Medieval Art :: Essays Papers

Medieval Art As far as I have seen through my research of medieval art, it is the art of the glorious days of kingdoms, knights, huge cathederals and wars. Historicians can not give dates for the medieval period but I understood that it is before renaissance at around 16th century, around 14th and 15th centuries but not before the 10th. Same as other art movements it is inevitably result of the events, beliefs and daily life of the period’s nations. Religion was obviously very important at that time. Many paintings are about Jesus, saints and angels. Frescos and carvings on chappels’ and cathederals’ walls and ceilings are still astonishingly detailed and realistic even for the viewer of our time. Architecture in the medieval is exaggurated. Because it is based on expressing the glory of god and the kings, huge buildings, castles and cathederals are ornamented with big arcs, frescos and carvings (Notre Damme in Paris is a good example). Animals such as lions and imaginary beasts like dragons and gargoyles were obviously popular among those times’ architects and artists. I think the key word for the period is â€Å"gothic† and it is based on ornamentation. I know that medieval art is effected by oriental and islamic art and the usage of ornamentation, dragons, miniature-like paintings are proofs for this. Scripts seem to be popular at medieval ages which I came up with several times in my research. They gave lots of information about the ages because they consisted of gothic lettered writings, ornamentations on the edges of papers, small paintings (generally religious and miniature like) and huge, decorated initials. One thing I noticed in most, maybe all, of the paintings is the lack of motion. A position of a figure or a situation was prefered. Figures seemed to be frozen, there is no feeling of act in art pieces. In paintings brush with ink seem to be most popular. Ornamentation, which I refered to in all of the branches of art at the