Download Early Medieval Art:

Early Medieval Art:
Viking, Hiberno-Saxon,
Carolingian, Ottonian
(Dark Ages in Europe
from the Fall of Rome, 475)
Animal Style
Merovingian,
Anglo-Saxon,
Viking
(Hiberno-Saxon)
Common characteristics:
Animal interlace
Gripping beasts
Eye and beak motif
“horror vacui”
Merovingian fibula
Anglo-Saxons
Purse cover from Sutton Hoo ship burial, 625
Gold, glass, enamel cloisonne, garnets, and emeralds.
Cloisonne: Byzantine or Near Eastern technique;
small metal strips (cloisons) set edge-up,
enamel paste (or stones) set in compartments.
Heraldic pose
The Vikings, c.800-1100
Animal head-post, (wood; approximately 5’)
Viking ship burial at Oseberg,825
Stave church portal,
Urnes, Norway 1050-70
Symbolically guarding the church by snapping at
monsters, evil and darkness around the church
Note elegant thick and thin variations, figure eights
Roman and Byzantine-Influenced manuscripts
in Early Medieval Europe;
The dominant form of seeing was barbarian (animal style),
but Roman classical style and prototypes still existed
Hiberno-Saxon Art:
Ireland
5th century – St. Patrick arrives.
By 550, most of Ireland was Christian.
Ireland’s “Golden Age”
Hiberno-Saxon
illuminated manuscripts
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Created in monasteries, in scriptoria
In codex form
Of vellum or parchment
Rulers and compasses used
tempera inks and dyes used to look like jewelry
Beading dots to simulate metalwork
Symmetry
Endless knots, ribbon interlace, and s-modules
Saint Matthew (angel),
Lindisfarne Gospels
698-721. tempera on vellum.
St. Ezra Rewriting the Sacred Records,
Codex Amiatinus.
Copied from an Italian
manuscript by an illuminator
trained in Italy and working
in an Anglo-Saxon monastery.
Prototype for St. Matthew
In the Lindisfarne Gospels
Cross and Carpet Page,
Lindisfarne Gospels,
698-721. Painted by Bishop Eadfrith. 13” x 10”
(In 793, Vikings looted this monastery, their first attack on Britain.)
Chi rho iota page, Book of Kells,
created in Iona, Scotland, about 800.
Tempera on vellum. 1’1” x 9 ½”
(Each page took about one month to complete.
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Codex: 185 calves worth of vellum)
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Chi Rho Iota
h (autem) generatio
St. Matthew,
Book of Kells
St. Luke (oxen)
Roman-influenced
manuscript
The four evangelists
(four gospel writers):
Matthew (angel),
Mark (lion),
Luke (oxen),
John (eagle)
High Cross of Muiredach, Monasterboice, Ireland, 923.
Islamic Art and the West
• Muhammad, founder of Islam, was born c. 570.
• By 710, all of North Africa was under Muslim
control.
• In 711, Muslims entered Spain and controlled
most of southern Spain until 1492.
In 1453, Constantinople was overtaken by
Islamic Ottoman Turks.
Dome of the Rock,
Jerusalem,
687-692
Great Mosque,
Cordoba, Spain,
8th to 10th centuries
Islamic transition from a square to
a circular dome:
A squinch.
Mozarabic Art
Christians living in Arab territories,
especially the Iberian peninsula
scriptorium
Carolingian Art,
Charlemagne,
Holy Roman Emperor
(800-814)
of France and Germany
Restored:
literacy, Latin lettering system,
schools, laws, church building,
monasticism, calendars,
common currency, classical
texts
(4-5 times as many books
survived from Carolingian
libraries than from all Roman
antiquity)
768-877
Charlemagne? Early 9th century. 9 ½”
Saint Matthew,
Coronation Gospels,
Germany. 800-810.
purple stained vellum.
classical approach
Saint Matthew,
Ebbo Gospels,
France.816-835
Expressionistic Carolingian approach; more linear
Utrecht Psalter
Crucifixion,
Lindau Gospels cover
870
Palatine Chapel of Charlemagne,
Aachen, Germany
792-805
Central plan,
Imitating San Vitale, Ravenna
Westwork, Corvey
Ottonian Art
Otto I (936-973)
Otto II (973-983)
Otto III (983-1002)
Henry II (1002-1024)
Nave of St. Cyriakus,
Gernrode, Germany, 961-973
St Michael’s,
Hildesheim, Germany,
1001-1031
St. Michael’s, Hildesheim bronze doors,
Bishop Bernward,1015. 16’6”
Genesis
Life of Christ
Gero Crucifix.
970. painted wood. 6’2”
Annunciation to the Shepherds,
Lectionary of Henry II,
1002-1014
Otto III Enthroned,
Gospel Book of Otto III,
997-1000
On to Romanesque…
High Cross of Muiredach,
Monasterboice, Ireland
Bishop Bernward’s column,
Hildesheim, 1015-1020