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Sjsaccomen, Romanesque churches seemed to have a much heavier feeling altogether with their big and blocky forms. The slim and arched structures of the Gothic churches are definitely a lot more attractive in comparison. Kind of interesting comparing the two of these and seeing a similar pattern in our beauty standards for people!
Csayreswoody, reading what the colors represented is a really interesting piece of information. I didn’t realize that they had meanings behind them but it definitely explains why they had so much yellow around Christ and in the image ‘The Archangel Michael Vanquishing the Devil.’ It definitely brings a new perspective to some of the stained glass images. Thank you for including this!
The large stained glass windows in the Gothic churches such as the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis were used to help make the church attendees feel lighter and closer to heaven. As the light came down through the images, it would help them feel like they were entering heaven on earth. The churches would feel huge for anyone that enters with how high their arched ceilings were to accommodate the glass windows which could have also helped make the churchgoers feel like they were in the presence of God with how massive, open, and bright everything was. Abbot Suger’s gorgeous contribution to the Gothic churches was meant to help people feel a lot more connected to their spiritual beliefs.
Although the churches remained large and open for all individuals to come and visit, we see that a lot of wealthy people in the Gothic period began investing in different forms of private devotion. With their wealth and literacy, they were able to get books of hours and moralized bibles that the commoners wouldn’t have been able to understand. Another interesting thing that I noticed looking at this week’s artwork was the fact that a lot of the noble families would also get a stained glass window with their coat of arms. A lot of the stained glass that we saw would usually occur in churches to tell more of the stories, but wealthy families were able to make it more private by getting it in their homes, some of them even changing it so that instead of telling biblical stories it would tell their family’s stories.
Tamara, that’s a really interesting idea that they would have more of a relationship with the Divine. Do you think some of them may have liked having private areas for devotion to show off their wealth and “devotion’ to the faith to make some people feel jealous of it?
Lucas, I think that makes sense! The wealthier people had their own private devotional objects that kept them from having to go to the churches, and the commoners likely never saw these objects so they might not have even realized at the time that the private devotion was a thing. Great post!
Pilgrimages became largely important during the Romanesque period as travelers believed it could heal the person and their soul. Along with that, it was also a way to go and socialize with new people in different classes as well as different cities or countries. To accommodate the large crowds, churches were designed to be bigger with double aisles to allow the travelers to move around the outskirts of the church as to not disturb the Mass that would occur in the center. The Church of Saint Foy is an example of this, with a layout so the pilgrims could enter through one side and go around the church to an area with smaller chapels that held shrines for saints. They would go through these chapels and then exit through another area to help with traffic.
Maggie, that’s really interesting that some would have the bodies of the saints. Getting to travel and see churches with similar architecture and artwork inside of them would be an incredible experience.
Kaitlyn, great points with the doomsday part! I like that you mentioned the images made for weary travelers as well. It’s almost like a reward for them; they traveled so far to be greeted with the images telling them that they’re doing great.
The medieval churches made the biblical stories and parts of history clear for all levels of society by having a combination of the visual stories as well as inscriptions to go along with them. This made it so the rich weren’t the only ones that could understand and appreciate them. The Bayeux Tapestry, though not necessarily religious, is the biggest example of this as it tells history through both means. The Church of St. Lazare was another good example, with its depiction of the Last Judgement over the west door. As mentioned by others, the heavy meaning of the stories is understandable by both the illiterate and literate members of society that view it.
Miranda, the Church of Saint Lazare is a great example — especially the image of Saint Michael weighing souls. Having powerful images along with the inscriptions made it readable regardless of the viewer’s literacy.
Gabe, I like that you mentioned how intertwined religion and politics were in this section. The Bayeux Tapestry is definitely the most noticeable example here, but a lot of people didn’t mention how it had more of a political meaning. Oh, and I looked at the Liber Scivias article too — they really do resemble a Tarot deck!
Tamara, I agree completely with your post! The artwork here does seem to use darker shades than other eras, but they produced some of the best pieces. Celtic knots are still used all over today because their designs look so simple but so intricate.
Jessi, it does make sense when you think of everything they created during the medieval period as a whole rather than just focusing on our specific examples. The Dark Ages is probably heavily referring more toward the tortures they implemented during this time period instead of the art since we do still see some brightly colored images.
The Medieval era isn’t lacking in the cultural production and innovation, I think people just look at some of the basic Christian artworks and assume that’s it. The Viking time frame had some of the best pieces come from it with the Oseberg ship, and Stave churches. I think the term “Dark Ages’ may be coming more from history rather than the art or lack of it. Some of the art pieces do have more muted tones, and the churches are a lot darker in color and on the inside as well compared to the other churches we’ve seen, but that doesn’t seem like enough to really get the “Dark Ages’ name. The time period could’ve led to the destruction of more of their pieces like we saw during the iconoclasm.
