(EECA2) Module Overview

Early Europe and Colonial America II

Introduction

The term Gothic, like Romanesque, originated as an architectural characteristic. The term was a disparaging term originating in the Renaissance as a "cut" to the quality of work when compared to the Classical building ideal. Gothic really refers to a period of revolutionary architecture. The influence of the Abbot Suger, who found spiritual inspiration from gleaming, jeweled objects, resulted in stained glass windows being used throughout the 12th century. It was thought that one's soul could soar to the heavens in contemplation of God, and the church should be a reflection of heaven on earth. Large skeletal thin churches with groin vaulting. Large windows and pointed arch windows and doors become the hallmark of Gothic cathedrals.

By the middle of the 14th century, Italian painters had achieved a unique position in Europe. They had made discoveries in the art of narrative composition that set them quite apart from the painters before them. Giotto and Duccio bring back the true fresco, and their portrayal of the realistic form using shading and illusionism were revolutionary. Their achievements in capturing reality were not easily ignored by their contemporaries, and the rebirth of Classical art spreads through Europe.

The Renaissance, the name means "rebirth", is aptly named due to this extraordinary period of innovation in both the sciences and the arts. The Renaissance artists turned to the work of the Greeks and Romans for new understanding, and the invention of linear perspective, the use of pyramidal composition, the use of chiaroscuro or shading characterize the resulting work, and the implementation of oil on stretched canvas. The Renaissance in the north has a distinctively different character than that of Italy and the south, and the styles of Northern artists will vary by region. Characteristics that are fundamental to all northern art of this period are a meticulous attention to details and less of the Classical ideal displayed in the figures. There exist more remnants of Gothic influences in their compositions. The climate of the North favored deep, rich oil paintings over frescoes. The culture emphasized modesty over grandiosity. Artists like Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hieronymus Bosch make significant contributions during this century. While Renaissance artists sought to replicate nature, the Mannerists looked first for a style where compositions often are chaotic, space can be ambiguous, figures can be characterized by distortions, exaggerations, and clashing colors. Mannerism is a contrast to the balanced, natural, and dramatic colors of the High Renaissance.

Module Lessons Preview

In this module, we will study the following topics:

• Why and how does art change?
• How do we describe our thinking about art?
• How does religion influence art and architecture?
• How has art been utilized to foster political beliefs?
• Is art a reflection of its culture or a force to form or shape culture?

Key Terms

In this module, we will study the following key terms:

1. Altarpiece - An altarpiece is a panel, painted or sculpted, situated above and behind an altar.
2. Ambulatory - An ambulatory is a covered walkway, outdoors (as in a church cloister) or indoors; especially the passageway around the apse and the choir of a church. In Buddhist architecture, the passageway leading around the stupa is an ambulatory.
3. Apse - An apse is a recess, usually semicircular, in the wall of a Roman basilica or at the east end of a church.
4. Archivolt - An archivolt is the continuous molding framing an arch. In Romanesque or Gothic architecture, one of the series of concentric bands framing the tympanum.
5. Atrium - The atrium is the court of a Roman house that is partly open to the sky. Also the open, colonnaded court in front of and attached to a Christian basilica.
6. Baldacchino - The baldacchino is a canopy on columns, frequently built over an altar.
7. Baptistery - In Christian architecture, the building used for baptism, usually situated next to a church is known as a baptistery.
8. Basilica - In Roman architecture, a basilica is a civic building for legal and other civic proceedings, rectangular in plan with an entrance usually on a long side. In Christian architecture, a church somewhat resembling the Roman basilica, usually entered from one end and with an apse at the other.
9. Buttress - A buttress is an exterior masonry structure that opposes the lateral thrust of an arch or a vault. A pier buttress is a solid mass of masonry; a flying buttress consists typically of an inclined member carried on an arch or a series of arches and a solid buttress to which it transmits lateral thrust.
10. Chevet - The east, or apsidal, end of a Gothic church, including choir, ambulatory, and radiating chapels is known as the chevet.
11. Chiaroscuro - In drawing or painting, the treatment and use of light and dark, especially the gradations of light that produce the effect of modeling is chiaroscuro.
12. Choir - The choir is the space reserved for the clergy and singers in the church, usually east of the transept but, in some instances, extending into the nave.
13. Codex - A codex is separate pages of vellum or parchment bound together at one side; the predecessor of the modern book. The codex superseded the rotulus. In Mesoamerica, a painted and inscribed book on long sheets of bark paper or deerskin coated with fine white plaster and folded into accordion-like pleats.
14. Crossing - The space in a cruciform church formed by the intersection of the nave and the transept is the crossing.
15. Crossing Square - The area in a church formed by the intersection (crossing) of a nave and a transept of equal width, often used as a standard module of interior proportion is the crossing square.
16. Crossing Tower - The tower over the crossing of a church is the crossing tower.
17. Cruciform - Cruciform refers to cross-shaped building plans.
18. Diptych - A diptych is a two-paneled painting or altarpiece; also, an ancient Roman, Early Christian, or Byzantine hinged writing tablet, often of ivory and carved on the external sides.
19. Engraving - The process of incising a design in hard material, often a metal plate (usually copper); also, the print or impression made from such a plate is an engraving.
20. Etching - An etching is a kind of engraving in which the design is incised in a layer of wax or varnish on a metal plate. The parts of the plate left exposed are then etched (slightly eaten away) by the acid in which the plate is immersed after incising.
21. Fresco - Fresco is a painting on lime plaster, either dry (dry fresco or fresco secco) or wet (true or buon fresco). In the latter method, the pigments are mixed with water and become chemically bound to the freshly laid lime plaster.
22. Humanism - Humanism, in the Renaissance, is an emphasis on education and on expanding knowledge (especially of classical antiquity), the exploration of individual potential and a desire to excel, and a commitment to civic responsibility and moral duty.
23. Icon - An icon is a portrait or image; especially in Byzantine art, a panel with a painting of sacred personages that are objects of veneration. In the visual arts, a painting, a piece of sculpture, or even a building regarded as an object of veneration.
24. Iconoclasm - The iconoclasm is the destruction of images. In Byzantium, the period from 726 to 843 when there was an imperial ban on images. The destroyers of images were known as iconoclasts. Those who opposed such a ban were known as iconophiles or iconodules.
25. Illuminated Manuscript - Illuminated manuscripts are luxurious handmade book with painted illustrations and decorations.
26. International Style - The International Style is a style of 14th- and 15th-century painting begun by Simone Martini, who adapted the French Gothic manner to Sienese art fused with influences from the North. This style appealed to the aristocracy because of its brilliant color, lavish costume, intricate ornament, and themes involving splendid processions of knights and ladies.
27. Lunette - A lunette is a semicircular area (with the flat side down) in a wall over a door, niche, or window; also, a painting or relief with a semicircular frame.
28. Qibla - The qibla indicates the direction (toward Mecca) Muslims face when praying.
29. Pantocrator - A pantocrator is an image of Christ as ruler and judge of heaven and earth.
30. Pendentive - A pendentive is a concave, triangular section of a hemisphere, four of which provide the transition from a square area to the circular base of a covering dome. Although pendentives appear to be hanging (pendant) from the dome, they in fact support it.
31. Narthex - A narthex is the porch or vestibule of a church, generally colonnaded or arcaded and preceding the nave.
32. Nave - The nave is the central area of an ancient Roman basilica or of a church, demarcated from aisles by piers or columns.
33. Nimbus - A nimbus is a halo or aureole appearing around the head of a holy figure to signify divinity.
34. Parchment - Parchment is lambskin prepared as a surface for painting or writing.
35. Rib - A rib is the relatively slender, molded masonry arch that projects from a surface. In Gothic architecture, the ribs form the framework of the vaulting. A diagonal rib is one of the ribs that form the "X" of a groin vault. A transverse rib crosses the nave or aisle at a 90-degree angle.
36. Tracery - Tracery is the ornamental stonework for holding stained glass in place, characteristic of Gothic cathedrals. In plate tracery, the glass fills only the “punched holes” in the heavy ornamental stonework. In bar tracery, the stained-glass windows fill almost the entire opening, and the stonework is unobtrusive.
37. Transept - The transept is a part of a church with an axis that crosses the nave at a right angle.
38. Vellum - Vellum is calfskin prepared as a surface for writing or painting.
39. Woodcut - A woodcut is a wooden block on the surface of which those parts not intended to print are cut away to a slight depth, leaving the design raised; also, the printed impression made with such a block.

[CC BY 4.0] UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED | IMAGES: LICENSED AND USED ACCORDING TO TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION