Gothic art as resulting of the medieval period starts to use the art of architecture, paintings, and sculptures trying to accomplish the religious values. The cathedrals become the new stone evangelists, who tell stories with paintings, statues and scenes in stained glass windows from the life of Christ, the Virgin, the Saints and the Old Testament.
The people, most of the times have a tendency to enjoy the familiar things that they have and see in their life. In the 13th century the most familiar was the Romanesque, and for that the Gothic style was identified as savage and barbaric. The beauty of this style wasn’t really discovered until the end of the 18th century.
The Gothic style uses the ideas of the Romans, for example the arch, they are now made to be structurally perfect so they last longer and have more strength. This is done by having done a pointed arch that made it easier for the construction of tall cathedrals, with its towers that look more like skyscrapers.
Although the pointed arch is seen by many people as very beautiful, its function was not so much for to please the eye, but more to be structurally necessary. In addition to the pointed arches, the columns also helped support these immense Gothic cathedrals.
The Gothic cathedrals were the tallest monuments that were ever constructed, and this fact began a type of competition in Europe. Many described these cathedrals like medieval miracles, and between 1050 and 1350, 80 cathedrals from this style were constructed. It seemed that every king wanted his kingdom with the highest cathedral, and they built immense cathedrals that ended up collapsing to the ground. This obsession resulted in the building of many useless cathedrals that had no use.
The Gothic style is also very famous for its stained glass windows. These large windows also had the shape of the pointed arch, and allowed a lot of light to enter the cathedral. The stained glass windows were a very different site to those who were used to the smaller windows from the Romanesque style. These were decorated with biblical stories and with other daily life stories. Another type of typical Gothic windows was the round ones. These round windows are located above of the main door in the façade of these cathedrals.
Another difference to the simplicity of the Romanesque style is the large quantity of decoration that the Gothic style has. The façade of the cathedrals are full with sculpture that many describe it as extravagant for its great detailed work. The towers also have detailed sculpture that cannot be appreciated because it is not within the reach to see it with your eyes. The reason that they put the sculpture on the towers was as they believed that God can see them and enjoy them.
I chose this style of art because I always thought of Gothic art as being dark, many dragons, crosses and mythical creatures. I guess how TV sometimes portrays “Gothic” is probably something else but when we went through it in class and after watching all the pictures in books, reading the history and looking at some webpage’s it was really interesting and now I have a different view of Gothic art and its architectural monuments. I will be also majoring in architecture and by looking at all these monuments and very little or no technology back then, I really respect the architects and workers who build these immense cathedrals that are still standing for everyone to appreciate them.
