Painting of the Middle Ages (briefly)

The Middle Ages are often called dark and gloomy. This was facilitated by religious wars, acts of the Inquisition, undeveloped medicine. However, the Middle Ages left a lot of cultural monuments worthy of admiration for the descendants. Architecture and sculpture did not stand still: taking in the features of time, they spawned new styles and directions. Together with them, the Middle Ages painting continued unceasingly. About it and will go today speech.

In close cooperation

From the 11th to the 12th century, the Romanesque style prevailed throughout European art. The main expression he received in architecture. For the temples of that time is characterized by three-, less often five-nave structure of the basilica, narrow windows that do not give special illumination. Often the architecture of this period is called gloomy. The Romanesque style in the painting of the Middle Ages was also somewhat stern. Almost completely artistic culture was devoted to religious topics. And the divine deeds were portrayed in a rather menacing manner, corresponding to the spirit of the times. The masters did not set themselves the task of conveying the details of certain events. At the center of their attention was a sacred meaning, so the painting of the Middle Ages, briefly lingering on the details, primarily conveyed a symbolic meaning, distorting the proportions and proportions for this.

Accents

Artists of that time did not know the prospects. On their canvases, the characters are on the same line. However, even with a fleeting glance it is easy to understand which figure in the image is the main one. To establish a clear hierarchy of characters, the masters made some significantly superior to others. Thus, the figure of Christ always rose above the angels, and they, in turn, dominated the common people.

This reception also had a downside: he did not give any special freedom in depicting the background and the background. As a result, the painting of the Middle Ages of that period paid attention only to the main points, without bothering to capture the secondary. The paintings were a kind of scheme, conveying the essence, but not nuances.

Plots

Painting of the European Middle Ages in the Romanesque style abounded with images of fantastic events and characters. Preferences were often given to gloomy stories about the impending punishment of heavenly or monstrous deeds of the enemy of the human race. Scenes from the Apocalypse were widely distributed.

Transition phase

The fine art of the Romanesque period grew into a painting of the early Middle Ages, when, under the pressure of historical events, many of its species practically disappeared and symbolism dominated. Frescos and miniatures XI-XII centuries, expressing the primacy of the spiritual over the material, paved the way for the further development of artistic trends. Painting of that period became an important transitional stage from the gloomy symbolic art of the times of the fall of the Roman Empire and the constant barbaric raids to a new qualitative level that originates in the Gothic era.

Favorable changes

Gothic painting of the Middle Ages owes much to its emergence in the transformation of religious life. Thus, by the beginning of the 13th century almost all the altars were supplemented by an altarpiece, consisting of two or three paintings and depicting scenes from the Holy Scriptures. The production of such works required the master to have a deep understanding of his responsibility to God and the parishioners and at the same time to provide a great scope for using his own craftsmanship.

The expanding order of the Franciscans also indirectly contributed to the development of painting. The charter prescribed a modest life for the followers, and therefore a mosaic did not fit for decorating the monasteries. It was replaced by wall painting.

The ideologue of the order, Francis of Assisi, brought changes not only in religious life, but also in the world view of a medieval man. Guided by his example of a love of life in all its manifestations, artists began to pay more attention to reality. On the art canvases, as before, religious details began to appear details of the situation, written out as carefully as the main characters.

Italian Gothic

Painting of the Middle Ages on the territory of the heiress of the Roman Empire acquired many progressive features early enough. Here lived and worked Cimabue and Duccio, the two founders of visible realism, which until the XX century remained the main trend in the fine arts of Europe. The altar images in their performance often depicted the Madonna and the baby.

Giotto di Bondone, who lived a little later, became famous for paintings that captured quite earthly people. The characters on his canvases seem to be alive. Giotto in many ways outstripped the era and only after a time was recognized as a great dramatic artist.

Frescos

Painting of the Middle Ages was enriched by a new method even in the Romanesque period. Masters began to apply paints over the still wet plaster. This technique was associated with certain difficulties: the artist had to work quickly, writing out the fragment after the fragment in those places where the coating was still wet. But such a method yielded its fruits: the paint, absorbed in the plaster, did not fall off, it became brighter and could remain intact for a very long time.

Perspective

The painting of the Middle Ages of Europe slowly acquired depth. A considerable role in this process was played by the desire to convey the reality in the picture with all its volumes. Slowly, years of honing their skills, the artists were trained to portray the perspective, to give bodies and objects a resemblance to the original.

These attempts are clearly visible in works relating to international or international Gothic, formed by the end of the XIV century. Painting of the Middle Ages of that period had special features: attention to small details, some refinement and sophistication in the transmission of images, attempts to build perspective.

Book miniatures

The characteristic features of the painting of this period are most clearly visible in the small illustrations that adorn the books. Among all the masters of miniatures, the Limburg brothers, who lived at the beginning of the 15th century, deserve a special mention. They worked under the auspices of the Duke of Jean-Berry, who was the younger brother of the King of France, Charles V. One of the most famous works of artists was the "Magnificent Hour of the Duke of Berry". He brought fame to both the brothers and their patron. However, by 1416, when the Limbourg track was lost, it remained incomplete, but the twelve miniatures that the masters had time to write characterize their talent and all the features of the genre.

Qualitative transformation

A little later, in the 30s of the XV century, painting was enriched with a new style, which later had a huge impact on all the fine arts. In Flanders, oil paints were invented. Vegetable oil, mixed with colorants, gave new properties to the composition. The colors became much more saturated and bright. In addition, there was no need to hurry, accompanying the writing of paintings with the help of tempera: the yolk that formed its base dried very quickly. Now the painter could work in a measured manner, paying due attention to all the details. The layers of smears, applied on top of each other, opened up hitherto unknown possibilities for playing color. Oil paints, thus, opened to the masters a whole new, unexplored world.

The famous artist

The founder of the new trend in painting in Flanders is Robert Kampen. However, his achievements were eclipsed by one of the followers, known today to almost everyone who is interested in the fine arts. It was Jan van Eyck. Sometimes the invention of oil paints is attributed to him. Most likely, Jan van Eyck only perfected the already developed technology and successfully applied it. Thanks to his paintings oil paints became popular and in the XV century spread beyond Flanders - to Germany, France and then to Italy.

Jan van Eyck was a magnificent portraitist. The colors on his canvases create that play of light and shadow that so many of his predecessors lacked for the transfer of reality. Among the famous works of the artist "The Madonna of Chancellor Rolen", "The Portrait of the Four Arnolfini". If you look closely at the latter, it becomes clear how much the skill of Jan van Eyck was. That there are only carefully written creases of clothes! However, the main work of the master is the "Ghent Altar", consisting of 24 paintings and depicting more than two hundred figures.

Jan van Eyck is rightfully called the representative of the Early Renaissance rather than the late Middle Ages. The Flemish school as a whole became a kind of intermediate stage, the logical continuation of which was the art of the Renaissance.

Painting of the Middle Ages, briefly illuminated in the article, is a huge and in time and in importance cultural phenomenon. Having passed the way from the tempting but unattainable memories of the greatness of Antiquity to the new discoveries of the Renaissance, she presented the world with a lot of works that to a large extent do not talk about the formation of painting, but about the search for the human mind, its comprehension of its place in the universe and its relationship with nature. The understanding of the depth of the fusion of spirit and body, characteristic of the Renaissance, the significance of humanistic principles and some return to the basic canons of Greek and Roman art will be incomplete without studying the preceding era. It was in the Middle Ages that a sense of the scale of the role of man in the universe arose, so different from the habitual image of a bug, whose fate is completely dominated by the terrible god.