Gothic art

Gothic art was a style of medieval art that developed in Northern France out of Romanesque art in the 12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, and much of Northern, Southern and Central Europe, never quite effacing more classical styles in Italy. In the late 14th century, the sophisticated court style of International Gothic developed, which continued to evolve until the late 15th century. In many areas, especially Germany, Late Gothic art continued well into the 16th century, before being subsumed into Renaissance art. Primary media in the Gothic period included sculpture, panel painting, stained glass, fresco and illuminated manuscripts. The easily recognisable shifts in architecture from Romanesque to Gothic, and Gothic to Renaissance styles, are typically used to define the periods in art in all media, although in many ways figurative art developed at a different pace.

The earliest Gothic art was monumental sculpture, on the walls of Cathedrals and abbeys. Christian art was often typological in nature (see Medieval allegory), showing the stories of the New Testament and the Old Testament side by side. Saints' lives were often depicted. Images of the Virgin Mary changed from the Byzantine iconic form to a more human and affectionate mother, cuddling her infant, swaying from her hip, and showing the refined manners of a well-born aristocratic courtly lady.

Secular art came into its own during this period with the rise of cities, foundation of universities, increase in trade, the establishment of a money-based economy and the creation of a bourgeois class who could afford to patronise the arts and commission works, resulting in a proliferation of paintings and illuminated manuscripts. Increased literacy and a growing body of secular vernacular literature encouraged the representation of secular themes in art. With the growth of cities, trade guilds were formed and artists were often required to be members of a painters' guild. As a result, because of better record keeping, more artists are known to us by name in this period than any previous; some artists were even so bold as to sign their names.

Gothic art emerged in Île-de-France, France, in the early 12th century, at the Abbey Church of St Denis built by Abbot Suger. Thomas O'Hagan speculates on Lombard, Frankish and Norse influences feeding into Gothic. Wilhelm Worringer's Form in the Gothic (German: Formprobleme der Gotik, 1911) traces the psychological roots of the style back into the past at least as far as the Migration period.

The style rapidly spread beyond its early manifestations in architecture to sculpture (both monumental and personal in size), to textile art, and to painting, which took a variety of forms, including fresco, stained glass, the illuminated manuscript, and panel painting. Monastic orders, especially the Cistercians and the Carthusians, commissioned many important ecclesiastical buildings, disseminating the style and developing distinctive variants of it across Europe. Regional variations of architecture remained important, even when, by the late-14th century, a coherent universal style — which Louis Courajod (1841–1896) dubbed "International Gothic" — had evolved, which continued until the late-15th century (and beyond in many areas).

Although artists of the Gothic period produced far more secular works than are often known today, generally the survival rate of religious art has been better than for secular equivalents, and a large proportion of the art from the period was religious, whether commissioned by the church or by the laity. Gothic art was often typological in nature, reflecting a belief that the events of the Old Testament pre-figured those of the New, and that this was indeed their main significance. Old and New Testament scenes appeared side-by-side in works like the Speculum Humanae Salvationis of the early-14th century, and in the decoration of churches. The Gothic period coincided with a great resurgence in Marian devotion, in which the visual arts played a major part. Images of the Virgin Mary developed from the Byzantine hieratic types, through the Coronation of the Virgin, to more human and intimate types, and cycles of the Life of the Virgin were very popular. Artists like Giotto (c.  1267 – 1337), Fra Angelico (c.  1395 – 1455) and Pietro Lorenzetti (c.  1280 – 1348) in Italy, and Early Netherlandish painting, all brought realism and more natural humanity to art. Western European artists, and their patrons, became much more confident in innovative iconography, and much more originality developed, although most artists still followed copied formulae.^{[citation needed]}

Iconography was affected by changes in theology, with depictions of the Assumption of Mary gaining ground on the older Death of the Virgin theme, and in devotional practices such as the Devotio Moderna, which produced new treatments of Christ in subjects such as the Man of Sorrows, Pensive Christ and Pietà, which emphasised his human suffering and vulnerability, in a parallel movement to that in depictions of the Virgin. Even in Last Judgements Christ was now usually shown exposing his chest to show the wounds of his Passion. Saints appeared more frequently, and altarpieces showed saints relevant to the particular church or donor in attendance on a Crucifixion or on an enthroned Virgin and Child, or occupying the central space themselves (this usually for works designed for side-chapels). During the Gothic period many ancient iconographical features that originated in New Testament apocrypha — like the midwives at the Nativity — were gradually eliminated under clerical pressure, though others had become too well-established, and were considered harmless.

The word "Gothic" for art was initially used as a synonym for "Barbaric", and was therefore used pejoratively. Its critics saw this type of Medieval art as unrefined and too remote from the aesthetic proportions and shapes of Classical art. Renaissance authors believed that the Sack of Rome by the Gothic tribes in 410 had triggered the demise of the Classical world and all the values they held dear. In the 15th century, various Italian architects and writers complained that the new "barbarian" styles filtering down from north of the Alps posed a similar threat to the classical revival promoted by the early Renaissance.