Chapter 16
Europe After the Fall of Rome: Early Medieval Art in the West -Notes
Historians once referred to the thousand years (roughly 400-1400) between the
dying Roman Empire’s adoption of Christianity as its official religion and the
rebirth (Renaissance) of interest in classical antiquity as the Dark Ages. Scholars
and lay persons alike thought this long “interval” - between the ancient and what
was perceived as the modern European world - was rough and uncivilized, and
crude and primitive artistically. They viewed these centuries - dubbed the Middle
Ages - as simply a blank between (in the middle of) two great civilizations.
This negative assessment, a legacy of the humanist scholars of Renaissance Italy,
persists today in the retention of the noun Middle Ages and the adjective medieval
to describe this period and its art. The force of tradition dictates that we continue
to use those terms, even though modern scholars long ago ceased to see the art of
medieval Europe as unsophisticated or inferior.
Art historians date the art of the Early Middle Ages from 500 to 1000. Early
medieval civilization in Western Europe represents a fusion of Christianity, the
Greco-Roman heritage, and the cultures of the non-Roman peoples north of the
Alps. Although the Romans called everyone who lived beyond the classical
worlds frontiers “barbarians,” many northerners had risen to prominent positions
within the Roman army and government during the later Roman Empire. Others
established their own areas of rule, sometimes with Rome’s approval, sometimes in
opposition to imperial authority. In time, these non Romans merged with the
citizens of the former northwestern provinces of Rome and slowly developed
political and social institutions that have continued to modern times. Over the
centuries a new order gradually replaced what had been the Roman Empire,
resulting eventually in the foundation of today’s European nations.
The Art of the Warrior Lords
Rome’s power waned in Late Antiquity, armed conflicts and competition for
political authority became common place among the non Roman people of Europe
- Huns, Vandals, Merovingians, Franks, Goths, and others. Once one group
established it self, another often pressed in behind and compelled it to move on.
The Visigoths, for example, who once held northern Italy and formed a kingdom in
southern France, were forced south into Spain under pressure from the Franks, who
had crossed the Rhine River and established themselves firmly in France,
Switzerland, the Netherlands, and parts of Germany. The Ostrogoths moved to
Italy, establishing their kingdom there only to be removed 100 years later by the
Lombards. In the North Anglo Saxons controlled what had been Roman Arian.
Celts inhabited France and parts of the British Isles, including Ireland, the one area
of Western Europe that Roman never colonized. In Scandinavia the great seafaring
Vikings ruled.
Art and Status
Art historians do not know the full range of art and architecture these non Roman
people produced. What has survived is not truly representative and consists almost
exclusively of small “status symbols” - weapons and items of personal adornment
such as bracelets, pendants, and belt buckles that archeologists have discovered in
lavish burials. Earlier scholars, who viewed medieval art through a
Renaissance lens, ignored these “minor arts” because of their small scale,
seemingly utilitarian nature, and abstract ornament, and because the people
who made them rejected the classical idea that that the representation of
organic nature should be the focus of artistic endeavor. In their own time,
these objects, which often display a high degree of technical and stylistic
sophistication, were regarded as treasures. They enhanced the prestige of those
who owned them and testified to the stature of those who were buried with them.
Merovingian Fibulae
Characteristic of the prestige ornaments was the fibula the decorative pins favored
by the Romans and were used to hold together garments of men and women.
Made of bronze, silver, or gold, they were often decorated with inlaid precious and
semi precious stones. Fibulae were symbols of power and prestige. The entire
surface is covered with decorative pattern carefully adjusted to the shape of the
form to describe and amplify it. Often zoomorphic elements were so successfully
integrated into this type of highly disciplined, abstract decorative design that they
became almost unrecognizable. A fish may be discerned in the in the lower half of
the fibulae. The looped forms around the edges are stylized eagle heads.
Burial Ships
In 1939, a treasure laden ship was discovered in a burial mound at Sutton Hoo in
Suffolk, England. It epitomizes the early medieval tradition of burying great lords
with rich furnishings.
