- What is gothic art?
- Gothic architecture
- Gothic painting
- Gothic narrative
- Gothic typography
- Romanesque art and Gothic art
We explain what Gothic art was, its manifestations in architecture, painting and differences with Gothic narrative and typography.
What is gothic art?
Gothic art, in its various manifestations (painting, architecture Y sculpture, mainly), it is an artistic style that emerged during the fullness and crisis of the Middle Ages (from the mid-twelfth century to the Renaissance) in different countries of Europe.
The period was characterized by the announcement of the urbanization coming, the bourgeoisie incipient and other features of a time of enormous changes in the West, as was the transition from feudalism to the capitalism. Gothic art was born in France and later spread to the rest of Western Europe, as an evolution of Romanesque art.
The term "Gothic" was coined by Renaissance detractors of this style, who used it as a pejorative term, suggesting that it had been the invention of the barbarian tribes that besieged the Roman Empire, the Goths. This negative view persisted until the 19th century, when a critical reassessment of Gothic architecture took place.
The term "Gothic" has since taken on new meanings.
Gothic architecture
Architecture was the artistic medium of greatest enhancement and originality of the Gothic. The great cathedrals of great height and full of light, were some of its maximum expressions, focused on civil architecture. Furthermore, these new forms evidenced the growing separation of plastic arts (painting, sculpture) of architectural spaces.
The presence of light in these buildings was a mark of style, emphasized by large stained glass and large windows, which fulfilled a certain symbolism: the light of the humanism medieval obscurantism was fading. However, the rest of the structures tended to shed their decoration, moving away from the baroque and seeking the purity of the elements.
Pointed arches were also common, also called pointed arches, which for a long time were considered as the "mark" of Gothic.
Gothic painting
The painting showed religious scenes where emotions were manifested.Properly "Gothic" painting appeared almost 50 years after the style was common in architecture and sculpture. However, later a more somber and emotional style developed, opting for the realism and naturalism, unlike its predecessors, prone to simplification of the image.
The pictorial imaginary tends to still focus on religious or classical figures, but from a much more human perspective, closer to the Renaissance than to the Middle Ages. Thus, it is possible to easily appreciate your emotions, pains and sensations.
On the other hand, progress is being made in terms of perspective and the treatment of supports for painting, which allowed painting to mainly develop work in stained glass windows, miniatures, paintings on tables and in frescoes or murals. Oil painting was not popular yet.
Gothic narrative
The narrative Gothic is a literary movement born in the mid-18th century in England. This literary movement was interested in terror and suspense, in the epistolary style (letters) and in the description, as a way to invoke a greater charge of realism in stories often of a fantastic, scientific-fictional or supernatural type.
However, it is important to note that it is not related to medieval Gothic art, despite what its name suggests.
There is a subgenus known as Novel gothic, related to him Romanticism in his interest in the supernatural or superstitious popular imaginary, and that he yielded to certain needs for exoticism on the part of the western literary public.
The best known representatives of this movement were Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein; Bram Stoker, author of the Dracula; Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, among others.
Gothic typography
The gothic letter or gothic typeface refers to two things, neither related to gothic art. First of all, it alludes to the alphabet created in the 4th century AD. C. by Bishop Ulfilas, who designed it to translate the Bible into language of the Goths, for evangelizing purposes. For this he was inspired by the Greek alphabet, appropriating Latin signs and runic writing.
Secondly, it refers to a typical Middle Ages style of writing, descended from the tiny carolina, and characterized by fracturing the rounded parts of the letters. This typeface was used until the 20th century, especially in central Europe, because it was the one chosen by Johannes Gutemberg for his printing.
Romanesque art and Gothic art
As we said before, the Gothic was born from the modernization and updating of the Romanesque. The latter was predominant in Europe during the 11th and 12th centuries, and was typical of a feudal society, thought of in rural and religious terms.
The Romanesque buildings were dark, due to the lack of windows and openings. They were profusely adorned by sculptures and paintings, representing Christian motifs in a hieratic way, that is, schematically, lack of movement and simplified. The plastic arts They were pursuing a pedagogical purpose, of spreading faith, and not so much decorative or aesthetic.
The Gothic style broke with much of this: the entry of light, symbol of the end of the dark ages, was accompanied by pure and stylized forms, large buildings and many windows and stained glass. Painting and sculpture became more realistic, more mimetic, and less committed to values ecclesiastical.