Gothic art

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The Western (Royal) Portal at Chartres Cathedral (ca. 1145). These architectural statues are the earliest Gothic sculptures and were a revolution in style and the model for a generation of sculptors.

Gothic depiction of the adoration of the Magi from Strasbourg Cathedral.

Gothic altar by Veit Stoss, commissioned for the St. Mary's Church, Kraków, late 15th century.

Gothic sculpture, late 15th century.

This article is about Gothic art. See also Gothic architecture

Gothic art was a Medieval art movement that lasted about 200 years. It began in France out of the Romanesque period in the mid-12th century, concurrent with Gothic architecture found in Cathedrals. By the late 14th century, it had evolved towards a more secular and natural style known as International Gothic, which continued until the late 15th century, where it evolved into Renaissance art. The primary Gothic art mediums were sculpture, panel painting, stained glass, fresco and illuminated manuscript.

Gothic art told a narrative story through pictures, both Christian and secular.

The earliest Gothic art was Christian sculptures, born on the walls of Cathedrals and abbeys. Christian art was often typological in nature (see Medieval allegory), showing the stories of the New Testament and the Old Testament side by side. Saints' lives were often depicted. Images of the Virgin Mary changed from the Byzantine iconic form to a more human and affectionate mother, cuddling her infant, swaying from her hip, and showing the refined manners of a well-born aristocratic courtly lady.

Secular art came in to its own during this period with the rise of cities, foundation of universities, increasing trade, a money-based economy and a bourgeois class who could afford to patronize the arts and commission works resulting in a proliferation of paintings and illuminated manuscripts. Increased literacy and a growing body of secular vernacular literature encouraged the representation of secular themes in art. With the growth of cities, trade guilds were formed and artists were often required to be members of a painters' guild—as a result, because of better record keeping, more artists are known to us by name in this period than any previous, some artists were even so bold as to sign their names.

1 Gothic sculpture
2 Gallery
3 Gothic artists
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Gothic sculpture

Gothic sculptures were born on the wall, in the middle of the 12th century in Île-de-France, when Abbot Suger built the abbey at St. Denis (ca. 1140), considered the first Gothic building, and soon after the Chartres Cathedral (ca. 1145). Prior to this there had been no sculpture tradition in Ile-de-France—so sculptors were brought in from Burgundy, who .

The French ideas spread. In Germany, from 1225 at the Cathedral in Bamberg onward, the impact can be found everywhere. The Bamberg Cathedral had the largest assemblage of 13th century sculpture, culminating in 1240 with the Bamberg Rider, the first equestrian statue in Western art since the 6th century. In England the sculpture was more confined to tombs and non-figurine decorations (in part because of Cistercian iconoclasm). In Italy there was still a Classical influence, but Gothic made inroads in the sculptures of pulpits such as the Pisa Baptistery pulpit (1269) and the Siena pulpit. A late masterwork of Italian Gothic sculptures is the series of Scaliger Tombs in Verona (early-late 14th century).

Gothic sculpture evolved from the early stiff and elongated style, still partly Romanesque, into a spatial and naturalistic feel in the late 12th and early 13th century. Influences from surviving ancient Greek and Roman sculptures were incorporated into the treatment of drapery, facial expression and pose.

Dutch-Burgundian sculptor Claus Sluter and the taste for naturalism signaled the beginning of the end of Gothic sculpture, evolving into the classicistic Renaissance style by the end of the 15th century.

Simone Martini (1285–1344). Dark themes and high emotion were increasingly pronounced in late Gothic art.

[edit] Gallery

Depiction of the Trinity on the portal of the Basilica of St.-Denis, Paris, France	Adam, Eve, and the (female) serpent at the entrance to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France	Bust of Cicero by Jörg Syrlin the Elder (ca. 1470) on the choir stalls in the Ulmer Münster	Man of Sorrows on the main portal of the Ulmer Münster by Hans Multscher (1429)
Detail of the Garden of Gethsemane from the Ulmer Münster	Moses on the baptismal font by the sculptor Christoph von Urach, Church of Saint Amandus, Bad Urach, 1518