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Time for the Gothic art posts. We did two on the architecture of the era [click for part 1, click for part 2], now we need to do the fine arts. The problem here is that the architecture is more systematic - a vaulting system with pointed arches and buttresses that is easy to identify. We could lay out the basics, then follow the different forms it takes. The small-scale arts are different. There are consistent tells, but not the same kind of formula that the architecture has. So what we will do is look at some main tendencies and see how they relate to the definition of art we offered in the last post.
Limbourg Brothers, Belles Heures of Jean of France, Duke of Berry, 1405-1409, Ink, tempera, and gold leaf on vellum; 23.8 x 16.8 cm, The Cloisters Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The International Gothic was the late courtly aristocratic form of Gothic art. Bright colors, sinuous lines, and lots of decoration and pageantry - an explosion of Gothic splendor and grace.
Where does this come from? Where does it go? Consider modern church art - what happened to the beauty of holiness?
Quick aside - If you're looking for an occult post, we need to take a little break from depravity and evil. But we can recommend the documentary Out of the Shadows - it has plenty of satanic globalism.
It's strength is in the presentation - if you’ve been in this culture war for a while there aren’t any surprises in it - it's covering well-known territory. But the visual rhetoric is top notch. Good enough that it can actually distract from the message by catching you up in the images. It is probably most effective on those who are still hesitant to believe that mass culture is inverted satanic evil, but worth a watch for anyone. It's free - click for the link.
The visuals are shocking, but they're the satanic globalists’ own images. There is nothing there to “disbelieve”. The strongest points are openly admitting that this is a spiritual/metaphysical battle and pizzagate. You can’t cover it all in one documentary, but this is a nice arrow in the quiver.
Back to the Gothic art. Some earlier posts looked at the connection between the nobility and Gothic art [click for the link]. There we were considering how wealth and power broke down the barrier between religious and secular authority in the West. God's and Caesar's in Biblical terms. Those focused more on society and history than on the art - Abbot Suger and the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis got a lot of attention - but we weren't really systematic. That's what led to the idea of Gothic art posts, except architecture wound up taking up a lot of space. Now we're finally to the art. So think of this as an addendum to the secular and sacred authority posts [click for the second sacred-secular one] - this one actually explaining the images.
Start with some truth. It is impossible to separate art from social, cultural, and economic factors. No matter how badly Moderns want to.
Limbourg brothers, Duke Jean de Berry departing on a pilgrimage, added in 1412 to les Petites Heures du duc de Berry, illumination on parchment, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Latin 18014, f.288v
A duke surrounded by worthies, and dressed in finery for a "humble" pilgrimage. Finely painted for the duke's own prayer book.
Wealth, piety, ritual, and social status are all part of the same identity. The angel watching over it all makes it obvious that there was nothing seen to be the matter with this.
The Duc de Berry is a good example - a brother of the French king and hugely wealthy patron of the arts. The Belles Heures up above and this are two of the beautiful illuminated manusacipts he was famous for.
We pointed this out in the last post and we'll repeat it here. Making art costs money, and the more emphasis a culture puts on art, the more competitive the scene, and the more expensive the top artists. Resources spent on art are not necessary for survival. Subsistence cultures have little in the way of art because there isn't time or energy to support an artist class.
John Linnell, Shepherd Boy Playing a Flute, 1831, oil on panel, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT.
That's an elite artist class. Even subsistence people will have folk arts - musicians and picture-makers of a less refined sort. We're talking art as a potentially lucrative full-time career choice.
No matter how important art is in promoting and preserving culture - and it is critically important - it is not a necessity for life. So there is a luxury dimension to it from the jump. Even folk artists have to wait until they have time to practice their crafts.
There is no way to have advanced art without a client class that controls surplus resources. That's a given. In the West it was the Church and the nobility, gradually giving way to whatever moneyed elites were on top at the moment. But the clients don't have to be soulless globalist monsters. That's just how it developed here.
This is why we had to look at the evolution of the aristocracy through the Middle Ages. To show that this socio-economic system developed historically and wasn't some magical natural order. Society always has to have some kind of organizational structure to give it direction. The notion of classless society is so inherently moronic that anyone seriously entertaining it shouldn't reproduce. The question is what kind of structure?
Federico Andreotti, The Boating Party, late19th-early 20th century, oil on canvas, private collection
Parasitic grazing classes are problems because of the inherent disconnect between those that sap unaccountably and the productive parts of society that have to support them. The parasitic sappers are a net drain - their existence is literally opposite to what is best for an organic culture.
Marcel Brunery, La fête des cardinaux, 20th century, oil on canvas, private collection
Religious "elites" are no better for the same reasons - parasitic unaccountability leads to class interests that are inherently at odds with what is best for the organic society as a whole.
This is worth emphasizing. An elite parasite class is by nature opposite the best interests of the organic society that it leeches off of. It is a counter-productive drain on resources that could strengthen the society responsible for them. It is the path to today's "financial elites" - imagine if the trillions siphoned into the accounts of the non-productive classes had been reinvested in the national interest over the 20th century? Maybe we would have had those flying cars...
