Art Final Exam Review Ch 15

b

a

e

c

e

d

b

b

c

d

b

b

c

d

b

c

a

d

c

c

e

a

c

The High Middle Ages were was marked by a building boom of churches, and art historians refer to the period of 1050 to 1200 as the Romanesque era for stylistic features reminiscent of ancient Roman architecture including an overall massiveness, thick stone walls, and barrel-vaulted ceilings. The earliest Romanesque pilgrimage church is the Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy, in France. The church has a cross-form plan configured by the nave and the transept. Two square towers flank the entry portal and an octagonal tower marks the intersection of the transept and nave. The round arches of the windows are continued in the interior, which has a barrel-vaulted nave and groin-vaulted aisles. The cathedral at Chartres, France shows the towering quality of Gothic architecture. The unadorned masses of the Romanesque give way to the ornate, linear, vertical elements that direct the eye upward. Flying buttresses line the nave and apse to contain the outward thrust of the walls. The soaring, open interior spaces were created with ribbed vaulting and pointed arches, a departure from the rounded arches of the Romanesque.

The glory of the Gothic Cathedrals is their stained glass windows. The tall, pointed glass mosaic windows allowed for more natural light to illuminate the interiors and bath them with gem-like colors of a mystical light. In addition to the spiritual ambience, they served a didactic purpose as each window told a story in pictures, including some from the Bible, the lives of the saints, signs of the Zodiac, and donors from all aspects of society.

Italian artists Duccio, from Sienna, and his contemporary Giotto, from Florence, were influential in making the shift from art styles of the Middle Ages to the significantly different tyles of the Renaissance. Duccio's tempera on panel Christ Entering Jerusalem displays a departure from the flattened forms of medieval art. Duccio attempted to create believable space in a scene, and employed architecture to define the space and direct the movement. This was Duccio's almost unprecedented contribution using architecture to demarcate space rather than to function as a simple background. Giotto made a more remarkable break with art traditions in The Lamentation, a fresco panel, employing a highly original use of space. His scenes are composed as a stage, and the space in the foreground and background appears to be continuous. Giotto's presentation of the human figure displays rounded, full-bodied people who define the spatial aspect, not architecture as in Duccio's work. Both artists sought a new direction for painting in a more naturalistic, more human, and engaging representation of the physical world.

Sutton Hoo was located on the island of Britain where the grave of an unknown 7th- century East Anglian king was found. One of the objects at the burial site was a gold-and- enamel purse cover with delicately-made designs. The motifs are typical of the animal style, prevalent in the art of northwestern Europe, a legacy from the migratory herdsmen. Animal- style images were accompanied by interlace, patterns formed by intricately interwoven ribbons and bands.

A famous work of Romanesque art is the Bayeux Tapestry. It is embroidery work and resembles a long picture book 20 inches high and 231 feet long. It tells the story of the conquest of England by William of Normandy in 1066. The scene in the text illustrates a group of Anglo-Saxons making a stand on a hill against a Norman cavalry assault. Soldiers and horses tumble spectacularly, and casualties from both sides fill the lower border. Scholars have learned more about the events surrounding the Norman Conquest by studying the Bayeux Tapestry than they have from any of the literature of the time.