9_5 Architecture And Painting.docx

Early Middle Ages Late Middle Ages Norman or Romanesque style 10661200 (XI-XII)1

doorway

small rounded with concentric rings inside the wall because it was very thick.

The Gothic style Early English style 1201-1300 (XIII)2

Decorated style XIV3

Perpendicular style XV4

pointed arch. Doors in thick walls and concentrical rings.

pointed arch. Doors in thick walls and concentrical rings.

The hood was square.

The principal contribution of the 14th century to the ecclesiastical architecture was the development of the window.

Huge and simple. The large windows had to be subdivided by stone members to keep the glass in place.

If they wanted a simple rectangular door they filled in the arch with a large, semi-circular stones called a tympanum which they decorated with carvings window

very small windows (no glass, only stained glass. Tall thin windows oak shutters) to protect the (lancet window). inhabitants from the cold weather, for security and to avoid the wall 1

This way of building was introduced by the Normans, however, some buildings had been undertaken for communications with the continent. In the early Norman period, building activities split into secular and religious. The secular building were not that important and religious buildings continued to gain importance and size until the Reformation. . 2 Intercourse with the continent of Europe was constant, and new ideas developed there were immediately used home. it was during this period that the ideology of the Church became fully developed. 3 it wasn't very revolutionary on the structure but in elaboration and decoration. 4 Buildings were very elaborated on the inside but very simple on the outside.

collapsing.

A hood was used above the windows to prevent driving rain from running down the face of the building into the window. This gave the idea of coupling the groups of windows together, and finally of punching holes through the blank spaces left between the hood moulding and the lancets. This is called Plate Tracery

(roof) vault

tunnel-shaped ceiling, stone-vaulted roofs with steep roof on top of it.

The increase in availability of glass, assisted the designer to a conception of the window on a scale of size and beauty yet unknown. Window tracery was based on simple geometrical forms, consisting of curved bars of stone all supported on vertical bars or mullions. The elaboration of small arches and pierced shapes into trefoils and quatrefoils followed.

star-like vault. they added rib between ribs and the joints were decorated.

fan vault

Additional ribs were introduced between the main cross ribs and the diagonals. Timber roofs become most highly developed. It is the hammer-beam roof that takes pride of place.

(Westminster Hall) column

Massive cylindrical. usually had no decorations and the ones that did had zig zag or rounded patterns.

Made of stone, not filled with pebbles. The base was very simple. No longer were the simple zigzags and geometric shapes used as they had been. They used a new pattern known as dogtooth, a series of completely hollowed pyramids. They were decorated with completely detached shafts of polished limestone. These shafts were supported with small bonding stones that make the characteristics ‘’rings’’ seen at intervals up their length.

the capital was much more elaborated and decorated. They are taller and more slender. The shafts have now become joined to the parent body of the column to make a cluster of piers.

piers merged together in the shaft

mould columns

wall

thick, flat walls.

Walls are finished so fine as to seem infinitely thin.

arch

rounded

pointed arch

pointed arch

flat-pointed

other features

Massiveness and roundness square towers (they were flat with no pointed ends). These buildings looked solid, but in fact they were very weak (walls and columns were filled with pebbles) To Norman designer the square and the circle were the most important

Nave and Aisles Pinnacles Buttress and flying buttresses gargoyle very tall buildings. Outside the body of the Church no one could write or read, so medieval builders symbolised their religious beliefs in wood and stone,

Building generally became more profuse in decoration, better lit, and more lavish in their proportions.

The keynote of Perpendicular design is that of sophisticated restrain, coupled with a mechanical precision of detailing and proportion (...) Windows are so large that the building is more like a huge glass box held up by fine shafts of stone.

example

shapes. They were very rough in finish

making their churches dramatised representations of their ideals and incorporate NG stories from the Bible in carving and stained-glass.

Ludlow Castle

Lincoln Cathedral

York Cathedral

King's College Chapel

Up to the Black Death most of the buildings were Cathedrals, after BD, Parish Churches and Chapels began to be built. The entrance of these building would always face east. Early english The structural principle of the Early English church is that walls are only built thick enough to withstand the sideway pushing of the arches at those points where the arches join them (...) this means that if the roofing and vaulting thrusts comes between the windows, there the wall is made immensely thick. The thickening of the wall had to be so deep that it became, in fact, a short cross wall that took the thrust along its length. But this sort of buttress is only adjusted to take the thrusts of arches that spring immediately from it. The lightening of large churches and cathedrals complicated the issue, for with so wide a building it is necessary to have more light than could be admitted through side windows. So the center of all big churches is raised up and clerestory windows are punt in. The thrust of the vault of the main roof, however, has now to be somehow transferred across the aisle roof to the supporting buttresses. An arch flung across the gap at an angle was found to be the solution.