Not really, but the lesson is clear:
And we also know that the world is fallen. The notion of an inherent good of man is as empirically retarded as the possibility of a society without leadership. Power corrupts is observed objective reality. What we are interested in are the values that the social order is built on and how they become inverted. Because this the historical information that art will show us. These are the secondary meanings - ideas and values that the art displays because they were implicit where it was made. Cultural thought patterns frozen in time.
So when we look over Gothic art, be aware of what it is telling us. Not just the subject matter, but the underlying values it projects. The secondary meanings. Because humans are also followers, and if something new and innovative seems cool, others will want it. That's how fashion and art movements work, and Gothic art is really the first big cross-Western style since ancient times. It's also how secondary meanings travel.
Holy Thorn Reliquary, 1390s, thorn, sapphire, ruby rock crystal, pearl, gold, enamel, made in Paris for John, Duke of Berry, British Museum
Take the Duke of Berry's Holy Thorn Reliquary, used to hold what was believed to be a relic from the Crown of Thorns. The precious materials and fine craftsmanship are supposed to use beauty and luxury as signs of reverence for the thorn. The magnificence also shows how magnificent the unassuming thorn really is. And the pictures tell the story. Pay attention to the secondary meaning:
The gold and enamel base shows the dead rising to angelic trumpets for the Last Judgment. The Holy Thorn is a Passion relic, so it has symbolic connections to sacrifice and salvation.
The rising dead are saved through the Passion.
Secondary meaning: the angels look like royal court heralds with wings. So aristocratic is associated with heavenly justice.
In the center, Jesus shows his wounds while enthroned with the traditional medieval symbols - rainbow and globe go back to the first Christian centuries. Apostles are around the center panel - all in enamel with gold gilt details.
Secondary meaning - royal version of Jesus is obvious. The huge crystals look like crown jewels. The expense of this thing brings secular and spiritual glory together. They are supposed to be opposite. But "metaphor" muddies them up in people's minds.
The figure of God the Father at the top is the reward redeemed by Jesus' sacrifice. Through his death and resurrection the faithful can pass from mortal death to the kingdom of heaven.
Secondary meaning: He's sitting in a ring of jewels, holding an orb and wearing a royal crown. The image creates a connection between notions of God and king in your head. He's just like the king, only in Heaven!
That's secondary meaning. How something can have a clear symbolic purpose - the Holy Thorn as a revered symbol of salvation - AND tack on extra signals. Here the message tells us that royal governance and aristocratic values were how to picture heaven. It reinforces social relations that the client class - someone like the Duke of Barry - wants to normalize. If you think of kings and court like the divine order of reality, you're less inclined to ask hard questions. Or even really question them at all.
Art makes its bones off secondary meanings.
Tomb of Edward II, 1330-35, Gloucester Cathedral
Like this stunning Gothic tomb for an underwhelming king. Paid for by his son - Edward III - to polish up his father's image. It worked - people treated it like a pilgrimage site.
Why wouldn't they - it looks like a shrine. Buried in a church under this canopy makes the king look like a saint.
Angels hold his head.
This blurs the sacred-secular border from the opposite direction from the reliquary of the Holy Thorn. There, the supernatural was made to resemble worldly kings. Here, worldly kings are made to resemble the supernatural.
The strong associations of holiness makes Gothic architecture a good source of secondary meaning.
We aren't going to recap Gothic architecture - check out the two posts on the topic if you're unfamiliar with the basics. What we will do is point out how the overlapping of the beauty of holiness and the "beauty" of materialism that we saw in the Suger and secular authority posts applies to art in general.
Remember that the Flamboyant Gothic was taken up by elites for secular buildings. Elites like the Duke of Berry...
This is the main salon in the palace of Jean, Duc de Berry - brother of King Charles V of France and a powerful figure in 14th century French politics - in Poitiers. The Duke rebuilt parts of the palace between 1384 and 1386, then had court architect and sculptor Guy de Dammartin redo the private apartments in Flamboyant Gothic.
The end wall of shows this Gothic luxury.
The whole upper part is a mesh of fine Flamboyant open tracery. Church decoration adorning a noble hall. You could say that the church Gothic is on top of the castle style fireplace, so it symbolized sacred over secular. But the whole thing is an aristocratic decoration.
Secondary meanings are often emotions or impressions. The don't have to be logical. They just have to plant an association.
The huge fireplace is the backdrop for what is pretty much a stage, with a gallery up above for musicians. It is all nicely carved, and the Flamboyant tracery behind makes a dazzling backdrop against the light of the big window.
The association - aristocratic privilege and religious authority are symbolized with the same design style. On a more subconscious level? You "learn" to see the two - literally see as in associate the visual appearance of - as the same thing. In modern terms, the authorities all blend together into "the system". Secular and sacred as an imposed social order pretending to be both natural and spiritual, and failing on both counts in practice.
Now imagine hanging tapestries, other works of art, and all the color and costuming of an aristocratic feast.
Limbourg brothers, January, 1412-1416, from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, f.1v, tempera on vellum, Condé Museum
Like this illumination from the Duke of Berry most spectacular book - the Très Riches Heures. The January page shows the Duke in his heraldic golden lilies greeting people for New Year.
There's a chivalric tapestry on the back - the kind of anachronism in the late Middle Ages that we mentioned in an earlier Gothic post.
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So what is Gothic art and how is it different from the architecture?
We've mentioned that the architecture was based on a system, while the art is more a set of tendencies. It's not a stretch to say that Gothic art is just the art that appeared during the era of Gothic architecture. Define it by time span then look for common characteristics, and not try and start with a defining style. We've also seen Gothic architecture developed over quite a long time. Several centuries from the early stuff at St. Denis and Notre-Dame to the late Flamboyant and Perpendicular styles. The art changes over this time too. Consider:
Fortuna turning the Wheel of Fortune, 12th century addition to The Moralia of Job written in Cardeña by the scribe Gomez in 914, Rylands Latin MS 83, University of Manchester
One of the earliest examples of the four-part Latin Wheel of Fortune, with the king rising, at the top, falling, and fallen. It's at the very beginning of the Gothic period and the main features are a very flat and outline-oriented art.
Miniature of the Wheel of Fortune, around 1220, Codex Buranus (Carmina Burana), Bavarian State Library Clm 4660 f. 1r., Munich detail
Gothic art gets more realistic but stays heavily outlined.and flat. It's the same theme of the way Fortune turns - rising, reigning, fallen, and fallen. One day you're down, one day you're up.
Queen Mary Master, Marriage Feast at Cana, 1320, from a psalter, British Museum, MS Royal 2 B VII f. 168v, London
A century later and we have this era - you've all seen stuff like this. The figures seem more alive, but they are still very heavily outlined and flat. We see the famous Gothic gracefulness - the lines are all swooping curves and recurves or S-shapes. It's very rhythmic, stylized and surface-level.
Limbourg brothers, The Temptation of Christ from the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, f. 161v., between 1411 and 1416, tempera on vellum, Condé Museum MS 65, f.161v
The late International Gothic of the 14th and 15th centuries is more real and more aristocratic in beauty and magnificence. It's still linear, and flat - considering how much background is shown. Look past the bright colors - you still have the sinuous curving lines.
Just four paintings, but covering three centuries with a lot of differences. But you can see how flatness and a linear, outline-oriented style are general traits. And that doesn't even look at other arts like sculpture
Claus Sluter. Well of Moses, 1395-1406, Centre hospitalier spécialisé de Dijon
Hence the need to stick to basic tendencies.
The first one is that there weren't "artists" in a modern sense. The medievals understood beauty, but the idea that the artist was a sort of poet intellectual worthy of memorializing is a Renaissance thing. Just as the Gothic "architects" were master masons - high end skilled craftsmen - Gothic artists were carvers, painters, weavers, jewelers, glass makers. Medieval people understood beauty and had preferences, so an artist's skill determined their professional success. It's just that there was no cult of the artist. No markets and institutions to assign value to "names".
Pablo Picasso in front of The Kitchen, 1948) in his rue des Grands-Augustins studio. Photo: Herbert List/Magnum Photos
There is certainly nothing like the Modern "artist". A paint splattering hack floating on pretentious blather and institutional perversion. Picasso was the perfect fraud for the fraudulent Modern movement - a self-promoting atavistic cretin with nothing of substance to offer. He's hard to believe even when you know that the institutions of art were twisted into the inverse of truth and beauty. Then you realize how the elite use art to move, clean, and create "wealth".
But the path to this travesty starts with pedestalizing artists as geniuses. They can be, the only thing this hack was genius at was playing the game. The medieval artist sank or swam on the ability to deliver magnificence and beauty. That is, artistic talent.
Because of this, most medieval artists are unknown. A sculptor was no more likely to sign his work than a saddle-maker or potter. If customers liked his work, they would find him, and the notion of international or posthumous reputations was utterly alien.
The second is the complete absence of any retarded notion of autonomy. Rather than lying about the nature of monitized deliberately-chosen vocations like being an artist, medievals seem to have recognized that art is always the product of context and resources. You can't pull these kind of auction numbers for 20th century Modernism and claim cultural autonomy. No, you are deeply implicated in cultural politics and economics. You're just lying.
This means that the values encoded in the art are connected to that context. Gothic art conveys it's main values openly, and the second-order implicit ones aren't hard to pick up on.
The third is a different view of art forms. The notion that painting and sculpture are the main forms of art is another Renaissance thing. Medieval art recognized a lot more media. There is painting - a lot of it in manuscripts - and sculpture eventually reappears, but stained glass, tapestry and textiles, jewelry, and furniture are all important. Plus a lot of sculpture is attached to architecture.
