Civic and Religious Life in an Age of Inquiry

Chapter Six

The Gothic and the Rebirth of NaturalismThe Gothic and the Rebirth of Naturalism

The Gothic Style

• Gothic was originally a derogatory term adopted in sixteenth- century Italy to describe the art of northern Europe, where, it was believed, classical tradition had been destroyed by Germanic invaders, the Goths

• In its own time it was known as opus modernum (modern work) or opus francigenum (French work)

• Gothic represented a new standard of beauty in Western architecture and decoration—intricate stonework soaring ever higher to create lofty interior space, classical models of naturalistic expression, and polyphonic music that was accompanied by a new instrument—the organ

Abbott Suger and the Abbey of Saint-Denis

• Suger began work on the royal Abbey of Saint-Denis in 1137, painting the 300-year-old walls with gold and precious colors

• Next he added twin towers and a triple portal and surrounded the back of the ambulatory with a circular string of chapels, all lit with stained-glass windows

• This light, “by virtue of which,” Suger wrote, “the whole world would shine with the miraculous and uninterrupted light,” proclaimed the new Gothic style

Ambulatory ChoirAbbey Church of Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis, France

1140-44

Moses WindowAbbey Church of Saint-Denis

• The best-preserved of the original stained-glass windows at Saint- Denis

• Moses was a prominent theme at the royal Abbey because his leadership of the Israelites was the model for the French king’s leadership of his people

Chartres Cathedral

• The Cathedral of Notre-Dame at Chartres, located in the heart of France’s grain belt, was the spiritual center of the cult of the Virgin (Notre Dame means “Our Lady”)

• Soon after the first building phase was completed, between 1140 and 1150, pilgrims thronged to the cathedral to pay homage to what the Church claimed was the Virgin’s tunic, worn at Jesus’s birth, believed to possess extraordinary healing powers

• In fact, when a fire in 1194 destroyed the cathedral’s original structure, a few stained-glass windows, including one of the most beautiful, known as Notre-Dame de la Belle Verrière (“Our Lady of the Beautiful Window”) and the tunic of the Virgin survived

West Façade, Chartres Cathedralca. 1134-1220

The different designs of the two towers reflect the Gothic dismissal of Romanesque absolute balance and symmetry as well as the growing refinement of the Gothic style.

Stained Glass

• The innovative engineering that marks Gothic architecture freed the walls of the need to bear the weight of the structure; it also freed the walls to contain glass

• The purpose of the stained-glass programs in all Gothic cathedrals was to tell the stories of the Bible in a compelling way to an audience that was largely illiterate

• The windows were donated by the royal family, the noblemen, and by merchant guilds

Notre-Dame de la Belle VerrièreChartres Cathedral

Central portion, 12th century; surrounding angels, 13th century

Rose Window and LancetsNorth Transept, Chartres, ca. 1150-80

• A rose window is a round window with mullions (framing elements) and traceries extending outward from its center in the manner of a rose’s petals

• It is symbolic of the Virgin Mary in her role as the Mystic Rose—the root plant, it was believed, of the Jesse Tree

The Tree of Jesse WindowChartres, ca. 1150-70

• Jesse trees are a common motif in 12th- and 13th-century manuscripts, murals, sculpture, and stained glass

• Thought to represent the genealogy of Christ, since they depict the Virgin Mary as descended from Jesse, the father of King David

• Jesse trees were important in the cult of the Virgin in establishing Mary’s royal lineage

Gothic Architecture

• Key among the innovations that contributed to the goal of elevating the souls of the worshippers to the spiritual realm was rib vaulting

• Rib vaulting allowed for the massive stonework of Romanesque style to be replaced by an almost lacy play of thin columns and patterns of ribs and windows, all pointing upward in a gravity-defying crescendo that carries the viewer’s gaze toward the heavens

• Chartres’s nave is 120' high, Reims’s nave is 125', and Beauvais’s, the highest, is 157', the equivalent of a 15-story building

Rib Vaulting

• Rib vaults are a form of groin vault

• They are based on the pointed arch, which can reach to a greater height than a rounded arch

• The principles of rib vaulting were known to Romanesque architects, but Gothic architects used these techniques with increasing sophistication

Flying Buttresses

• Flying buttresses extend away from the wall, employing an arch to focus the strength of the buttress’s support at the top of the wall, the section most prone to collapse from the outward pressure of the vaulted ceiling

• They allow for even lighter buttressing and more windows

• They also create a stunning visual spectacle, arching winglike from the building’s side as if defying gravity

Cathedral of Notre-Dame, ParisFlying Buttresses, 1211-90

Gothic Sculpture

• In a little over a hundred years, Gothic sculptors had begun to reintroduce classical principles of sculptural composition into Western art

• The jamb sculptures on the portals at Chartres and Reims mark a distinct advance in the sculptural realization of the human body

• By 1245 to 1255, the sculptures are the most fully human, the most natural since Roman times

Jamb StatuesWest Portal, Chartres Cathedral, 1145-70

• Figures from the Hebrew Bible considered to be precursors of Christ

• Fully rounded and occupy a space in front of the column itself

• Decorative patterns at the bottom are reminiscent of Islamic design in Spain

The Radiant Style

• By the middle of the 13th century, the Gothic style in France had been elaborated into increasingly flamboyant patterns of repeated traceries and ornament that have come to be called the Rayonnant or radiant style

• This style was closely associated with the court of Louis IX (r. 1226-70), considered throughout Europe to be the model of perfect rule

• Because of his insistence on treating people fairly, his abolishment of serfdom and private wars, and his reform of tax structure, he was something of a saint. In fact, the Church later beatified him as Saint Louis

Sainte-Chapelle, ParisInterior, Upper Chapel, 1238-48

Louis’s most important contribution to the Church and to the history of Gothic architecture

Ratio of glass to stone is higher than in any other Gothic structure, bathing its viewer in light

Walls decorated in red, blue, and gilt, with golden stars shining down from the deep blue of the delicately vaulted ceiling

Civic and Religious Life in Siena and Florence

• By the thirteenth century, Italian life and politics were dominated by two prominent city states: Siena, in the mountainous southern region of Tuscany, and Florence, in the region’s richest agricultural district

• Since Charlemagne’s time, the two cities had been fierce rivals. Siena was a Ghibelline city, which sided with the emperor, and Florence was a Guelph stronghold that supported the pope

• Siena and Florence, both republics, were fierce rivals

Central Italy in about 1494, Showing the Republics of Florence and

Siena and the Papal States

Siena

• In 1125 Siena established itself as a free commune (a collective of people gathered together for the common good), giving it an immense advantage over its feudal neighbors

• Its government, as was Florence’s, was controlled by arti, or guilds

• Leading the way in Siena were the merchants, who dealt in wax, pepper, and spices, as well as Flemish cloth, shoes, stockings, and belts

Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Allegory of Good Government: The Effects of

Good Government in the City and CountryFresco, Sala della Pace, Palazzo Publico, 1338-39

Florence

• By the twelfth century, Florence was the center of textile production in the Western world

• The city’s bankers and moneylenders made Florence a vital player in world trade. Florence was Europe’s bank, and its bankers were Europe’s true nobility

• Florentine bankers invented checks, credit, life insurance, and in 1252 introduced Europe’s first single currency, the gold florin

Tuscan Religious Life

• Even though the guilds, associations of people with likeminded, often occupation-based interests, exercised power in the cities, nothing influenced the people more than the Church

• Civic leaders engaged in building projects for the new urban religious orders: the Dominicans, founded by the Spanish monk Dominic de Guzman (ca. 1170-1221), and the Franciscans, founded by St. Francis of Assisi (ca. 1181-1226)

• The Dominicans and Franciscans were both mendicant orders: they neither held property nor engaged in business, relying on community contributions to support them

Franciscan and Dominican ChurchesFlorence

Santa Croce is a Franciscan church built on the eastern side of the city

Santa Maria Novella was commissioned by the Dominicans and was built on the western side of the city, underscoring the rivalry between the two orders

Growing Naturalism in Painting

• Because they put themselves under the protection of the Virgin, Siena and Florence began competing to prove who could paint her more naturally

• One of the first artists to break from the Byzantine tradition was Siena’s Duccio di Buoninsegna

• His Mary has a real body under her robes, and his Christ Child seems to be an actual baby, and a slightly chubby one at that. Mary’s knee especially asserts itself, the drapery, falling in long, gentle curves, much more natural looking than the rigid, angular drapery of earlier Byzantine works

Duccio di Buoninsegna, MaestàTempera and gold on wood, 7' 13' 6¼", 1308-11

Simone Martini’s Maestà

• Martini had worked on the cathedral Maestà as Duccio’s apprentice from 1308 to 1311

• Martini’s Maestà, situated in a public building overlooking the works of civic administration, is even more naturalistic

• The Virgin’s crown signifies her status as Queen of Heaven. Jesus holds a parchment that reads, “Love Justice, you who judge the earth”

• Her porcelain-white skin, tinged with pink, gives her complexion a realistic tone. She embodies a standard of beauty absent in Western art since Classical times—the physical beauty of the flesh as opposed to the divine beauty of the spirit

Simone Martini, MaestàFresco, 25' 31' 9", ca. 1311-17

Cimabue, Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Prophets

Tempera and gold on wood, 11’7 ½” x 7’4”, ca. 1285

• Even before Duccio became active in Siena, Cimabue, the leading painter in Florence, had produced a large-scale virgin for the altarpiece of the Church of Santa Trinità

• Although the Byzantine roots are clear, most important are Cimabue’s concerns for spatial volume and treatment of human figures with naturalistic expressions

• The Virgin’s right foot is propped upon the throne in an almost casual position

Giotto, Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Prophets

Tempera and gold on wood, 10' 8" 6' 8¼", ca. 1310

• According to legend, Cimabue discovered Giotto, a talented shepherd boy, and tutored him in painting. The pupil soon surpassed the teacher

• Giotto’s Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Saints is a remarkable shift toward naturalism

• Colors gradually and continuously blend from light to dark around the contours of his figures and their draperies, recreating the realistic appearance of shadows

Arena Chapel

• Arena Chapel was the family chapel of the Scrovegnis, moneylenders who were known for their flagrant usury. The chapel seems to have been penance for the family’s sins

• Giotto painted virtually every space in the barrel-vaulted chapel with buon fresco, the technique of painting on wet plaster

• He painted with scenes from the life of the Virgin and the life of Christ. These are dramatic paintings—possessing a psychological intensity and emotional immediacy that involve the viewer directly in the scene

Arena Chapel, Padua. The Life of Christ and the Virgin Frescoes

Giotto, 1305-06

• The top of the vault is a starry blue sky, painted with lapis lazuli

• On the back wall above the door is a Last Judgment, showing Enrico Scrovegni, the patron, offering a model of the chapel to the Virgin

Giotto, The LamentationFresco, 78½" 73"

One of the most moving scenes, focusing on the real pain felt by Christ’s followers upon his death, rather than the promise of salvation that is symbolized

Jesus in the left-hand corner shows Giotto’s deliberate abandonment of the balance and symmetry of Byzantine art

Giotto was the first artist since antiquity to depict figures from behind, contributing to the sense of realism

Giotto, Adoration of the MagiFresco, 78½" 73"

• Giotto comes close in rendering the wooden shed in perspective

• Giotto apparently modeled the star after Halley’s Comet, which made one of its regular appearances in 1301

• Giotto had probably never seen a camel; these have blue eyes and cows’ feet

Dante’s Divine Comedy

• The poem, begun in about 1308, records the travels of the Christian soul from Hell to Purgatory and finally to salvation in three books—the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso

• Dante, the leading character in his own poem, is led by the Roman poet Virgil through Hell

• Many of the characters who inhabit his Hell are Florentine political figures. Dante himself was a Guelph, but when the Ghibellines seized control of the city, in 1302 Dante was banned from Florence

Plan of Dante’s Inferno

• Inferno composed of nine descending rings of sinners undergoing punishment, each more gruesome than the one before it

• Among the lowest are the Guelphs and Ghibellines from all over Tuscany who betrayed their cities’ well-being

At the very bottom is Satan chewing on the worst of all traitors—Judas (thought to have betrayed Jesus) and Brutus and Cassius (assassins of Julius Caesar)

Domenico de Michelino, Dante and His Poem

Fresco, Florence Cathedral, 10' 6" 9' 7", 1465

Petrarch (1304-74)

• One of Boccaccio’s best friends was the itinerant scholar and poet Francesco Petrarca, known as Petrarch

• Petrarch rediscovered the forgotten works of the Roman orator and statesman Cicero

• Petrarch’s greatest work was a book of over 300 poems, the Canzoniere (“Songbook”), inspired by his love for Laura

Christine de Pizan (1364-ca. 1430)

• Educated at the French court

• When her husband died, she needed to support three children, a niece, and her mother, so she became the first female professional writer in European history

• In her Book of the City of Ladies, she attacked male misogyny by recounting the accomplishments of women throughout the ages in an allegorical debate between herself, Lady Reason, Lady Rectitude, and Lady Justice