These flying buttresses take the weight of the nave roof and vaulting, and pass it downwards and outwards to the buttresses on the outer wall (...) Pinnacles were put on top of the thin buttresses to add extra weight. Another interesting feature of the change from Norman to Early English was the use of the chisel superseding the old axe for stone carving. Perpendicular Style In this period in England there was a return to comparative simplicity and austerity of design. There reasons for this are not very clear. It has been said that the shortage of craftsmen due to the Black Death made for simplification on design, as the former building methods were too difficult. This, even if it be true, can only be a small part of the solution. Some of the earlier works were designed and built in the Perpendicular manner before the Black Death, and after epidemic was over hardly any building was undertaken for some time. After the enforced pause, the new style emerges practically in its only and fully fledged form. One immediate effect of the Black Death was the growth of the change in the farms from arable to pasturage for sheep, as a measure for saving labour. the wool trade was soon booming and a tremendous increase in

trade, marketing, and transport took place. Bridges and town halls, market places and inns were by now being built in great numbers. Yeomen farmers made their fortunes, and many men who had been tied to the land as virtual slaves before were now building their own manor-houses. Although the emancipation of the serfs was not yet complete it was nearly so Great numbers of parish churches ware built and additions to many cathedrals were carried out with the money made from wool. Perpendicular building is unlike any other building form, is very easily recognizable, and is wholly English, The 15th Century builders had a special genius for adding to existing buildings in the new style, harmonising with the old without accepting any of its form or detail. The foundation of many university colleges was an indication of the trends of thought of the time. Learning was rapidly becoming less the exclusive property of the Church. The Renaissance movement was afoot. (Penoyre, J and M. Ryan)

Perpendicular England. Pevsner

A Concise History of English Painting. Gaunt English art takes on in the course of time the complexity and waywardness which are rather to be termed “romantic”. The complexity is in part due to the processes of social and economic change which so clearly separate one period from another; the age of the Tudors from the Middle Ages, the eighteen from the seventeenth century, the nineteenth form the eighteenth, the modern age from that of Queen Victoria. English painting correspondingly proceeds in a fitful fashion. It is usual to regard English painting as beginning with the Tudor period and for this there are several reasons. When Henry VIII abolished Papal authority in England in 1534 and ordered the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536 he automatically brought to an end the tradition of religious art as it had been practised in the Middle Ages and in monastic centres. The break was so complete that painting before and after seem entirely different things, in subject, style, and medium. Yet it is not only because the illuminated manuscripts and devotional wall painting were replaced by secular portraiture the the subjects have been divorced. Medieval painting was not national in the modern sense, and often enough there is no telling whether it was the work of a native or foreign artist.

Ludlow Castle

Norman or Romanesque columns

York Cathedral

Lincoln Cathedral

King's College Chapel

temple church

tower of London

Salisbury Cathedral

Exeter Cathedral

Durham Cathedral

St Albans Cathedral

Winchester Cathedral

Westminster Abbey

Medieval Painting in England The period between the coming of the Normans (1066) until the accession to the throne of Henry is that of medieval painting. Painting was similar all Europe in contrast to Architecture. There were two forms of expressions: ● Murals: They were usually in the walls of churches and they told religious stories for people who couldn´t read. The vast majority of them were white washed during the Reformation. One the remaining murals is in Eton College Chapel is a representation the miracles performed by the Virgin Mary, it survived because it was hidden for more than 400 years behind wood panels.

● Illuminated Manuscripts: In the Early Middle Ages they were of a religious nature, this is so because of the power and money the church possessed and because manuscripts were written in monasteries. In the Late Middle Ages (1200) the rise in universities as centers of learning and an increased urbanization led to a more diverse patronage, which in turn led to the production of a wider range of book types and subjects. In addition, there was an increase in texts written in the vernacular

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and picture books began to be produced. They had a didactic aims and the usual topics were religious stories of Saints, secular life of Kings, courtly love and courtly activities. They were written by hand and had linear and curvilinear designs on the margins They also had squares or rounds with stories depicted inside. the pictures had a flat composition (no depth) the decorations made by the illuminator could be in three places, in large initials beginning a passage of text; in the margin; or in partitioned partial or full-page pictures called miniatures.. inks were made with coal or vegetable dyes. they were written on the skin of animals called velum (they took a special process to remove the flesh and hair of dead animals and to have porous surface in which to write). they were decorated with gold and silver (from here comes the name of Illuminated) use of flaming lines They were produced by two people: the scribe and the illuminator

Since the process of production took so long and the materials were very expensive, manuscripts were only available for the members of privileged classes. Books didn´t become available to everybody until the invention of the printing press.