Of the rich finds at Sutton Hoo, the most extraordinary is a purse cover decorated
with cloisonné-enamel plaques. The cloisonné technique is documented as far
back as the New Kingdom in Egypt. Metal workers produced cloisonné jewelry by
soldering small strips of metal or cloisons (French for partitions), edge up, to a
metal background, and then filling the compartments with semi precious stones,
pieces of colored glass, or glass paste fired to resemble sparkling jewels. Today
we call this enameling. Cloisonné is a cross between mosaic and stained glass.
On our piece there a four symmetrically arranged groups of figures that make up
the lower row. The end groups consist of a man standing between two beasts. He
is frontal they are in profile. As you should remember this is called a heraldic
grouping and has its roots back in ancient Ur. The arrangement also carried a
powerful contemporary message. It is a pictorial counterpart to the epic saga of the
eras when heroes, such as Beowulf battle and conquer monsters. The two center
groups represent Eagles battling ducks. The convex beaks of the eagles fit against
the concave beaks of the ducks. The two figures fit together so snugly that they
seem to be a single dense abstract design. This is also true of the man beast motif.
Above these figures are three geometric designs. The outer ones are clear and
linear in style. In the central design, there is an interlace of pattern that turns into
writhing animal figures. Elaborate interlace patterns are characteristic of
many times and places, notably in the Islamic world. But the combination of
interlace with animal figures was uncommon outside the realm of the early
medieval warlords. In fact, metal craft with a vocabulary of interlace
patterns and other motifs beautifully integrated with animal form were
without doubt the art of the early Middle Ages in the West. Interest in it was
so great that the colorful effects of jewelry designs were imitated in the
painted decorations of manuscripts, in stone sculpture, in the masonry of
churches, and in sculpture in wood, an especially important medium in Viking
art.
Vikings
In 793 the pagan traders and pirates known as Vikings (named after the viks coves or “trading places” - of the Norwegian shoreline) set sail from Scandinavia
and landed in the British Isles. They destroyed the Christian monastic community
on Lindisfarne Island off the Northumbrian (northeast) coast of England. Shortly
after, these Norsemen (North men) attacked a monastery at Jarrow in England, as
well as one off the coast of Scotland. From this time until the mid 11th century the
Vikings were the terror of Western Europe. From their great ships they seasonally
raided the coasts of the West. Their fast seaworthy longboats took them on wide
ranging voyages, from Ireland to Russia, Iceland and Greenland, and even as far as
Newfoundland in North America, long before Columbus.
The Vikings were intent on colonizing the lands they occupied by conquest. They
were exceptional in organization, administration, and war, enabling them to govern
large areas of Ireland, England, and France, as well as, the Baltic regions and
Russia. For a while in the early 11th century, the whole of England was part of the
Danish empire. When the Vikings settled in northern France in the early 10th
century, their territory became known as Normandy. Those that lived there
became known as Normans. Later, a Norman Duke, William the Conqueror, sailed
across the English Channel and invaded and became the master of Anglo-Saxon
England.
The Art of the Vikings was early associated with their great wooden ships. One
burial ship, found in Oseberg, Norway, was more than 70 feet long and contained
the remains of two women. It size and carved wooden ornament attested to the
greatness of the one buried there. Long ago robbed of its many precious objects,
there still remained some of the carving.
Our example is a wooden animal head post. It combines in one composition the
image of a roaring beast and the deftly controlled and contained pattern of tightly
interwoven animals that writhe, gripping and snapping in serpentine fashion. This
piece is a powerfully expressive example of the union of two fundamental
motifs in the art of the warrior lords of the northern frontiers of the old
Roman Empire - the animal and interlace pattern.
Animal Art on a Church
By the 11th century, much of Scandinavia had become Christian, but Viking
artistic traditions continued. No where is this more evident than in a decoration of
the portal of a stave church (staves are wedge shaped timbers placed vertically), at
Urnes, Norway. The portal and a few staves are all that is preserved of the mid
11th century church. It is preserved because it was incorporated in the walls of a
12th century church. Gracefully elongated animal forms intertwine with flexible
plant stalks and tendrils in spiraling rhythm. The effect of natural growth is
astonishing, yet it has been subjected to the designer’s highly refined abstract
sensibility. This intricate style is the culmination of three centuries of Viking
inventiveness (8th - 11th centuries).
