Romanesque churches are easily identified by the architectural characteristics, which are: rounded arches, barrel vaults, thick walls, stone masonry, buttresses, and a variation of the traditional Latin-cross basilica. The Romanesque style was designed to heighten the church and also to accommodate large numbers of pilgrims.
Because of the mass amounts of pilgrim traffic throughout a church, the traditional Latin-cross basilica was too cramped. Romanesque churches added aisles that flanked the main aisle and also added an ambulatory around the apse to allow many pilgrims to enter and flow through the church at one time. Thick walls, rounded arches, and buttresses allowed the churches to be built taller, also allowing for more windows and more light. The decorative sculptures on the church were designed to teach parishioners more about the bible. Many portals featured last judgment scenes that forced entering pilgrims to reckon with their fate in eternity.
The Reliquary of Sainte-Foy demonstrates the typical Romanesque architecture. Aisles were added to flank the nave and an ambulatory surrounds the apse. Barrel vaults and buttresses were used to give height to the church. The portals of the church are decorated. The tympanum displays a traditional last judgment scene, displaying Christ blessing the saved and damning the sinners.
The Romanesque focus on height emphasized the vastness of the Church and God. This created a sense of awe towards the Church, making the individual feel infinitely smaller than this greatness around them. The Romanesque light emphasized God’s character: power and omniscience. The Romanesque focus on didactic sculpture and painting reinforced these two themes of height and light by further visually instructing the parishioners about the greatness of their God and the authority of the Church over them.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Illuminated Manuscripts
Illuminated manuscripts, pages of text embellished with decorative elements, were used in the Middle Ages not only to decorate, but also to give meaning to the text. Because of the cost, illuminated manuscripts were usually only used for the altar bibles in churches.
Manuscripts were written on parchment, specifically vellum, a high-quality parchment made of calfskin. Artists had large palette of red, yellow, green, blue, black, white, silver and gold. These pigments were used to create paints that were mixed with water and applied to the vellum with an egg white adhesive. Although there is no written record of how illuminated manuscripts were created, incomplete manuscripts offer up evidence that the complex designs were planned out on the page by sketches, the text was completed first, then the artist completed the design.
The decorations included in illuminated text were elaborate borders and designs, decorative initial capital letters, and illustrations of the written text. Border designs were often geometric and intricate, like the interlacing used in Hiberno-Saxon art. Some decorations were actually painted onto the page, but others were traced with the aid of wax molds. The illustrations were highly stylized. In Tunc Crucifixerant from the Book of Kells, the animal that is used to portray the letter ‘t’ is orientalized, and the people are displayed with the Egyptian frontal eye.
Another innovation in the illuminated manuscripts is the unity between the decoration and the text. The artistic elements were carefully crafted to resonate the meaning of the text, incorporating iconography into the text, giving the page meaning to illiterate parishioners. Also, the text was sometimes shaped to be a decorative element itself. In the Tunc Crucifixerant the text is describing the crucifixion of Christ, but it is shaped in an X, the form of a Roman cross and the first letter of Christ’s name in Greek.
To appreciate the advancements in manuscripts, the first manuscripts on Egyptian papyrus must be reexamined. Unlike the single, smooth plane of vellum, papyrus was pieced together by laying slices of the layered plant together horizontally then vertically then pressing the two layers together. Instead of being bound, papyrus sheets were joined continuously with other sheets and rolled up into a scroll. Also, papyrus manuscripts had a limited color palette of only red and black. The pigments were applied with a gum and water mixture that resulted in a watercolor technique. Finally, the papyrus manuscripts did not contain the intricate detailing that the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages did.
The illuminated manuscripts were a great innovation in art and book-making, incorporating iconography, illustration, interlacing, geometric design, and text to create a new medium of communication for the church.
Manuscripts were written on parchment, specifically vellum, a high-quality parchment made of calfskin. Artists had large palette of red, yellow, green, blue, black, white, silver and gold. These pigments were used to create paints that were mixed with water and applied to the vellum with an egg white adhesive. Although there is no written record of how illuminated manuscripts were created, incomplete manuscripts offer up evidence that the complex designs were planned out on the page by sketches, the text was completed first, then the artist completed the design.
The decorations included in illuminated text were elaborate borders and designs, decorative initial capital letters, and illustrations of the written text. Border designs were often geometric and intricate, like the interlacing used in Hiberno-Saxon art. Some decorations were actually painted onto the page, but others were traced with the aid of wax molds. The illustrations were highly stylized. In Tunc Crucifixerant from the Book of Kells, the animal that is used to portray the letter ‘t’ is orientalized, and the people are displayed with the Egyptian frontal eye.
Another innovation in the illuminated manuscripts is the unity between the decoration and the text. The artistic elements were carefully crafted to resonate the meaning of the text, incorporating iconography into the text, giving the page meaning to illiterate parishioners. Also, the text was sometimes shaped to be a decorative element itself. In the Tunc Crucifixerant the text is describing the crucifixion of Christ, but it is shaped in an X, the form of a Roman cross and the first letter of Christ’s name in Greek.
To appreciate the advancements in manuscripts, the first manuscripts on Egyptian papyrus must be reexamined. Unlike the single, smooth plane of vellum, papyrus was pieced together by laying slices of the layered plant together horizontally then vertically then pressing the two layers together. Instead of being bound, papyrus sheets were joined continuously with other sheets and rolled up into a scroll. Also, papyrus manuscripts had a limited color palette of only red and black. The pigments were applied with a gum and water mixture that resulted in a watercolor technique. Finally, the papyrus manuscripts did not contain the intricate detailing that the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages did.
The illuminated manuscripts were a great innovation in art and book-making, incorporating iconography, illustration, interlacing, geometric design, and text to create a new medium of communication for the church.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
The Civilizations and Art of the Aegean
Although the ancient Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations had distinct cultures and separate locations, their society’s had much more in common than their proximity to the Aegean Sean.
Location is everything, the Aegean Sea was the hub of trade between Greece and Egypt, because of the constant flow of goods, the Aegean civilizations were heavily influenced by the culture of both nations. The frontal eye of Egypt is present in many Aegean frescoes, and the Greek myths made these cultures legendary with stories of Agamemnon and the Minotaur.
The architecture of these two civilizations bears striking similarities. First, the temple and palaces of Mycenae and Minoa were combined. Shrines were incorporated into the palace. Second, the architecture consists of solid walls supplemented by columnar support. It appears that both civilizations heavily decorated the walls of the palace by painting and carving elaborate borders around the doorways and walls. Also, friezes, a full-wall fresco, decorate the walls of the palace to set the mood for the room.
Unlike previous cultures, the art of these cultures was not strictly utilitarian. Borders, for example, were painted for their aesthetic quality, rather than for a religious or ritualistic purpose. Also, people were depicted in a curvilinear form, rather than the rigid form the Egyptians used. The visage and form tends to be more naturalistic in the Aegean societies, but the hair and eye is often stylized. The artist also demonstrated an understanding of depth by shading and making objects smaller in the distance and on a higher plane.
Both cultures are supposed to have had female goddesses. The Minoan civilization has the snake goddess and the throne room with griffins that suggest a female priestess. The Mycenaean civilization had a fresco of a woman, supposed by archaeologists to be a goddess because of her elaborate design and her jewelry.
The civilizations of the Aegean are fascinating to study because of their unique cultural and artistic perspective. They changed the face of art by infusing it with life, culture, activity and emotion.
Location is everything, the Aegean Sea was the hub of trade between Greece and Egypt, because of the constant flow of goods, the Aegean civilizations were heavily influenced by the culture of both nations. The frontal eye of Egypt is present in many Aegean frescoes, and the Greek myths made these cultures legendary with stories of Agamemnon and the Minotaur.
The architecture of these two civilizations bears striking similarities. First, the temple and palaces of Mycenae and Minoa were combined. Shrines were incorporated into the palace. Second, the architecture consists of solid walls supplemented by columnar support. It appears that both civilizations heavily decorated the walls of the palace by painting and carving elaborate borders around the doorways and walls. Also, friezes, a full-wall fresco, decorate the walls of the palace to set the mood for the room.
Unlike previous cultures, the art of these cultures was not strictly utilitarian. Borders, for example, were painted for their aesthetic quality, rather than for a religious or ritualistic purpose. Also, people were depicted in a curvilinear form, rather than the rigid form the Egyptians used. The visage and form tends to be more naturalistic in the Aegean societies, but the hair and eye is often stylized. The artist also demonstrated an understanding of depth by shading and making objects smaller in the distance and on a higher plane.
Both cultures are supposed to have had female goddesses. The Minoan civilization has the snake goddess and the throne room with griffins that suggest a female priestess. The Mycenaean civilization had a fresco of a woman, supposed by archaeologists to be a goddess because of her elaborate design and her jewelry.
The civilizations of the Aegean are fascinating to study because of their unique cultural and artistic perspective. They changed the face of art by infusing it with life, culture, activity and emotion.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
My History with Art History
I hope this class will broaden my taste in art by expanding my knowledge of techniques and different movements. I've never taken an art history class. I was brought up in a Christian home, so most of the art I saw was religious art from the baroque period. I always knew it was supposed to be beautiful, but something about baroque art seems so cold and distant to me. When I was 10 I saw a Sunflowers, The Starry Night, and Almond Blossom recreations, those paintings changed how I viewed the world. Van Gogh made me feel his painting. I realized then that art was more than just a pretty picture, it's communication. After that experience I began to study art on my own, but my favorite art comes from the Impressionists and Expressionists. I love how they capture the idea of objects and convey emotion.
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