Jean Bondol and Nicholas Bataille for Louis I, the Duke of Anjou, The Apocalypse Tapestry, 1377-1382, Musée de la Tapisserie, Château d'Angers, Angers
Meaning things like this 90 scene version of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelations are pretty much overlooked. Not many survive - this is the oldest big French cycle, with 71 of the original 90 panels. Their size and weight are part of the problem. Tapestry cycles could be enormous - this was originally designed in six 78 x 20 foot sections. But changing values in the art culture are too. Moving into the modern world it's painting and sculpture that get treated as precious art. Tapestry - weaving and needlework in general - don't get looked after and preserved the same way.
But you can see how it is divided up into artist-designed panels. The style resembles fine manuscripts and there is even fancy Gothic architecture included.
"Wall hangings" or "rugs" not works of art. Think how different an impression those different wordings make.
The Gothic era had a more flexible notion of art than modern collector and museum-friendly categories. Postmodernism tells us anything can be art, but they have no place for skill or truth. At least the Moderns pretended there was truth value in their trash. The only Postmodern episteme is that there is no episteme. Other than what makes us feel good or advances our larger interests. Both hate the idea of skill and it's appeal.
The fourth is the historical starting point - the thing that distinguishes the early Gothic from the Romanesque. That's a tendency towards realism.
We've seen how ancient Greek and Roman art tended to be realistic - there is that classical stylistic look to even the Hellenistic stuff, but it is obvious that the figures are supposed to resemble real people and things.
Statue of a fighting Gaul, around 100 BC, Parian marble, found in the Agora of Delos, National Archaeological Museum of Athens
Like this typical Late Hellenistic statue. It's full of action and energy, but the look of it is instantly recognizable as Greco-Roman. The proportions, position and muscles are all part of the realism that their art valued.
We also saw how Medieval art was way more symbolic and stylized. It showed things that were obviously people doing stuff, but making the people look as realistic as possible wasn't important.
The Gero Cross, 965–970, painted oak, Cologne Cathedral
Sculpture was slow to come back in Europe after the fall of the Western Empire. When it does, it's not classical revival, but carved and painted wood. The return of Greco-Roman looking marble would have to wait. This is the one of the oldest surviving large crucifixes in northern Europe. By the 10th century, these were common in churches. The sunburst behind it is 17th century.
This is why medieval and ancient statues look do different. They aren't a continuity, but the end of one tradition and the start of a completely different one.
The Gero Cross is much less realistically accurate than the Fighting Gaul, but that didn't matter. Medieval art had different values and expectations. What mattered was that the message got through. It's obviously a human form, and manner of death and divine status are shown by the cross and halo. It worked to help people understand - as a book for the illiterate as medieval art was often called.
Triumphal Cross, around 960, in the Collegiate church of Sts. Peter and Alexander, Aschaffenburg
Another pre-Romanesque Crucifix getting the message across without much in the way of realism compared to the classics.
Saint Mark writing the Gospel with his symbol, the Lion, 11th century, ivory, Cologne, Germany
Other types of art put message over realism too. This ivory panel shows Mark, his symbolism, and what he did to make him important. There's even a little church-type building on the lower right to show that the Gospels are pillars of the Church.
Everything you'd need to explain who Mark is. But no sense of depth, mass, proportion, or realism.
So when historians were looking at the transition from Romanesque to Gothic architecture and saw what looks like a new interest in making figures realistic, it stood out. If there is to be any Gothic art to go alongside the Gothic architecture, it also has to be distinguishable from what came before. Increasing interest in realistic representations alongside the symbolic message is such a thing. And it is important to emphasize that this rise in realism doesn't take the place of symbolism. It is an addition to it.
Consider three statues of the Madonna. After Crucifixes, altar statues of the Madonna and Child were the next type of statue to reappear in Medieval Europe.
Golden Madonna of Essen, around 980, wood core covered by gold leaf, Essen Cathedral
This is one of the earliest that survives. There is little here that we'd call realistic. The oversized head, wide eyes, golden color, and oddly manlike baby Jesus are all symbolic.
The gold shows these are supernatural beings and would glow in the candlelight on the altar. The adult baby makes the connection with the adult Jesus as God and king of kings. And the large head and eyes makes it easier to make a connection. Big bright eyes don't have to be photo-realistic to seem to stare back at you. This statue is designed to stare back.
Virgin and Child, between 1275–1300, painted ivory, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Jump into the Gothic and see the difference. The figures are more normally proportioned, the clothing hangs more naturally, the baby Jesus at least seems playful like a baby - there's a more natural feeling throughout.
It is still symbolic though. The supernatural has been replaced with worldly court elegance - instead of a glowing apparition, Mary is an elegant queen. Complete with crown. There's a lighter, more graceful feel as well.
Attributed to Claus de Werve, Virgin and Child, around. 1415–17, limestone with paint and gilding, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
Last we have an International Gothic piece from the same Burgundian artistic context that gave us the Limbourg Brothers - they painted the Tres Riches Heures and other works. De Werve worked for the Dukes of Burgundy and the French Crown - he was a leading artist.
Here, the Madonna is still a courtly woman, but the realism is at an even higher level. An extreme example, but a good one to show what we mean my "realism increases".
Take a look at them in a row.
It's easy to spot.
Now, when we look at where Gothic realism comes from, keep these traits in mind. Try and imagine the possibilities of an art that wasn't limited by modern institutions or bogus definitions. This is what our techne + episteme = phronesis formula can look like. Skilled craft channeling the beauty of holiness with logos. And how secondary meanings bring the secular into the sacred.
Interest in realistic figures seems to first appear in cathedral sculpture. The West front of Chartres is known as the Royal Portal for the statues of kings that line the sides of the entrances. These are actually transitional from late Romanesque - some of the last parts to be built of the earlier church on this site - and date to between 1140 and 1155 [click for a link with information and pictures on the portal].
The Royal Portal, around 1140-1150s, Chartres Cathedral
The Royal Portal was incorporated into the famous Gothic cathedral that we've looked at and that replaced the Romanesque version of Chartres starting in 1194. Probably because they weren't that old when the rebuilding started. The figures are really similar to the ones on the Royal Portal of Saint-Denis from Suger's first renovation - before his Gothic choir. They're just a little newer.
These figures are not very real seeming, looking more like columns than people.
They are individualized, but very formulaic all the same. All have the same elongated body with arms positioned the same way and hanging feet.
They are like columns - symbolic columns that hold up authority. The West end of these French churches were associated with Royal power - we saw that in the Saint-Denis posts. So the kings are great symbols because they're Biblical and royal. Their appearances capture the space in between symbolism and realism. Symbolically, they look like part of the architecture, but are carved out enough and with enough individuality to also seem independent.
Earlier Romanesque sculpture was more unreal - full of energy but flatter, less individualization and less presence.
Isaiah and St. Paul from the trumeau from the West portal of Moissac Abbey, 1115-30
Like at Moissac Abbey, where elongated high-energy but expressionless figures blend with the other decoration.
The trumeau the vertical between the doors.
Jamb figures of St. Peter and St. Paul from the West portal of Vézelay Abbey, by 1130
Romanesque carving at Vézelay Abbey is from about the same time as Moissac. Figures here are flattened and hug the surface as they act out stories. They're like a 3D painting.
Stories in relief seem to have caused less stress for the early Middle Ages. Sculpture was slow to come back because of associations with pagan idols. But a 3D picture carved across a building is different from an idol. Idols were stand-alone, so they could be proxies for gods.
The kings at Chartres aren't acting out stories. But they're not just part of the decor either. Look at them in their context, in the right-hand door jamb. Look how integrated they are into the larger assemblege.
Jambs support architecturally and kings support thematically. Royal power is the worldly base for the spiritual world above. The kings are more part of an integrated whole than the Romanesque figures. And they are also more independent individuals than parts of a story. A gallery of solemn watchers as you enter.
More real presence then the Romanesque if not all that realistic.
Now compare these figures to the ones on the transepts. These were part of the Gothic cathedral and carved around 1200-1210. Notice two tendencies happening at the same time - the figures are getting more realistic and more graceful. They're more individualized and natural seeming, with more flowing curving forms.
Like this group from the North transept entrance.
The figures are much more like free-standing statues. Their hands are positioned differently and two appear to be talking with each other. It feels more like a group of individuals than a grout of columns.
What's happening on the cathedral fronts is also happening in smaller-scale work. The Meuse River valley became famous in the early Gothic period for its high-quality metalwork. Smaller metal figures could be more ambitious in pose than the big cylindrical stone ones on the cathedrals, but you can see the same tendencies.
Renier de Huy, Baptismal font, between 1107 and 1118, St. Bartholomew's Church, Liège, Belgium
Early masterpiece of Mosan (from the Meuse Valley) metalwork.
The figures are more animated than the Royal Portal, but that's because metalwork was more advanced and in some ways easier than stone carving. But look at the bland expressions and simple schematic folds on the garments.
If we move around a century or so, we can see Mosan art from just before the transept figures at Chartres. Again, look past the difference materials and scale.
Nicholas of Verdun, Shrine of the Three Kings, 1180-1225, Cologne Cathedral
The overall shape isn't really all that "Gothic" - no pointed arches or pinnacles. We want to look at the figures.
It's covered in gold and gems - think of Abbot Suger and his praise of precious materials in our first Gothic posts. There was a larger move to connect material and spiritual glory.
Look how the magi wear fabrics that fall in many parallel folds made up of ridges and troughs. The Germans called this Muldenstil.
And we see the exact same ridge and groove on the transept portals at Chartres!
This development continues at Amiens Cathedral, with portal sculptures from 1220-1230. The Amiens facade has a Rayonant look, but follows the basic massing of the High Gothic. It's a transitional building architecturally and one of France's most beautiful.
Amiens Cathrdral, 1220-1288.
We don't know much detail about building Amiens because the records were destroyed in a pair of 13th-century fires.
The West front of Amiens also has portal sculpture, but the number of jambs is increased in the deep Rayonant porch. So the crowd of figures is bigger too.
The progression is clear in these. There is no stylized swirling drapery and the curved is minimized for more upright posture. The sense of individuals is greater, as is the realism of their overall presence.
Starting to look like a group of statues.