Hiberno - Saxon Art
In 432 St. Patrick established a church in Ireland and began the Christianization of
the Celts. The new converts developed a monastic organization, liturgical
practices, and calendar of holidays different from that of the Church of Rome.
This independence was do partly to the isolated, inaccessible and inhospitable
places that the monasteries were located. These monasteries evangelized England
and Scotland setting up monasteries there. These places later became great centers
of learning and established monasteries in other countries.
A distinct style of art developed within these monasteries that has been called
Hiberno - Saxon (Hiberno was the ancient name of Ireland), or Insular to denote
the Irish English Islands where it was produced. Its most distinctive products were
illuminated manuscripts of the Christian Church. Liturgical books were the
primary vehicles in the effort to Christianize the British Isles. They literally
brought the Word of God to a predominantly illiterate population who regarded the
monks’ sumptuous volumes with awe. Books were scarce, jealously guarded
treasures. Most of them were housed in the libraries and scriptoria (writing
studios) of monasteries or major churches. Illuminated books are the most
important extant monuments of the brilliant artistic culture that flourished in
Ireland and Northumbria during the seventh and eighth centuries.
Carpets and Crosses
The marriage between Christian imagery and the animal lace style of the North
may be seen in the cross inscribed page of the Lindisfarne Gospels. This type of
page is called a carpet page because they resembled textiles. The book produced
in the Northumbrian monastery on Lindisfarne Island (hence the name), contains
several ornamental pages and exemplify Hiberno - Saxon art. According to a later
colophon (an inscription, usually on the last page, providing information regarding
the books manufacture), Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne between 698 and 721
wrote the Lindisfarne Gospels. “for God and Saint Cuthbert” Cuthbert’s relics
recently had been deposited in the Lindisfarne church.
The patterning and detail of our example are very intricate. Serpentine
interlacements of fantastic animals devour each other, curling over and returning to
their writhing elastic shapes. The rhythm of expanding and contracting forms
produces a most vivid effect of motion and change. But it is held in check by the
regularity of the design and by the dominating motif of the inscribed cross. The
cross stabilizes the rhythms of the serpentines and perhaps by contrast with its
heavy immobility, seems to heighten the effect of motion. The illuminator placed
the motifs in detailed symmetries, with inversions, reversals, and repetitions that
must be studied to appreciate their maze like complexity. The zoomorphic forms
intermingle with clusters and knots of line, and the whole design vibrates with
energy. The color is rich yet cool.
Saint Matthew
All the works viewed so far display the Northern artists’ preference for small,
infinitely complex, and painstaking designs. Some exceptions exist. Some
insular manuscripts are clearly based on compositions from classical pictures from
imported Mediterranean books.
In our example, the portrait of Saint Matthew in the Lindisfarne Gospels, The
artist’s model must have been one of the illustrated Gospel books a Christian
missionary brought from Italy to England. Author portraits were familiar features
of Greek and Latin books, and similar representations of seated poets and
philosophers writing or reading about ancient art. Unlike the cross page of the
same book, the Lindisfarne Evangelist portrait follows the long tradition of
Mediterranean manuscript illumination.
Matthew sits in his study composing his account of the life of Christ. A curtain
sets the scene indoors, as in classical art, and his seat is shown at an angle
suggesting the original image employed classical perspective. The painter of
scribe labeled Matthew in a curious combination of Greek (O Agios, saint - written
in Roman rather than Greek characters) and Latin (Mattheus), perhaps to lead the
prestige of the two classical languages to the page. Greek was the language of the
New Testament and Latin the Church of Rome. Matthew is accompanied by his
symbol of a winged man. The figure behind the curtain (actually a disembodied
head and shoulders) has been variously identified as Moses, holding the closed
book of the Old Testament, in contrast with the open book of Matthew’s New
Testament. This was a common juxtaposition in medieval Christian art and
thought.
The artist’s goal was not to copy the model image faithfully. He is uninterested in
the pictorial illusionism of the Classical and Late Antique painting style. He
conceived the subject in terms of line and color exclusively. The drapery folds are
a series of sharp, regularly spaced, curving lines filled in with flat colors. The
painter converted fully modeled forms bathed in light into the linear idiom of
northern art. The result is not an inferior imitation of a Mediterranean prototype
but a vivid new vision of the Evangelist.
Illuminating the Word
The greatest achievement of Hiberno - Saxon art in the eyes of most art historians
is the Book of Kells the most elaborately decorated of the insular Gospel books.
Medieval commentators agreed. One wrote in the Annals of Ulster for the year
1003 that this “great Gospel is the chief relic of the western world.” The Book of
Kells is named after the monastery in southern Ireland that owned it. The
manuscript was probably created for display on a church altar. From an early date
it was housed in an elaborate metalwork box, befitting a greatly revered relic. The
Book of Kells boasts an unprecedented number of full page illuminations,
including carpet pages, evangelist symbols’ portrayals of the Virgin Mary and of
Christ, New Testament narrative scenes, canon tables, and several instances of
monumentalized and embellished words from the Bible.
Our example opens the account of the nativity of Jesus in the Gospel of Saint
Matthew. The initial letters of Christ in Greek (XPI, chi-rho-iota) occupy nearly
the whole page although two words appear at the lower right. Autem (abbreviated
simply as h) and generatio, together read “Now this is how the birth of Christ
came about.” The page corresponds to the opening of Matthew’s Gospel, the
passage read in the church on Christmas Day. The illuminator transformed the
holy words into extraordinarily intricate abstract designs that recall Celtic and
Anglo - Saxon metal work. The cloisonné - like interlace is not purely abstract
pattern, the letter rho for example ends in a human head, and animals are at the
base to the left of h generatio. Half figures of winged angels appear to the left of
chi, accompanying the monogram as if accompanying Christ himself. Close
observation reveals many other human and animal figures.
High Crosses
The preserved art of the early Middle Ages has been confined almost exclusively
to small portable works. The high crosses of Ireland, erected between the 8th and
10th centuries, are exceptional in their mass and scale. Some of these monuments
are more than 20 feet high and preside over burial grounds adjoining the ruins of
monasteries at sites widely distributed throughout the Irish countryside and some
places in England.
The High Cross of Muiredach at Monasterboice, Ireland is one of the largest and
finest examples. An inscription on the bottom of the west face of the shaft asks a
prayer for a man named Muiredach. Most scholars identify him as as the
influential Irish cleric of the same name who was the abbot of Monasterboice and
died in 923. The cross probably marked the abbot’s grave.
The concave arms of Muiredach’s cross are looped by four arcs that form a circle.
The arms expand into squared terminals. The circle intersecting the cross
identifies the type as Celtic. The early high crosses bear abstract designs,
especially the familiar interlace pattern. But the latter ones, like our example, have
figured panels, with scenes from the life of Christ or, occasionally, fantastic
animals or events from the life of some Celtic saint. At the center of the west side
of Muiredach's cross is a depiction of the Crucified Christ. On the east side the
risen Christ stands as a judge of the world, the hope of the dead. Below him the
souls of the dead are being weighed on scales - a theme that sculptors of the 12th
century church portals took up with extraordinary force.
Carolingian Art
On Christmas Day of the year 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charles the Great
(Charlemagne), King of the Franks since 768, as Emperor of Rome (800 - 814). In
time Charlemagne came to be seen as the first Holy (Christian) Roman Emperor, a
title his successors in the West did not formally adopt until the 12th century. Born
in 742 when Northern Europe was still in chaos, Charlemagne consolidated the
Frankish kingdom his father and grandfather bequeathed him and defeated the
Lombards in Italy. He thus united Europe and laid claim to reviving the glory of
the Ancient Roman Empire. He gave his name (Carolus Magnus in Latin) to an
entire era, the Carolingian period.
Charlemagne’s official seal bore the words renovatio imperii Romani (renewal of
the Roman Empire). The Carolingian Renaissance was a remarkable historical
phenomenon, an energetic, brilliant emulation of art, culture, and political ideals of
Early Christian Rome. Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire waxing and waning
for a thousand years and with many hiatuses, existed in central Europe until
Napoleon destroyed it in 1806.
Imperial Imagery Revived
When Charlemagne returned home from his coronation in Rome, he ordered the
transfer of an Equestrian statue of the Ostrogothic King Theodoric from Ravenna
to his palace complex at Aachen Germany. It was used as an inspiration for a ninth
century bronze statuette of a Carolingian Emperor on horseback. Many scholars
believe it is of Charlemagne or his grandson Charles the Bald (840 - 877).
This statuette is much like the statue of Marcus Aurelius, which you should recall,
was preserved because it was thought to be Constantine the first Christian Roman
Emperor. Because of this it was not melted down as were most other portraits of
pagan Roman Emperors. He is larger than the horse - focusing on the emperor, he
sits rigidly, he wears imperial robes rather than a general’s armor, on his head is a
crown. His outstretched arm holds a globe the symbol of world domination. This
portrait shows the power of the New Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne and
his successors.
The Art of the Book
Charlemagne was a sincere admirer of learning, the arts, and classical culture. He
and his successors and the scholars under their patronage placed a very high value
on books, both sacred and secular, importing many and producing far more. The
Coronation Gospels also known as the Gospel Book of Charlemagne. An old
and probably inaccurate legend says the book was found on Charlemagne’s knees
when in the year 100; Emperor Otto III opened the tomb. The text is written in
gold letters on purple vellum.
The four major full page illuminations show the four Gospel authors at work. Our
example is of Saint Matthew and should be compared to the Lindisfarne portrait.
Instead of flat and linear the technique is illusionistic. Light and shadow create
form rather than line and color. The furnishings are Roman and there is a return to
landscape. This classical revival was one of many components of Charlemagne’s
program to establish Aachen as the capital of a renewed Christian Roman Empire.
Ebbo Gospels
The classicizing style of the Coronation Gospels also suddenly appeared in other
areas of the Carolingian world. Court schools and monasteries employed a wide
variety of styles derived from Late Antique prototypes. Another Saint Matthew
was made for Archbishop Ebbo of Reims, France. It may be an interpretation of
another image. The illustrator in the Ebbo Gospels replaced classical calm and
solidity of the Coronation Gospels with an energy that amounts to frenzy.
Matthew (the winged man in the upper right identifies him) writes in frantic haste.
His hair stand up on end, his eyes open wide, the folds on his robe writhe and
vibrate. The landscape seems alive. The border even depicts action. The
illustrator of the Ebbo Gospels translated a classical prototype into a new
Carolingian vernacular. The master painter brilliantly merged classical
illusionism and the North’s linear tradition.
Bejeweled Books
The sumptuous and portable objects of the medieval warrior lords continued under
Charlemagne and his successors. They commissioned numerous works of costly
materials. Book covers were mad od Gold Jewels and Ivory. The Gold and Gems
not only glorified the Word of God but also evoked heavenly Jerusalem.
One of the most luxurious Carolingian book covers was fashioned in one of the
workshops of the court of Charles the Bald. It was later added to the Lindau
Gospels. This monumental conception depicts a youthful Christ nailed to the
cross surrounded by pearls and jewels that are raised on golden claw feet so they
can catch and reflect the light more brilliantly and protect the gold from denting.
The figure of Christ is beardless and not suffering. In contrast the other figures of
angels, the Virgin Mary and Saint John, and the personifications of the Sun and
Moon are shown with vivacity and nervous energy.
Architecture
Charlemagne also encouraged the use of Roman building techniques. As in
sculpture and painting, innovations made in the reinterpretation of Earlier Roman
Christian sources became fundamental to the subsequent development of northern
European architecture. For his models, Charlemagne went to Rome and Ravenna.
The plan of Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel at Aachen, Germany resembles
that of San Vitale. It is the first vaulted structure of the Middle Ages in the
West. The Aachen plan is simpler and gains greater geometric clarity than San
Vitale. It omits San Vitale's apse like extensions reaching from the central octagon
into the ambulatory.
