Gothic And Romanesque Architecture

Two influential art forms that began in the eleventh century and ended in the thirteenth century were Romanesque, and Gothic art. Romanesque art was a revolutionary time period that created architecture and art that would last for hundreds of years. During this time period, architecture improved greatly. This led to advances such as the tympanum, which were highly symbolic and decorative. “Anyone entering the church would notice its decoration” (Brommer and Kohl 232.) The most famous is the Sainte-Madeliene tympanum which is located in the narthex. Here the figure of Christ is shown in the mandorla shape. In Romanesque architecture, churches were built with many features that would be hard to match even in today 's time. One of these features

Before this time period, churches were made out of wood, and fire was always a major concern. Stone was then introduced and while it was fireproof, it was hard to keep build with due to how heavy the material was. As a solution, buttresses were created to support the extraordinarily thick walls. A paradigm of a work of art from the period of Romanesque art would be the Abbey Church of Saint Savin sur Gartempe located in Poitiers, France. Saint Savin sur Gartempe is a perfect representation of a Romanesque work of art because it shows everything that a Romanesque church would have represented. The interior of the church is “noted for its well-preserved mural paintings” (Saint-Savin sur

The new concepts that Gothic architecture presented was the flying buttresses, which eliminated the need for heavy Romanesque walls. Another concept would be the clerestory and the rose window, which were two revolutionary new ways of allowing more light to come in to the church. Another concept introduced was tracery, and it allowed more decorative carving to be done to a stone. An intricate way of vaulting called fan vaulting was also introduced. Another concept that was presented would be cartoon, which was an example of Gothic art rather then architecture. A paradigm of Gothic art would be the Chartres Cathedral because it is “one of the best remaining examples of Gothic construction” (Brommer and Kohl 240.) This cathedral is the perfect representation of a Gothic cathedral. The cathedral, much like the other cathedrals built at the time weren 't built with a certain design but were built with many changes over the course of constructing it. An iconic artist of Gothic period would be Giotto. Giotto “revolutionized painting by reviving the art of working from nature” (Brommer and Kohl 254) which was very important in this time period. In his lifetime he became “a leading center of Renaissance” (Brommer and Kohl