The final phase in the realism evolution appears with a sculptor known as the Joseph Master at Reims Cathedral around the 1240s and 1250s.
Reims might be the most beautiful of the Gothic cathedrals. The Rayonant gives it flare but there is enough of the High Gothic structure that it's easy to see the underlying order.
There are jamb figures around the portal here too. Here's the West portal being cleaned and renovated, and some of the figures.
The deep portals are unusual for having stained glass tympana above the doors. This panel usually had a relief sculpture.
The statues are a collection of free-standing individuals. They really are - the different styles of sculpture tells us that they weren't all planned together. They were gathered together to populate the portal.
You can see the move from pictures carved on the wall to column-like supports to real figures standing in front of it.
Some of the best-known medieval sculpture appears here. The Annunciation pair on the left were not carved together - the styles are totally different. The angel on the far left is by the Joseph Master and probably between 1245 and 1255. Mary may be closer to 1240. She looks more restrained, like the Amiens figures. The Visitation pair on the right look closer to 1230 by style, with the numerous groove and ridge folds on their robes. All have some degree of graceful curving lines. All were probably installed in the early 1250s.
The "Smiling Angel" is pretty well-known. It wasn't originally part of an Annunciation scene, and it has a partner mounted elsewhere on the portal. The two were likely originally planned as a matched pair that got repurposed.
This is the development of techne serving the beauty of the sacred with joyous grace.
Here are some views. Note the gracefully curving body, the remarkable emotion in the expression, and the monumental garment folds that look almost classical.
Bits of paint are still visible. These were painted, but not maintained.
Cathedral sculpture is caught between two impulses. Gothic architecture is very systematic - it has to be given how vaults and buttresses need perfect balance. And the sculpture is also integrated into a larger schema that expresses a Christian world view. But treating the figures as independent undercuts the thematic integration. In some cases, the architecture turns into a setting for statues.
Modern architecture hates sculptural decoration because of nonsense jargon about purity and autonomous form. Human beings like it because it is interesting to look at and adds meaning.
Claus Sluter and Jean de Marville, Tomb of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, 1390-1406, alabaster, Musée Archéologique, Dijon
Like this tomb of the Duke of Burgundy, with an effigy of him on top and what looks like a Flamboyant Gothic arcade down below.
Architectural sculpture like on the cathedrals will have a huge influence on tombs. They're like mini architecture.
The figures are like a procession of mourners moving in and out of the Gothic architecture. No two are the same, and each communicated sadness at the passing of the duke.
Then there is the Gothic emphasis on grace and beauty - the smooth curving lines put elegance ahead of pure realism.
What is the purpose of this? To make the structures nicer to look at? Wall decoration can do that. It seems that Gothic art was looking for relatability. To use sculpted figures to connect with the viewer and act out their roles. In literary terms, they're moving from a sort of telling to showing - from Romanesque pictures of saints and kings to Gothic presence of saints and kings. They're with you when you enter the cathedral or mourn an aristocrat.
That's how Gothic stone sculpture comes into its own. Artists develop the inherent potential of sculpted decoration into galleries of figures who get more independently "real" over time. Until we get to the point where they almost achieve a life of their own. It has a different path from other types of medieval sculpture - the indoor figures that start appearing a bit earlier. Crucifixes and altar statues, then jewelers' arts. But all the sculpture types share the same big developments. Interest in realism - the appearance of the body, the sense of presence, relatable emotion happens there too.
Crucifix, around 1300, polychromed oak, made in Ile de France, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Filippo Brunelleschi, Crucifix, 1412-13, polychromed wood, Santa Maria Novella, Florence
Just like the altar sculpture we saw, the crucifixes get more real looking too.
Relatability seems to be the factor here too. A realistic Madonna and Child or a realistic Crucifix makes the subject more accessible. Remember that the purpose of Christian art was to convey information and inspire devout feelings. Realistic figures make stronger connections. And in some cases the relatability isn't coming through beauty or realistic bodies, but heightened emotion:
Pietà, village church in Berlin-Tempelhof, ca 1420; Märkisches Museum Berlin
The proportions are wrong and the figures are not beautiful. But the point here is to stir up feelings in whoever is looking. Empathy - relate to the sorrow of Mary and the suffering of Jesus. The large heads help you see the feelings. The disproportionately small Jesus makes him seem more childlike Mary more like the grieving mother. It also connects the pair to the much older and more common Madonna and Child statues around medieval churches.
One thing that stands out here is that different types of Gothic sculpture seem to have different purposes. They don't seem to have a single concept of the "art of sculpture". A small wood picture for devotions and a stone saint on a cathedral wall were made for different reasons relate to the public differently. This makes sense because the medievals weren't retarded enough to believe that a resource-consuming vocation could be socially autonomous. So as they were developing different kinds of sculpture, they were adapting to different contexts.
Same with regional differences. German Gothic art picks up the French innovations like their architecture does, but doesn't copy exactly. Their sculpture tends to look more emotional - even the stone statues.
