Gothic Art

Early Christian Art
Byzantine Art
Romanesque Art
Medieval Art

Gothic Art

Introduction

Gothic is the name given by scholars to the art of the Late Middle Ages in Northern Europe. In architecture the flying buttress type cathedrals were first built where the structual strains of the arches are transmitted outside the building allowing large open vaulted interiors without pillars in the building.

There is gallery devoted to the Gothic Cathedral, visit it to see more.

Fourteenth Century (1301-1400 )

Duccio

born: Siena, Republic of Siena [now Italy]; about 1260
died: Siena [now Italy]; c. 1318

Duccio is considered of the greatest Italian painters of the Middle Ages and the founder of the Sienese school.

Other Works:

• Madonna and Child Enthroned with six Angels (Madonna Rucellai or Maestà of the Laudesi), 1285, Galleria degli Uffici, Florence, Italy
• Window Showing the life of Mary (Vetrata con Storie di Maria),c. 1287-88, Stained Glass, Siena Cathedral, Siena, Italy
• The Virgin and Child with Saints, c.1300,National Gallery, London, England
• Maestà,1288-1300, Kunstmuseum, Bern, Switzerland
• Madonna of the Franciscans, c. 1300, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena
• Madonna and Child with Six Angels,1300-05, Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, Perugia, Italy
• The Resurrection of Lazarus,1311, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, USA

Giotto di Bondone

born: Vespignano, near Florence [Italy]; 1266–67 or maybe 1276,
died: Florence: Jan. 8, 1337

Giotto was the most important Italian painter of the 14th century, whose works point to the innovations of the Renaissance style that developed a century later. For almost seven centuries Giotto has been revered as the father of European painting and the first of the great Italianmasters. He is believed to have been a pupil of the Florentine painter Cimabue and to have decorated chapels in Assisi, Rome, Padua, Florence, and Naples with frescoes and panel paintings in tempera. Because little of his life and few of his works are documented, attributions and a stylistic chronology of his paintings remain problematic and often highly speculative.

Fifteenth Century (1401 - 1500)

Gentile Da Fabriano

Niccolo Di Giovanni Di Massio

born: Fabriano, Papal States [Italy]; c. 1370,
died: Rome [Italy]; 1427

Fabriano was the foremost painter of central Italy at the beginning of the 15th century. His few surviving works are great examples of the International Gothic style.

It is possible he was trained in the Lombard school. In 1409 Gentile was commissioned to decorate the Doges' Palace in Venice with historical frescoes, which were later completed by Il Pisanello. In 1414–19 Gentile was in Brescia working for Pandolfo III Malatesta. His final important cycle of frescoes was begun in Rome in the Church of St. John Lateran shortly before his death. As with the frescoes in Venice, they were completed by Il Pisanello.

Other Artists

Limburg Brothers

or Limbourg. The brothers are Pol, Herman, and Jehanequin de

born:Nijmegen, Brabant [Netherlands]; after1385
died: all by 1416

Three Flemish brothers who were the most famous of all late Gothic illuminators. They used a style characterized by painstaking technique and minute rendering. The sons of a sculptor, Arnold van Limburg, they were also the nephews of Jean Malouel, court painter to the Duke of Burgundy. The brothers worked together.

Some time after duke of Burgundy's death in 1404, they entered the service of his brother, the Duke de Berry. For him that their most lavishly illustrated books of hours (the popular form of private prayer book of the period) were produced. The Belles Heures (or Les Heures d'Ailly) is now in The Cloisters, New York) The Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (Musée Condé, Chantilly, Fr.), is considered their greatest work and one of the landmarks in book illumination, see examples below. The Très Riches Heures was left unfinished in 1416 but was completed about 1485 by Jean Colombe.

The Limburg brothers were among the first to successfully render specific landscape scenes. They had a great influence on low land's art during the 15th century.

Duke of Berry: The Book of the Hours:

Early Christian Art
Byzantine Art
Romanesque Art
Medieval Art