completed until 600 years later
• Longest building projects on record.

Work stopped from 1550 to the 1850

• The original 14th-century design for the facade was discovered.
• Gothic architects completed the building according to the original Gothic plans
• Added the nave, towers, and facade to the east end.
• Largest cathedral in northern Europe
• Giant (422-foot-long) nave with two aisles on each side.

The 150-foot-high choir

• variation of the Amiens Cathedral choir design
• double lancets in the triforium
• tall, slender single windows in the clerestory above and choir arcade below.

Completed four decades after Gerhard’s death

• Used his plans
• even more height than many French Gothic buildings.

During World War II

• City of Cologne was attacked with bombs.
• The church survived the war because of its strong skeletal design.
• The first few bomb blasts blew out all of its windows
• Subsequent explosions had no effect.

SAINT ELIZABETH, MARBURG 

• Different type of design
• Probably of French origin but developed in Germany
• Aisles are the same height as the nave.

Hall churches have no tribune, triforium, or clerestory.

Built between 1235 and 1283.

• Incorporates French rib vaults with pointed arches and tall lancet windows.
• No tracery arcades or sculpture.
• No flying buttresses.

Lit by double rows of tall windows

• Unified and free flowing
• less narrow and divided

STRASBOURG CATHEDRAL 

• Began in 1176
• New cathedral for Strasbourg, originally in Germany, is today a French city.

The apse, choir, and transepts were in place by 1240.  These sections of the church are Romanesque.

The reliefs of the two south-transept portals are fully Gothic

The subject of the left tympanum is the death of the Virgin Mary.

• The 12 apostles gather around the Virgin
• Form an arc of mourners.
• Adjusted the heights of the figures to fit the space (the apostles at the right are the shortest)
• some of the figures have no legs or feet and the one on the far right tilts his head

At the center

• Christ receives his mother’s soul (the doll-like figure he holds in his left hand).

Mary Magdalene

• Wrings her hands in grief
• crouches beside the deathbed.

The goal was to give the figures human emotions.

• In Gothic Germany, artists wanted to emphasize drama.

EKKEHARD AND UTA 

• Sculptor carved statues of the 12 benefactors of the 11th-century church for a new fundraising campaign.
• The appear quiet without a lot of emotion.
• Two of the figures stand out from the group because of their quality.

Represent the military governor Ekkehard II and his wife Uta.

• The statues are attached to columns
• Stand beneath architectural canopies
• Located indoors
• Preserved much of the original paint.

RÖTTGEN PIETÀ

14th-century German sculpture of a painted wooden statue of the Virgin Mary holding the dead Christ in her lap.

The 14th century was immersed in war, plague, famine, and social issues

• people at this time were very aware of suffering.
• Artists emphasized human suffering through powerful emotion.

Pietà (“pity” or “compassion” in Italian)

• Sculptor portrayed Christ stiffened in death
• Covered with streams of blood gushing from a wound in his side

The Virgin Mother

• Cradles him like a child in her lap
• Can see in her face the emotion of losing her child
• Not serene like earlier pietas
• The artist confronts the viewer with the agony of death and sorrow.

By the 14th century, art was used to confront a person’s spirituality in private

Nicholas of Verdun

In 1181, Nicholas completed work on a gilded-copper and enamel ambo (a pulpit for biblical readings) for the Benedictine abbey church at Klosterneuburg, near Vienna in Austria (near Germany).

After a fire damaged the pulpit in 1330, the church hired artists to convert the pulpit into an altarpiece (a decorative panel above and behind the altar).

The pulpit’s sides became the wings of a triptych (three-part altarpiece).

The 14th-century artists also added six scenes to Nicholas’s original 45.

The Klosterneuburg Altar in its final form has a central row of enamels depicting New Testament episodes, beginning with the Annunciation, and bearing the label sub gracia, or the world “under grace,” that is, after the coming of Christ.

The upper and lower registers contain Old Testament scenes labeled, ante legem, “before the law” Moses received on Mount Sinai, and sub lege, “under the law” of the Ten Commandments.

In this scheme, prophetic Old Testament events appear above and below the New Testament episodes they prefigure.

For example, framing the Annunciation to Mary of the coming birth of Jesus are enamels of angels announcing the births of Isaac and Samson.

In the central section of the triptych, the Old Testament counterpart of Christ’s Crucifixion is Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, a parallel already established in Early Christian times in both art  and literature.

Nicholas of Verdun’s gold figures stand out vividly from the blue enamel background.

The biblical actors twist and turn, make emphatic gestures, and wear garments that are almost over-whelmed by the intricate linear patterns of their folds.

In the Abraham and Isaac panel, the angel flies in at the very last moment to grab the blade of Abraham’s sword before he can kill the bound Isaac on the altar.

The intense emotionalism of the representation and the linear complexity of the garments foreshadowed the tone and style of the Strasbourg tympanum depicting the death of the Virgin.

Shrine of the Three Kings in Cologne Cathedral.

Nicholas of Verdun

• began work on the huge reliquary in 1190.
• six feet long and almost as tall

Philip von Heinsberg

• archbishop of Cologne from 1167 to 1191
• commissioned the shrine
• contains the relics of the three wise men.

Emperor Frederick Barbarossa

• acquired them when he conquered Milan in 1164
• donated them to the German cathedral.

Owning the magi’s relics gave the Cologne archbishops the right to crown German kings.

Reliquary

• made of silver and bronze
• ornamentation in enamel and gemstones
• one of the most luxurious ever fashioned, especially considering its size.
• The shape looks like a basilican church.

Repoussé figures of the Virgin Mary, the three magi, Old Testament prophets, and New Testament apostles in arcuated (arched) frames.