Early Medieval ArtOrigins of Christianity in the Roman West

DISCLAIMER

This presentation is an overview of the material in your text. It is not comprehensive, nor is it meant to be. This presentation allows you to introduce yourself to concepts and images in the respective chapter. Best practice says to view this presentation with your book open, as many of the images in this presentation are small or incomplete.

Review

• Byzantine art immediately sets out to distinguish itself from pagan art of the Romans

• So Byzantine art is characterized by the mosaic technique and materials, the use of gold, and flat, expressionless figures with drapery told through line

• While Byzantine art is developing to serve the established hierarchy of the church and its royalty, Early Medieval art is simultaneously evolving but VERY differently...

Guiding Questions

• Much of what is now Western Europe is pagan much longer than the countries of the Byzantine world, where Christianity became the state religion in 380. So what will the Christian arts look like if the makers had been steeped in paganism for much longer periods?

Guiding Historical Events

• Charlemagne becomes the first Christian Emperor in 800, and he establishes the Holy Roman Empire

• Christianity reaches the Danes around 1,000, about eight hundred years after Christianity burgeoned in Syria

Where are we at in the world?

Stave Chuch from Urnes, Norway

This is a geography is made up of competing “barbarian,” or warrior cultures. The climate, which is colder and heavily forested, requires a new kind of architecture.

Characteristics of Early Medieval Art

Hinged Clasp with Boars, from the Sutton Hoo Burial Ship, Suffolk,

England

Self Study:As Christianity settles in Western Europe, how have pagan designs been syncretized with Christian forms and styles?

1. Interlaced, ribbon style designs

2. Zoomorphic designs, with animals rather than humans as the main subjects of power and narrative

3. Small, portable objects commissioned by roving courts

4. Figures presented with an x-ray type flatness

South Cross, Ahenny, Ireland

Monasteries

Plan of Saint Gall, Switzerland

Self Study:As seen in the recent History Channel television program, The Vikings, monasteries are often sacked and looted for their goods. The early Christians promoted nothing like the richness of the medieval church. What has changed, as we see in the Byzantine world as well?

Medieval monasteries increasingly become the center of town living, with the monastery being a cloistered, self-sustaining community that educates and serves a community outside its walls.Medieval monasteries, like Byzantine monasteries, are major producers of Christian art that reflects the wealth, talents, and power of respective communities.

Medieval monasteries are representative of God's city in Heaven on Earth, so they are organized centered of prayer and most importantly work—they are responsible for clearing much of the forested environment.

Illuminated Manuscripts

Detail from XPI page from Book of Kells, possibly from Iona,

Scotland

Full page illuminations become popular and are called carpet pages, as they look very much like swatches of fabric.

Copying texts will be made easier with Carolingian script, which uses spacing and upper and lower case letters to mark beginnings and proper nouns.

Meant to be difficult to read, as this was part of spiritual exercise. So illuminations are often like visual puzzles. Can you find the cat and mouse, the moths, the angels?

Carolingian Art

Saint Matthew, from the Coronation Gospels

commissioned by Charlemagne on the event of his crowning as

Emperor

Charlemagne begins this campaign to revive Classical arts to connect his Holy Roman Empire (Christian) to the glory of the Roman past (pagan). Notice the drapery, the landscape, and the furniture in the folio to the left.

Charlemagne is crowned in 800 and begins a program of reviving the Classical arts. We can see the naturalism of Greco-Roman painting and sculptural techniques becoming popular again.

The Holy Roman Empire will rule for nearly 1,000 years before it is defeated in the 19th century by Napolean.

In subsequent presentations, you will explore:

• Monastic Living

• Monastic Architecture

• Illuminated Manuscript Production, as seen in the Lindisfarne Gospels