Arts and crafts in the Middle Ages : $b a description of mediaeval workmanship in several of the departments of applied art, together with some account of special artisans in the early RenaissanceAddison, Julia de Wolf
History
Arts and crafts in the Middle Ages : $b a description of mediaeval workmanship in several of the departments of applied art, together with some account of special artisans in the early Renaissance
Addison, Julia de Wolf
Arts and crafts movement; Decoration and ornament, Medieval; Decorative arts -- History; Illumination of books and manuscripts
The earliest sculptures in France were very rude,--it was rather
a process than an art to decorate a building with carvings as the
Gauls did! But the latent race talent was there; as soon as the
Romanesque and Byzantine influences were felt, a definite school
of sculpture was formed in France; almost at once they seized on
the best elements of the craft and abandoned the worthless, and
the great note of a national art was struck in the figures at
Chartres, Paris, Rheims, and other cathedrals of the Ile de France.
Prior to this flowering of art in Northern France, the churches
of the South of France developed a charming Romanesque of their
own, a little different from that in Italy. A monk named Tutilon,
of the monastery of St. Gall, was among the most famous sculptors
of the Romanesque period. Another name is that of Hughes, Abbot of
Montier-en-Der. At the end of the tenth century one Morard, under
the patronage of King Robert, built and ornamented the Church of St.
Germain des Pres, Paris, while Guillaume, an Abbot at Dijon, was
at the head of the works of forty monasteries. Guillaume probably
had almost as wide an influence upon French art as St. Bernward
had on the German, or Nicola Pisano on that of Italy. In Metz were
two noted architects, Adelard and Gontran, who superintended the
building of fourteen churches, and an early chronicler says that
the expense was so great that "the imperial treasury would scarce
have sufficed for it."
At Arles are two of the most famous monuments of Romanesque art,
the porches of St. Trophime, and of St. Gilles. The latter exhibits
almost classical feeling and influence; the former is much blunter
and more Byzantine; both are highly interesting for purposes
of study, being elaborately ornamented with figure sculptures and
other decorative motives.
Abbot Suger, the art-craftsman par excellence of the Ile de France,
was the sculptor in chief of St. Denis from 1137 to 1180. This
magnificent facade is harmonious in its treatment, betokening plainly
that one brain conceived and carried out the plan. We have not the
names of the minor architects and sculptors who were employed,
but doubtless they were the scholars and followers of Suger, and
rendered work in a similar manner.
There are some names which have been handed down from early times
in Normandy: one Otho, another Garnier, and a third, Anquetil,
while a crucifix carved by Auquilinus of Moissac was popularly
believed to have been created by divine means. If one will compare
the statues of St. Trophime of Arles with those at St. Denis, it
will be found that the latter are better rounded, those at St.
Trophime being coarsely blocked out; although at first glance one
would say that there was little to choose between them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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