Pelican History of Art
1 total work
The subject of this text is painting in Europe between about A.D. 800 and 1200. At the ouset of the period, there was a danger of art being completely eclipsed from the European scene. By its conclusion, art was completely assimilated into the cultural life-blood of the West. In the period between, Europe witnessed the rise and development of some of the great styles of the Middle Ages: Carolingian art with a splendour of illumination exactly appropriate to an Emperor's court but boasting also drawings of such delicacy and finesse that they have been copared in quality to those of Leonardo: Ottonian art which evinces a self-confident power and authority and which is by no means unconscious of how art could be used for political as well as spiritual purposes: the colourful Mozarabic art of Spain which is given added vigour by its "barbaric" Visigothic antecedent and which reminds us by its preoccupation with the Apocalypse that this was a country still occupied by the Arab Infidel: the art of italy, continually controversial and continually interesting as it struggles from the embrace of the East towards the calls of the West and, in the process, produces many masterpieces.
Finally, in the 12th century, we find an international Romanesque style extending from the Scandinavian countries in the north to Jerusalem and Cyprus in the south. This is a style of trmendous clarity and vitality and one in which the whole of Christian Europe could for the first time find complete expression and identity. In this book, the author deals with all aspects of painting - wall-paintings of manuscripts, and he includes also stained glass windows and even embroidery. Whilst attempting to be as comprehensive as possible, his aim has been to represent the "bone-structure" of the period rather than to confuse by dwelling overmucyh on detail. Many of his ideas are new and a good deal of this book is based on his own researches.
Finally, in the 12th century, we find an international Romanesque style extending from the Scandinavian countries in the north to Jerusalem and Cyprus in the south. This is a style of trmendous clarity and vitality and one in which the whole of Christian Europe could for the first time find complete expression and identity. In this book, the author deals with all aspects of painting - wall-paintings of manuscripts, and he includes also stained glass windows and even embroidery. Whilst attempting to be as comprehensive as possible, his aim has been to represent the "bone-structure" of the period rather than to confuse by dwelling overmucyh on detail. Many of his ideas are new and a good deal of this book is based on his own researches.