Visual arts of the north of Europe

Overview of Romanesque Art

Christian sculpture and painting of the countries of the North German Lowland and Scandinavia developed very slowly. Of the sculptural monuments of even the middle of the 13th century, almost one timpanum of the northern portal of the Lubeck Cathedral deserves mention. It depicts Christ sitting on a throne, with a halo in the form of a mandorla; A halo is held by two angels, to whose figures a strong, restless movement is given; the clothes of the Savior are draped beautifully, but the forms of the body are motionless and lifeless. How far from this sculpture at the same time did the art of Hildesheim and Magdeburg, Freiberg and Vekselburg! The area of ​​northern painting in this era seems to be a perfect desert. The ancient pagan Scandinavian style survived itself, and the Christian forms of the south of Europe have not yet found access to the north.

Once again glancing over the art of two centuries, which we called the era of the mature Middle Ages, we stop in awe of a number of works of art that are among the most remarkable in the whole world. Architecture in this era dominated over other branches of art and led them. The Romanesque cathedrals, whose majestic appearance was in harmony with their internal architecture, were calm, strictly enclosed structures. Meanwhile, a gradual increase in their size brought to the fore the task of unloading large masses with the help of backwaters. And this constructive need soon gave rise to a new, so-called Gothic style in the north of France, the development of which in most other countries in this era was limited to the development of lighter transitional forms and even in France did not go much further than what the basic spirit of Romanesque architecture did not. Painting and sculpture, closely related to architecture, in the consciousness of their decorative power and deep symbolic meaning, although they did not yet have an understanding of reality, however, they strove more and more for monumentality, and the sculpture, which had lost its monumental dimensions by the beginning of the Romanesque, details, learn from applied plastics.

The basis for forms remained in all countries of classical antiquity, on the one hand, replete with Asian currents and reworked by the Byzantine tradition, on the other - imbued with German elements and transformed by the Western tradition; at the same time, at least, architecture and ornamentation were directly affected by the influence of the artistic forms of the ancient Christian East. Deliberately and deliberately and consciously, architects, painters and sculptors almost did not move away from the ancient foundations, which are clearly visible in the architecture of the Byzantine Empire, Lower Italy, Rome, Tuscany and Southern Italy, while in Upper Italy, Germany, Northern France and England, this basis is often almost completely was gone. Here, of course, transformations and new forms came to the fore, due to the needs and artistic taste of the time, which led to Gothic in the further course of development. Deliberately and consciously figurative arts of the West made almost no distinction between Byzantine and Late Roman forms. Artists took samples that they had on hand; and since the West, especially at the beginning of the 13th century, was inundated with small Byzantine artworks, those details for which the best examples were not found were often borrowed from the latter. But the independent manner in which alien elements were processed in the main European countries, more or less clearly expressed the Western character of works, even if they are not free from Eastern influences. In relation to the Byzantine question, which is no longer of such significance for the subsequent period, we can limit ourselves to this conclusion.

Art and religion in the Romanesque period were still in the closest interaction. The fact that secular art flourished alongside ecclesiastical art, the brilliance of which we can guess rather than judge positively, and that besides religious corporations and secular societies also began to engage in artistic activity, the basic religious nature of art of time. Interest in art itself was then stronger than interest in artists. As in earlier times, in the era of the mature Middle Ages, art was more a product of collective creativity than the work of individual artists. Their names flicker in history somewhere, like stars in the sky; they appear first in Italy, where an interest in individuality was awakened before in the north; but even when the artist appears, we, as a rule, do not know anything about him except his name. Only in the subsequent period the history of art gradually becomes the history of artists again, the course of which, apparently, is ruled by God by gifted masters.