Pillar of Angels, around 1230, Strasbourg Cathedral
Like this incredible monument where the figures are influenced by the style of Chartres, but are more animated and expressive.
There are the same kind of folds with grooves and ridges as at the transepts at Chartres. But the 'Gothic sway' - that curving movement - is stronger.
More dramatic and more graceful. More emotional.
Bamburg Cathedral has the famous Bamburg Horseman, one of the statues that turns up in all the histories for it's realism - portrait qualities and how independent it is from the architecture.
Bamburg Horseman, probably between 1225 and 1237, Bamburg Cathedral
The first large mounted statue in northern Europe since Roman times. But from totally different sources.
One might ask why a noble is memorialized in a church statue. If they hadn't been paying attention to the blurring of secular and sacred.
And the close-up of the face. See how expressive it is. Many people have thought it was carved after a real live model and not a generic face. This is unknowable.
But where we can really see German Gothic sculpture come into it's own is at Naumburg Cathedral. A lot of the original paint can be seen here - it's a good reminder that painting these things made them look even more real.
Choir screen with the Crucifixion, around 1245, painted stone, Cathedral, Naumburg
This overall view shows how the sculpture was painted so make it more realistic and easier to make out. The ancient Greeks and Romans did the same.
Here's more of a close-up of the Crucifix with the Virgin Mary and St. John the Apostle. See how real the painted figures seem?
Our whole concept of "sculpture" was altered in the Renaissance.
And a close-up of Mary so you can see the emotion on her face - real sorrow over what she's seen. Also how the garments make more sense when the different layers are painted.
Then there is the series of founder statues - a unique group of statues of 12 aristocratic nobles who weren't actually kings or emperors but were involved in founding the Cathedral. None have any other claim to holiness or celebration within a church building - other than the blurring of sacred and secular.
Here they are spread around the interior of the choir:
The idea of founders as supports of the church is not too far from the column statues, but there's nothing Biblical about these guys. They're purely secular aristocrats.
Naumburg Master, Hermann I, Margrave of Meissen and his wife Reglindis, daughter of King Boleslaw I the Brave, around 1240, Naumburg Cathedral
The statues are very real seeming, but were carved around 200 years after the people they depict lived. So they aren't technically portraits.
The Naumburg Master, Ekkehard II, Margrave of Meissen, and his wife Uta von Ballenstedt, known as Uta von Namburg, painted stone, Naumburg Cathedral
It is uncertain if these figures are who they are said to be. The crown on Uta's head would be inappropriate for the wife of a Margrave and daughter of a Count.
Uta was made famous by Disney using her likeness in some seductive inverted trash.
The statue is a masterpiece. You even get a sense of her personality coming through.
For contrast, there's the choir of Cologne. It's later, but it also has a ring of column figures. Only they're not secular noble "founders", they're Jesus and the Apostles.
The high vaults of Cologne and the choir statues. The layout is pretty much identical to Naumburg, just later and in a grander space.
Matthew, Jesus, James the Greater, 1220-1240, painted tufa, Cologne Cathedral
The pigments have darkened with age, but the aristocratic splendor of the robes is still visible. Same with those sinuous, gracefully-curving Gothic forms.
There's even smiling angels, like the ones at Reims.
On the whole, German Gothic sculpture is more energetic and emotional than the French or English.
Moving into the 14th and 15th centuries, stone sculpture blows up on smaller projects like tombs. The Tomb of Edward II of England at the top of this post is a a high-end example with a stunning Gothic canopy. The Duke of Burgundy's tomb we showed is a later example of the kind that first appears in France in the royal necropolis of Saint-Denis in the later 1200s. That is, an effigy laid on the flat top of the tomb. Most of the royal tombs were smashed during the atavism of the French Revolution so the figures we see here are laid our on slabs.
The Royal Necropolis at Saint-Denis introduced the idea of the dynastic burial place. It's not the same as it was before the obscenity of the Revolution, but the collection of royal statues still has impact.
In the foreground - effigies of King Charles V the Wise, who ruled from 1364-1380 and his wife Jeanne of Bourbon.
Medieval tomb effigies have a similarity to them - they are stiff and alert - seeming both alive and dead. Many are shown to be praying. They look to be more focused on status than on individualism - showing rank and station, but with generic staring faces not portraits. The idea behind them is probably monuments to the dead that show their hopes for eternal life - keeping them remembered and people praying for them.
Tomb of Dagobert I, 1263-1264, Saint-Denis
7th-century Merovingian king Dagobert got a new tomb in the Royal necropolis in the 13th century. It gets mentioned historically as a sign of rising national identity - creating a more historically impressive line for the French crown.
It also important as a medieval upright tomb that actually survived the Revolution. It shows how Gothic architecture influenced tombs. The pinnacles, finnials, pointed arches and sculpture make it look like a small cathedral.
Blurring those borders with secondary meanings...
Close-up of the Dagobert effigy. The carving is skillful but the face is bland and generic. The crown shows his position and his praying hands his eternal faith.
Direct link between royalty and holiness is now established in the onlooker's mind.
