On the site of a new
cathedral, the master mason would draw up the plans and direct the laborers. Soon
after, everyone set to work with the sculptor directing the whole operation;
the mason arranged the small hand-cut stones between the ribbing to support the
vaulted roof one hundred feet above the floor; a craftsman set colored glass
between lead strips for the windows.
Goth architecture is a
triumph of light, owing much to the glass industry that developed in the
twelfth century. Glass works were built near forests (which supplied wood for
the furnaces), monasteries and cities. By 1373 glass making had become a
prestigious craft and there was a glassworkers’ guild.
Glass manufacturing led
to the art of making stained-glass windows. These windows developed along the
lines recommended by a German monk, Theophillus, author of a technical book
called De diversis artibus (Concerning
various arts). His detailed instructions include descriptions of how to use
a hot iron to cut out colored glass segments, how to insert them into their
lead casings, and, finally, how to achieve the magnificent rose windows and
stained-glass pictures that were the pride of patrons of the bishop. Abbot
Suger, who built the Abbey of St. Denis near Paris and wanted its church to be
the most resplendent in the west, declared that he had sought “with much care…the most subtle and exquisite
masters to make painted windows…which cost much by the excellence and rarity of
the materials of which they were composed.”
But all this richness
and luxury and profusion of color were not to everyone’s taste. In the thirteenth
century the Cistercians (a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns) forbade
the use of stained glass in their simple churches.
For most artists of the
Middle Ages, nothing was too beautiful for the glory of the Lord. Every part of
the Cathedral was symbolic – the building itself was the Cross; the domed or
vaulted roof, the crown of thorns; the choir, the head of Christ; the glow of
the windows, the light of heaven; and the towers represented arms uplifted in
prayer.
Many
cathedrals were decorated with rose windows, circular window with patterns of
interlacing lines. These windows are contained in the stone ribbing and the
lead strips that join the pieces of stained glass. The masterpieces of nameless
craftsmen who worked in the service of the Christian faith, these windows have
a worldly, almost unreal, quality. (La Sainte-Chapelle, 1246 – 1248, Paris).
Music
and Art
Cathedrals, churches,
and monasteries were also the places where music was played and enjoyed. Toward
the end of the sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great had given the human voice
a central role in the religious service, and for a very long time “Gregorian
chant” one of the most moving expressions of Western spirituality. Five
centuries later, in the music schools attached to cathedrals, works with two or
more harmonized melodies were composed. Instrumental music was no longer solely
an accompaniment to the voice. Drums, tambourines, and flutes remained the most
common instruments played in popular music, but in the circles of lords and
monarchs the lyre, the harp, the lute, and the viol (early stringed instrument
played with a curved bow) emerged.
Music was taught at
universities in the quadrivium, part
of the curriculum of the seven liberal arts. It was regarded as a superior
branch of education and knowledge. It was said that he “who does wrong proves
that he does not understand music.” The organ, which had existed since antiquity,
became the chief source of music for religious services in cathedrals. Harmony
was studied and developed and musical notation perfected. In 1320 Philippe de
Vitry published a treatise, Ars nova (New
Art). It described a new way of writing down music, more precise and at the
same time more flexible. Ars nova was
characterized by the poetical quality of its text and the lyricism of its
musical themes, with their intricate top line, more flowing rhythms, and freer
counterpoint. The name “Ars nova” was also applied to the style of music then
in fashion.
In 1360 Guillaume de
Machaut composed the first full polyphonic mass for four voices in this style,
with the instrumental parts alternating with a variety of melodic and
rhythmical themes. This Messe Notre-Dame (Mass
of Our Lady) was one of the works that most influenced the late medieval composers.
Ars nova swiftly spread to Flanders, Florence, and England. Later, it spread to
Germany and Spain.
In the fifteenth
century, royal courts began employing chapel masters. The days of the
troubadours and trouvères, of France,
the English minstrels and the German minnesaengers,
with their songs of love and the glorious past, were over.
The evolution of art
during the Middle Ages provided painters with techniques and subjects for
centuries to come. Roman churches were already decorated with frescoes, and
Byzantine paintings had given the West a taste for icons. But with the
Florentine painter Giotto, the history of modern painting and the age of great
masterpieces truly began. Giotto (1267 – 1337) used light, delicate colors, and
composed simple, beautifully balanced arrangements of figures and masses, using
real men and women as models. In his frescoes he moved on from the symbols
customarily used in painting by introducing a humanistic realism that already
heralded the Renaissance.
In the fourteenth
century the art of painting was highly valued in Italy, which abounded with
artists’ studios. It was in Italy that in 1390 the first technical treatise
appeared, covering all aspects of painting. The author advised on the use of
particular colors in tempers painting: “If blue is to be used and is dark in
hue, add a little glue or the yoke of an egg; but if the blue is pale; choose
the yolk of a dark brown country egg. Mix it well with the pigment. Apply three
or four layers to the material with a silk brush.”
Elsewhere
in Europe, mainly in Flanders, France and Germany, other painters were experimenting
with new techniques and styles. The Flemish painter Jan van Eyck (1422-1441)
was one of the first to use oil. On a wood base primed with white lime, mixing
the pigments with oil made the paint more fluid, enabling artists to correct,
retouch, and make additions. This kind of perfectionism was impossible with
frescoes, which required the colors to be applied very quickly to the wall
before the plaster dried. Painting in oils gave pictures a new luminosity,
transparence, and depth that revolutionized the history of Europe.
At the end of the fourteenth century, Provence in Southern France was an important artistic centre. Numbers of painters came from the north, Burgundy, and Spain to Aix and Avignon, where King René had his court. Around 1460 one of them, Enguerrand Charonton, painted this Pietà on wood. A double curve is formed by the body of Christ and the grief stricken faces of St. John, the Virgin, and Mary Magdalen the intensity of their sorrow makes this work one of the high points of medieval painting. (Pietà of Villeneuve-les-Avignon, Louvre Museum, Paris)
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