Medieval Art
Representation is Change
Medieval Art: from Iconography to Realism
Middle Ages is great era of cathedrals and devotional art, including
monastic art (illuminated manuscripts, etc.)
Key issues in the representation of the human body:
Religious content predominates
First symbolism, then realism, promotes religious devotion
By the Renaissance (~1500), religious imagery is only one aspect of artistic representation—celebration of the human body
Religious content predominates
Religious content predominates artistic representation of body, just as religious worldview is THE worldview of medieval culture
Visual images a major mode of conveying Scripture and producing faith in those who cannot read the Bible (others were mystery plays, etc.)
Debates about iconography
Roman Catholic Church says visual images promote devotion
Eastern Orthodox Church says graven images (iconoclasm)
Pious images win
Religious images
Devotional texts
Psalter of St Louis
1252-70
Illumination on parchment, 21,0 x 14,5 cm
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
Abraham and Isaac
Notre Dame de la Belle VerriereFirst symbolism, then realism, promotes religious devotion
Increasing humanism, realism, and emotional content: bodies and other materials gain dimension and perspective (return to classical emphasis on the human ideal)
From flat, "cut-out" figures in a landscape that was spiritual and symbolic, figures of Christ, etc. became increasingly detailed and realistic, part of the humanization or fleshing out of Christ to promote identification with his suffering and sacrifice
Humanization of Christ in terms of body
Reference to Aristotelian division of matter and spirit; Christ is God incarnate (flesh) through his mother, Mary
Christ’s bleeding wounds and Mary’s nourishing breasts presented as parallel reminders of the body’s significance to the spirit (Jesus described in image and text as nursing mother, as giving birth to the church from his side)
Triptych of Abbot Antonius Tsgrooten
1507
Oil on panel, 33,7 x 25,2 cm (central panel), 34 x 11 cm (each side panel)
Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten,
Key figure: Giotto (1267?-1336/7)
Increasing realism and immediacy of images that are still devotional
Wholes vs. details perceived singly
Limited depth of field makes scene "present"
Coherent grouping of figures creates drama and intensity
The Lamentation
Emotion increased by low center of gravity, inclined figures, descending slope of hillside, frenzy of angels against paralysis of grieving humans
Figures painted from side rather than head-on
Giotto
More Giotto
The Epiphany
c. 1320
Madonna and Child
1320-30
Ognissanti Madonna (Madonna in Maestà)
c. 1310
Stigmatization of St Francis
1300
Scenes from the Life of Christ: 2. Adoration of the Magi (detail)
1304-06
No. 34 Scenes from the Life of Christ: 18. Road to Calvary
1304-06
No. 35 Scenes from the Life of Christ: 19. Crucifixion
1304-06
No. 37
Scenes from the
Life of
Christ:
Resurrection (Noli me tangere)
No. 38 Scenes from the Life of Christ:
Ascension
1304-06
By the Renaissance (~1500), religious imagery is only one aspect of artistic representation—celebration of the human body
Renaissance Art (preview)
To think about:
Not only the bodies of characters like Job, Philoctetes, and Boccaccio’s Florentines but also the bodies of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary were the subject of representations in image and text. The human body’s connections to the Passion of Christ and the beatification of Mary were constantly part of the Medieval world view of the body and gave experience in the body its meaning.
To think about:
The images you saw in the museum are part of the chain of representations of the body that stretches back to classical and medieval art and also includes medical representations such as "wound man."
Form and purpose are intimately connected; communicating the purpose is what determines perspective, balance, "realism," and so on; photorealism is not always the primary purpose.
Artists do not simply render the world as it is but produce our sense of what it means-they change the world in representing it, and how they represent the body is the instrument of change (from Job to James Luna, this holds up), and even "objective" instruments of representation like the MRI, the photograph, the clinical report are always situated somewhere and thus changing as well as representing the meaning of the world.