Question

The Medieval style of art and architecture is born when Classical, Christian and Barbarian concepts are fused together. What examples of medieval art and architecture best display this fusion of ideas and forms? Make certain your examples display the influence of all three cultures.

Answer 1

• Medieval art was developed and changed through very long span of time lasting about 1000 years. During this period, several different architectural styles had developed each manifesting different ideological movement in Europe.
• Architectural styles can be divided into Byzantine (500-800), Carolingian -Ottonian (800-1000), Romanesque (1000-1200), Gothic (1200-1400), and Renaissance (1400-1600). Early period of medieval Europe was strongly influenced by Classical Rome and Byzantine, since these two were the core of the medieval civilization.
• Barbarians seldom used stone as their primary building material, and usually this technique was adopted much later time. This is also reason, why early Christian writers in non-Roman nations refer to masonry as Roman way of building.
• The barbarians’ input was the most evident in details, where symbols, animals, flowers, plants, and pagan motif played the most crucial role.
• The Anglo-Saxon, Franks, Slavs, Germans, and Celts, had own unique details, which separated one early Christian nation from another. This concept of fusing different sources together peaked with successful establishment of first truly Christian states which happened most of Europe by 800, and Eastern and Northern Europe by 1000.
• With the rise of Charlemagne’s Frankish Empire, much of the local symbols were disappearing, and the styles become more unified as is evident from Ottonian (950-999) style, which was supported by Benedictine monastic movement.
• When Romanesque architecture was fully established in Europe in a beginning of the second millennium, it was truly unified style influenced by various centers of learning and monasticism. They often like Cistercians, dictate how exactly their monastery must look, and applied it across Europe. Romanesque Era was heavily borrowing on the Roman style than anything else.
• Even Byzantine-Christian art became rarity in Europe and disappeared as the Greek empire succumbed under pressure to tiny state and disappeared from Europe in 1456. From the onset of Romanesque art, no style was using barbaric art anymore.
• The Gothic art is only unique from all architectural style, that it was first and only style that did not borrow from classical era. Renaissance and the others well to modern era are using classical art, style, and symbols without hesitation.
• To look for specific area, style, or mix of the three main contributors, the best locations are churches, monastery, and their manuscripts. Towns were rather small in Early Medieval Europe, poor, and wooden; and the fortified castle system was not developed until Crusades. Some area that had significant meaning in conversion, acceptance of Christianity by miracle, victory of church over paganism, it will be doted with remains of early Christian art.