French royal tombs in the later 1200s started adding processions of mourners around the sides of the tomb. The scale was much smaller, but the idea was the same as the sculpture on architecture - decorative figures on a "wall" that gradually get more real and independent.
These figures seem to appear on tombs associated with King Louis IX - the canonized St. Louis, whose long rule ran from 1226 to 1270.
Tomb of Louis de France, d. 1260, Basilique Saint-Denis
Like this one for King St. Louis' eldest son who died at 16 ten years before his father.
The mourner figures are set in the sides like statues on architecture. The figures get more independent and active over time, but it's hard to appreciate given the state of the French tombs. The Dukes of Burgundy's tombs are much better examples of there this goes.
The Tomb of Philip the Bold from above is one of the examples from Burgundy. This duchy was rich and culturally prominent in the 14th and 15th centuries - a center of the International Gothic style and legitimate rival to the kings of France.
Juan de la Huerta and Antoine Le Moiturier, Tomb of John the Fearless and his wife Margaret of Bavaria, 1443-1470, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon
Duke John the Fearless was assassinated in 1419 and it was some time before his son got his tomb underway. It is similar to his own father, Duke Philip the Good, but with an extra effigy for his wife.
The effigies are painted and the little mourner figures can be seen on the sides. The Tomb of Philip the Bold is right behind it.
Here they are from above - the lions are symbols of rulership and the angels at their heads show hopes for salvation.
If the physical remains are in the tomb and the soul is in heaven, then the effigies represent the in-between. The ideal memory of the duke and duchess in eternal prayer.
The duchess and the angels. The face is painted to look real, but the expression is bland and neutral.
The angels hold her arms to identify her by lineage.
These mourners are also based on Philip the Bold's tomb. The fine Gothic tracery makes a fantastic setting for independent figures. It is believed that they might depict real individuals. In any case, each is distinct. t seems that this is where the realism went - if the effigies stay stiff and expressionless, the side figures are where the artist can show their stuff.
England had their royal mausoleum in Westminster Abbey. The tombs have suffered over the years, but not like the French ones at Saint-Denis. The tomb of Edward III from the late 14th century has been altered, but still has the effigy on top and mourners in Gothic arches on the sides.
Tomb of Edward III, died in 1377, Westminster Abbey
The bronze effigy has a blank expression and staring eyes.
Edward III was behind the tomb for his father - the ill-fated Edward II. This is the one we opened the post with because it's Gothic canopy is so spectacular.
Tomb of Edward II, 1330-35, Gloucester Cathedral
We don't have the mourners...
...but the blank stare is familiar.
For one more - the Tomb of Edward the Black Prince who died before his father Edward III in 1376
Tomb of Edward the Black Prince, died 1376, Canterbury Cathedral
The prince was a legendary warrior, so his effigy shows him in armor. No mourners on the sides - here his social connections are made by the arms of his ancestry.
And the effigy. The detailed armor is interesting, but the face has that same blank expression. Staring prayerfully into eternity.
Those are the basics of Gothic sculpture and the way it contributes to blurring that line between secular and sacred. It's been a long post, so painting will wait until until next time, but we will point out that the new liberated sculpture that we see in the cathedrals influence the painters of the later Gothic. As for sculpture, we spotted two main lines of development - interior works around the altar like crucifixes, reliquaries, and altar statues, and stone sculpture that starts off as part of the architecture. They come from different places and have different purposes, but they develop in the same direction - towards more realistic, independent presence.
The crucifixes and altar sculpture goes from schematic representations of articles of faith to things that make the figures seem almost present. The architectural sculpture fleshes out and detaches to become another group of almost-presences. Both sets become more aristocratic with elegant curving forms. And because of this, both start to confuse the splendor of holiness with the splendor of royal and aristocratic wealth.
This peaks with the International Gothic:
Tabernacle with Madonna and Child and scenes of the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, Presentation in the Temple, late 14th century, ivory, traces of polychromy, Louvre Museum
A folding triptych was likely designed to be portable. The quality and materials mean this was likely a private devotional object for some noble or royal. In a private room or chapel, the doors could be closed when not in use.
A object like this shows the earlier classification break down. What is it? It is small and mobile like an altar statue, with the traditional subjects of Madonna and Child. But it is set in an architectural niche like a wall or tomb statue. Here is is open. Note the graceful curving form and delicate beauty of Mary and the way she interacts with Jesus like he was an ordinary baby:
Now run this together with Abbot Suger's comments from the Saint-Denis posts. The Saint-Denis posts showed clergy and aristocracy blurring together as a socio-cultural fact. This post lets us actually see it in visual art form. Tombs that look like reliquaries and shrines. Nobles that look like apostles. Saints that look like kings. The superficial meaning is that the ruling classes are pious Christians, supporting the Church with money and faith.
But what is the message that is really being sent?
Heaven is a monarchy and the aristocracy are heavenly.
God and man recast into the same image.
Secular transcendence.
Secondary meanings.
Enguerrand Quarton, Coronation of the Virgin, altar of the Charterhouse of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, 1453-1454, tempera on panel, Pierre de Luxembourg museum