The Carolingian conversion of a complex and subtle Byzantine prototype into
a building that expresses robust strength and clear architectural articulation
foreshadows the architecture of the 11th and 12th centuries and the style
called Romanesque. So to does the treatment of the Palatine exterior where two
cylindrical towers with spiral staircases flank the entrance portal. This was the
first step toward the great dual - tower facades of churches in the West from the
10th century to the present.
Ottonian Art
Charlemagne’s empire lasted on 30 years after his death. Fighting among the
successors ended with a treaty in 843 caused the empire to be divided into western,
eastern, and central areas, very roughly foreshadowing the later nations of France
and Germany and a third realm corresponding to a long strip of land stretching
from the Netherlands and Belgium to Rome. Intensified Viking incursions in the
West helped bring about the collapse of the Carolingians.
Only in the mid 10th century did the eastern part of the former empire consolidate
under the rule of a new Saxon line of German emperors, called after the names of
its three most famous family members, the Ottonians. The three Ottos made
headway against invaders from the East, and remained free from Viking attacks.
They not only preserved but enriched the Carolingian culture. The Christian
Church, which had become corrupt and disorganized, recovered in the 10th century
under the influence of a great monastic reform encouraged and sanctioned by the
Ottonians, who also cemented ties with Italy and the papacy. By the time the last
of the Ottonian emperors died in the early 11th century, the pagan marauders had
become Christianized and settled, and the monastic reforms had been highly
successful.
The Basilica Transformed
The Ottonians built basilican churches with towering spires and imposing
Westworks. The best preserved 10th century Ottonian basilica is Saint Cyriakus
at Gernrode, Germany. Margrave Gero, the military governor, founded a
monastery on the site in 961. Construction of the church began in the same year.
In the 12th century a large apse replaced the western entrance, but the upper part of
the Westworks remained intact, including the two cylindrical towers. The interior
was heavily restored in the 19th century, but still retains its 10th century character.
The church has a transept at the East with a square choir in front of the apse. The
nave is one of the first in the west to incorporate a gallery between the ground floor
arcade and the clerestory, a design that became very popular in the succeeding
Romanesque era. Scholars have reached no consensus as to the purpose of these
galleries. The nave arcade was also transformed at Gernrode by the adoption of
the alternate support system. Heavy support piers alternate with columns,
dividing the nave into vertical units and mitigating the tunnel like horizontality of
the Early Christian basilica. The division continues into the gallery level, breaking
the rhythm of an all column arcade and leading the eye upward. Later architects
would call this “verticalization” of the basilican nave much further.
Bishop Bernward was one of the great patrons of Ottonian art and architecture.
He was a tutor of Otto III, and builder of the Abby church of Saint Michael at
Hildesheim, Germany. It was constructed between 1001 and 1031. It was rebuilt
after it was bombed in W.W.II. St. Michael's has a double transept plan, tower
groupings, and a Westworks. The two transepts create eastern and western centers
of gravity; the nave seems to be merely a hall that connects them. Lateral
entrances leading into the aisles almost completely lose the basilican orientation
toward the East. Bernward may have seen this variation of Basilican plan when he
visited Rome and saw Trajan’s Forum and his basilica.
Sculpture
Saint Michael’s also has giant bronze (16’ 6” high) doors that depict scenes from
Genesis on the right door and scenes from the Life of Christ on the right. The
doors may have been based on the giant wooden carved doors of Santa Sabina in
Rome which was near the place Bishop Bernward stayed while in Rome. Each
door was cast in a single piece, which was an extraordinary achievement in lost
wax casting. The inspiration for the scenes on the doors may have been
illuminated books. The doors were in a place only monks would have passed
through them.
The door on the left, with scenes from Genesis, begins with the creation of Adam
(at the top) and ending with the murder of Adam and Eve’s son Abel by his brother
Cain (at the bottom). The right door recounts the life of Christ from the bottom up.
It begins with the Annunciation and ends with the appearance to Mary Magdalene
of Christ after the Resurrection. Together the doors tell the story of Original Sin
and ultimate redemption, showing the expulsion from the Garden of Eden and the
path back to Paradise through the Christian Church.
