Kaleidoscope Art History - Epochs of Art History: Art History of the Middle Ages

The kaleidoscope wants to structure dry fabric and "soak with fun", so that it becomes more tangible and will experience new things (which is often rather unpleasant today) for pleasure and understanding.

There is first an overview of the large relationships, which are then highly illuminated using individual concise spots (gladly with a view to the slightly crazy excesses of a subject area).

It is currently about art history, at the very beginning, how the scientists who deal with art history divide their material. The art historians share the history of art into four large epochs , for which determined, anything but established core data have established themselves:

• 1. Primary and early history of art: 6000 BC BC (first tools) - 3100 BC Chr. (First High Cultures with Scripture)
• 2. Art history of antiquity: 3100 BC Chr. (First High Cultures with Scripture) - 500 AD (end of antiquity, beginning Middle Ages)
• 3. Art history of the Middle Ages: 500 AD (end of antiquity, beginning Middle Ages) - 1,500 AD (end of the Middle Ages, start of modern times)
• 4. KKKKK of modern times: 1,500 AD (end of the Middle Ages, start of modern times) - today

The first kaleidoscope of art history dealt with overview of the epochs of the original and early history of art and art history of antiquity . Here is an overview of the era of the art history of the Middle Ages , the 3rd epoch of art history:

The art of the Middle Ages includes art, which was created between approx. 500 AD and approx. 1500.

As discussed before, the year numbers should never be taken exactly - in the West, the Middle Ages begins with the downfall of ancient times, which has been lagging for over a few centuries. Here are a few data to choose from where the end of antiquity has been or is determined in the course of the past centuries:

• The division of the Roman Empire in Eastern and Westrom 395 AD (popular approach of older research)
• The removal of the last western Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus 476 AD.
• The defeat of the Syagrius (last independent "Roman" ruler in Gaul) against Franconian King Chlodwig I. 486/87
• Foundation of the first Benedictine monastery (Montecassino Abbey in the Italian Latium) and prohibited from the Platonic Academy (Critical Philosophers School) 529
• Death of the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I, who had banned the philosophers, 565
• Fixed of the Langobards in Italy 568
• Start of Islamic expansion 632

The last three events refer to the end of ancient times more accurately; For the eastern part of the Roman Empire, older research also considered the start of Islamic conquests as the end of ancient times/beginning of the Middle Ages.

Overall, the beginning of the Middle Ages somewhere between 500 and 700 AD . If you look at the western culture above all how the traditional (western) art history does it, the Middle Ages is a dark time.

The ancient cultures of the Romans and Greeks so admired by the classic art scientists have been history for a while:

the Greeks lived through a culture (1300 to 300 BC) of flowering culture until a ruler named Alexander (July 20, 356 BC - June 10, 323 BC) opened up to conquer the whole environment. Alexander the big one was called. The sequence of his battles takes a large part of what today's history lessons conveys about this time.

His successors could not agree who was supposed to defend the Greek Empire after Alexander's death against the many enemies he had created. Alexander's "Greek world empire" fell into four partial rich, who dissolved themselves or fell under the rule of the Romans, who is just rising to the great power.

In the Roman Empire it went almost identical: first ruled kings, then came a piece of republic, then emperor, then more and more areas were conquered. Until the huge kingdom fell into Eastern and western electricity, after which it was only downhill, with all the events just mentioned above, at which the end of antiquity is moored.

The Middle Ages followed, a time of war and noise and again war, a rough time in which not only the art culture of antiquity , but also many social achievements. People fought with political unrest and the associated high crime rate, with diseases and cold and with an insufficient income to live adequately.

At that time, people were exploited by the nobility and clergy like people today by unregulated financial groups; If culture, it was the responsibility of the nobility and the church (today it is already going in the direction, the most beautiful paintings in the world are currently disappearing by auction and for six -digit amounts in the increasingly richer rich in the world).

The time between the end of ancient times and the advent of humanism (15th century) is therefore perceived by the later -looking generations as a time of expiry of education and culture : there were hardly any artists among normal people - and therefore hardly free art: what nobility and church wanted had in the least the width of the variation that artists develop in free societies.

This unsafe, arduous and unfree condition continued a whole millennium and thus forms a separate era of art history , which the art scientists divided into different periods :

Early Middle Ages, 5th century until mid -11th centuries, is also mentioned in the history of art history

around 500 - 750 Merovingian art

Includes everything that the Franconian empire produced among the Merovingian kings of art, folk art of the various peoples of the Franconian empire with remains of the artistry of a lost Western Roman Empire.

Examples: Handwritten books, belt buckles and book spines made of metal, painted book illustrations (especially animals)

750–900 Carolingian art

In 748 Charlemagne born, in 768 he was the king of the Franconian empire and 800 emperors. Charlemagne wanted a satisfied and powerful society. He supported education and knew how important art and culture are for the intellectual navigation of a people; He wanted a cultural revival of the Franconian Empire. What he succeeded today we call "Carolingian Renaissance" . The art of this Renaissance (French: rebirth) traces late antique-Christian and Byzantine traditions in culture and art.

Examples: Godescalc Evangeliar (magnificent manuscript with gold and silver on purple parchment), the beginning of an outstanding architecture

950-1050: Ottonian art

The Ottons were actually called Ludolfinger and came to the rule with Heinrich I. 919, but because from 936 Otto I. (the Great, 936–973, from 962 Kaiser), Otto II (973–983 Kaiser) and Otto III. (983–1002, from 996 Kaiser) followed, they are just called.

The last Ludolfinger was again a Heinrich (II., Emperor from 1014), but he died in 1024 without heirs. In any case, the Ottonen (interlude: a Konradiner, Konrad I.) from the Karolingers took over the empire and the love of art, with "Ottonian Renaissance" .

Examples: goldsmithing, reliefs in book painting

High Middle Ages, mid -11th century - Mitte 13th century.

1000–1250 Romanesque

Here it becomes more artistically rich, which is why Romanesque in Frühromanik (around 1000–1024) , Hochromanik (1024–1150) and late novelism (1150–1250) is divided.

Examples: concisely visible in the sacral architecture. Romanesque churches show a number of further developments in the early Christian basilicas, which are considered a Romanesque characteristics:

• Grundriss Christian cross, basic size square
• Cross vault or barrel vault
• Massive walls, pillars and columns, round arches on arcades, windows, portals
• Basilica are three -aisled: increased central aisle + two lower aisle.
• Church divided into the main ship as the meeting place of the community and transept as a area for the clergy
• Fresco

1130–1200 early Gothic

Romanesque harbing of Gothic in Germany : 1130 an early Romanesque basilica must give way to the St. Peter cathedral in Worms, which will be built until 1181. The Romanesque Cross of the Master Imervard from 1150 shows a triumphant Christ without a thorn crown and with a strongly overstretched body, which remains typical in Gothic art.

The Gothic begins in France in 1130, and the abbey church of Saint-Denis in France is considered a founding building . The “early English style” begins around 1180, in Germany the Gothic only arrived around 1250. The Limburg Cathedral (construction 1190 to 1235) is a well -known example of the transition from Romanesque to Gothic.

1200–1250 High Gothic

The "typical artistic license plates" of the Gothic are terms that describe architecture. Although the forms of imprint of the Gothic change all genres of art up to handicrafts, the following terms include: bundle pillars, three -storey high -shot walls, facades with one or two towers, window painting instead of fresco, basic size, high rooms, cross -rib vaults, optical resolution of the walls, skeletal construction, pointed arches and decorations such as plastic jewelry, ribs.

Examples: Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris (start of construction 1163, lasted 150 years), also the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Chartres (construction 1194 to 1260) is a magnificent example of French Gothic.

Late Middle Ages (late Gothic), mid -13th century - around 1500

In the sacred building, Hallenkirchen are added with the same high ships and single -nave hall churches, the profan building with town halls and town houses, city gates and fountain increases.

Examples: Hochgrab of the Emperor Heinrich II (973-1024) and his wife Kunigunde (around 980-1033) in the Bamberg Kaiserdom by Tilman Riemenschneider (around 1460–1531), Cologne Cathedral (construction 1248 to 1880, beats with a relaxed 632 years of construction, every endless construction site of our time), Lübeck Marienkirche (from 1250), Marienburg (from 1270, largest brick building in Europe); Painter Giotto (around 1267–1337), Jan van Eyck (1390–1441, "inventor of oil painting"), Rogier van der Weyden (1399–1464, Rogier da La Pasture), Hans Memling (1433/1440–1494).

The late Gothic stretches into modern times, with artists such as Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446, architect and sculptor) and Donatello (around 1386–1466, sculptor) as intellectual preparers of the early, now the following Renaissance - the first section of the 4th epoch of art history, the art of modern times.

The beginning of this modern period is of course just as little in 1500 as the beginning of the Middle Ages in 500, even if it is so practical. Above all, the art lovers who like to read it (most) will insist that modern times started pretty much in 1450. Because this year Johannes Gutenberg set and printed his first books.

By the way: Even if the art history of Romanesque and Gothic is entirely characterized by architecture (we had to catch up as much when the “dark Middle Ages” finally got a little brighter) and the average artist at the time was either paid for by a noble or the church, he had little artistic freedom. Nevertheless, the artists took their freedom, sometimes quite obviously, sometimes hardly to discover.

There are world chronicles that mutate into a kind of science fiction with biblical figures, knights and trojans, there is a painter of venerable pictures of saints in which cucumbers appear again and again, normal, stupid, green cucumber as possible should be tracked down as many of these bizarre, so that art is really fun.

Lina cream

Passionate author with lively art interest

www.kunstplaza.de