Gothic Art and Architecture: Styles and Evolution
Gothic: Sociological Factors
- Change in mentality
- Study of Aristotle, abandoning Platonic ideas, experimentation, and observation
- New religious orders, especially Franciscans, with Saint Francis of Assisi, who retrieved the love of nature and animals
- Gothic joined the Cistercian order, which required no luxuries
- Emergence of the bourgeoisie
Architectural Characteristics
- Predominance of mass
- Vertical dominance
- Disproportionate buildings
- Celestial Jerusalem
- Reassessment of light
- Preference for marble
- Medium-sized stone blocks
Development in Europe
France
Early Gothic: Saint-Denis, Noyon, Soissons, Laon.
Mature Gothic (13th century): Notre Dame, Reims, Amiens, and Chartres.
Notre Dame: Formed by three horizontal parts with porticos and a vertical part. Three central levels of lights and high towers. Windows between 7 and 11 meters. 10-meter diameter rosettes. From the transept, the naves are duplicated laterally. Taller towers with large terraces. Flying buttresses of the Gothic chapel.
Saint-Denis: Glass walls of 17 meters.
Amiens: Style similar to Notre Dame, 106 meters.
Reims: Where the kings of France were crowned.
Chartres: 100% original. The mantle of the Virgin is kept there. Lightning struck, and the cathedral appeared. Stained glass windows were stored during the war to prevent breakage.
14th Century: Albi, with a castle. Example: Jacobins of Toulouse.
Germany
Gothic with a very vertical style. High open spaces. Attempts to standardize windows. Copies of Gothic style. Increased elevation in towers. Examples: Marburg, Freiburg.
England
Three periods:
- Classic Gothic: Large straight apse windows, bell towers. Examples: Salisbury, Durham.
- Decorative Gothic: Acquired its own sinuous tracery, fan vaulting. Example: Wells.
- Vertical Gothic: Only the nave, walls disappear, windows are substituted. Example: Prince Felipe Chapel.
Italy
Very little Gothic influence, applying basic elements: pediments, columns, more human proportions, no mural buttresses. Examples: Santa Croce, Florence Cathedral.
Spain
Cistercians. Full Reconquista. Called to repopulate conquered areas with the Cistercian order. Examples: Monastery of Morenuelo, Cathedral of Cuenca.
13th Century: Maturity, the kingdom has a good economy, three cities: León, Burgos, and Toledo.
León: Spire with three horizontal levels. Lancet facade, separated from León. White towers of the Virgin of the Body, with a Latin cross transept, ambulatory, and ribbed vault. Very luminous.
Burgos: German-style chapels, three naves, aisle, transept, Latin cross plan.
Toledo: Few influences, quite horizontal, clock tower. Five naves, Latin cross, faculty, and a set of flying buttresses.
14th Century: Boom in Catalonia. Salamanca: large starry canopy. Seville: 7 naves, a unique buttress with two counterforts. Segovia: Latin cross plan, aisle, and a cloister.
Catalan Gothic
Originates from the Cistercian order. Examples: Les Monges Vallbona, transition cathedrals like La Seu Vella in Lleida, Tarragona.
14th Century: Gothic without buttresses, predominates the hall plan, great rose windows in the front and apse. Clerestory and some lateral chapels. Example: Barcelona Cathedral: hall plan, the transept does not project, portico on one side and the cloister on the other. Trompes. Octagonal foot pillars with baquetones. Choir, clerestory, lectern, no buttresses, radiating chapels, apse with torque curves and down sections. Altar in the presbytery vault, with a girola. Cloister.
Example: Santa Maria del Mar: mathematical proportion number 13. Eight pillars. Radial chapels, hall plan. Stained glass windows in the facade.
Sculpture Features
- Humanization
- Search for beauty
- Expressions of joy and sorrow
- Personalized figures
- Elegant movements
- Volume, using it to mark mantles
- Many painted sculptures
Novelties: Pulpits, funerary sculpture, porticos on three levels.
Claus Sluter: Tomb figures of Philip the Bold, large portico, the child Madonna Christ with 4 nails, Virgin Mother of God, idealized. The child Virgin smiles, no movement, Marian iconography. 8 sections used. 3 cloves of Christ, suffering, crowned with thorns, one hand and one tablespoon, 2 feet, filled with blood.
Painting Features
- Humanism
- Intense colors
- Intersticial perspective
- Creation of illusory spaces
- Volumetric figures
- Interest in anatomy
- Personification
- Taste for gold
- Interest in luminous effects
- Symmetrical compositions
Four periods:
- Franco-Gothic: Transition from Romanesque to Gothic. Important stained glass windows in chapels.
- Italo-Byzantine: Two regions:
- Sienese School: Tends towards naturalism. Stereotypes. Duccio: The Madonna between saints, with the Virgin child. Lorenzetti: Model of feminine beauty, blonde, red mouth. Example: Allegory of Good and Bad Governance. Simone Martini: Example: Annunciation.
- Florentine School: Cimabue: Follows tradition, includes Byzantine mosaics. Example: Virgin with child. Giotto: Great observation skills, analysis, anatomical description, landscape and urban backgrounds. Example: Lamentation of the Dead Christ, Kiss of Judas.