Bishop Bernward also commissioned a bronze spiral column depicting the story of
Jesus’ life in 24 scenes beginning with his baptism and ending with his entry into
Jerusalem. It is preserved intact except for its later capital and missing
surmounting cross. It is reminiscent of Trajan’s column is style with its spiral
register detailing Christ’s life in relief. The scenes on the column are the missing
episodes from the story told on the churches doors.
Monumental Sculpture
The Crucifix commissioned by Archbishop Gero was presented to the Cologne
Cathedral in 970, demonstrates that there was an interest in reviving monumental
sculpture. The image is carved in oak and then painted and gilded; the six foot tall
image of Christ nailed to the cross is both a statue and a reliquary a shrine for
sacred relics). A compartment in the back of the head held a Host. A later story
tells how a crack developed in the wood and was miraculously healed. The Gero
crucifix presents a dramatically different conception of Christ’s Crucifixion than
the bejeweled cover of the Lindau Gospels. Instead of a youthful Christ,
triumphant over death, the bearded Christ of the Cologne Crucifix shows a
suffering Jesus that displays great emotional power. The sculptor depicted Christ’s
humanity. Blood is running down the forehead, the face is contorted in pain and
the body is slumping under its own weight. The muscles are stretched to the point
of almost ripping apart. The halo behind the head alludes to the Resurrection, but
all the viewer can sense is pain. This depiction of suffering would characterize
much art of the Middle Ages.
Illuminated Books
Henry II (1002 - 1024) the last Ottonian emperor commissioned a book of Gospel
readings for the Mass. The book is called the Lectionary of Henry II and was a
gift to the Brandenburg Cathedral. Our example showing the Annunciation to the
Shepherds depicts the angels telling the shepherds of Christ’s birth. The angel has
just alighted on the hill with his wings still beating and the wind of his landing
ignites his draperies. The scene incorporates much of what was at the heart of the
classical tradition, including the rocky landscape setting with grazing animals
common also in Early Christian art. The gold sky shows knowledge of Byzantine
illuminations and mosaics. Emphasized more than the message itself are the
power and majesty of God’s authority.
Imperial Ideal
Otto III is portrayed in a Gospel Book that takes his name. The illuminator
represented the emperor enthroned, holding the scepter and cross inscribed orb that
represent his universal authority, conforming to a tradition dating back to
Constantine. At his sides are clergy representing the church ant the barons
representing the state both aligned in his support. Stylistically remote from
Byzantine art, the picture has clear political resemblance to the Justinian mural at
San Vitale.
Conclusion
The last emperor of the Western Roman Empire died in 476. For centuries
Western Europe, except for the Byzantine Empire’s hold on Ravenna, was home to
competing groups of non-Romans. Constantly on the move, these peoples left
behind monuments small in scale, but often of costly materials, expert
workmanship, and sophisticated design. The permanent centers of artistic culture
in the early Middle Ages were the monasteries that Christian missionaries
established beyond the Alps and across the English Channel. There master
painters illuminated liturgical books in a distinctive style that fused the abstract
and animal lace forms of the native peoples with Christian iconography. When the
Frankish Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of Rome in 800, imperial rule was
reestablished in former Roman provinces. With it came a revival of interest in the
classical style and monumental architecture, a tradition carried on by
Charlemagne’s Carolingian and Ottonian successors.
The ideal of a Christian Roman Empire gave partial unity to Western Europe in the
9th, 10th, and early 11th centuries. To this extent, ancient Rome lived on to the
millennium, culminating with Otto III. The Romanesque period that followed,
however, denied the imperial spirit that had prevailed for centuries - but not the
notion of Western Christendom. A new age was about to begin, and Rome ceased
to be the deciding influence. Europe found unity, rather in a common religious
heritage, and a missionary zeal. By the year 1000, even more remote Iceland had
adopted Christianity. The next task for the kings and church leaders of Europe was
to take up the banner of Christ and attempt to wrest control of the Holy land from
the Muslims.